It started with this.
State Rep. Dan Huberty said Wednesday that he would not accept the Senate’s changes to his school finance bill, launching a last-ditch effort to hammer out a compromise with less than a week left in the session.
After a passionate speech railing on the Senate for gutting his bill, Huberty, a Houston Republican who is chairman of the House Public Education Committee, announced he has decided to request a conference committee with the Senate on House Bill 21.
The bill was originally intended to inject $1.5 billion into the state’s funding for the majority of public schools and to simplify some of the complex, outdated formulas for allocating money to school districts across the state. The Senate took that bill, reduced the funding to $530 million, and added what many public education advocates have called a “poison pill”: a “private school choice” program that would subsidize private school tuition and homeschooling for kids with disabilities.
“Members, some of your schools will be forced to close in the next year based on the committee substitute of House Bill 21,” as passed by the Senate, Huberty said, before moving to go to conference. “I refuse to give up. I’ll continue trying. Let’s at least attempt to rescue this bill.”
The House voted 134-15 to request a conference committee with the Senate on the bill.
See here and here for the background. The House’s request for a conference committee was denied by the Senate.
An effort to overhaul the state’s beleaguered school finance system has been declared dead after the Texas Senate Education Committee’s chairman said Wednesday that he would not appoint conferees to negotiate with the House.
“That deal is dead,” Larry Taylor, R-Friendswood, said.
Taylor’s remarks come after his counterpart in the House, Dan Huberty, R-Houston, gave a passionate speech in which he said he would not accept the Senate’s changes to House Bill 21 and would seek a conference committee with the Senate.
HB 21 was originally intended to inject $1.5 billion into the state’s funding for the majority of public schools and to simplify some of the complex, outdated formulas for allocating money to school districts across the state. The Senate took that bill, reduced the funding to $530 million, and added what many public education advocates have called a “poison pill”: a “private school choice” program that would subsidize private school tuition and homeschooling for kids with disabilities.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick pronounced the bill dead in a statement Wednesday afternoon.
“Although Texas House leaders have been obstinate and closed-minded on this issue throughout this session, I was hopeful when we put this package together last week that we had found an opening that would break the logjam. I simply did not believe they would vote against both disabled children and a substantial funding increase for public schools,” he said in the statement. “I was wrong. House Bill 21 is now dead.”
House Speaker Joe Straus said in a statement Wednesday that the Senate has not prioritized school finance reform this session.
“We appointed members of a conference committee today because the House was willing to continue to work on public school finance immediately. Unfortunately, the Senate walked away and left the problems facing our schools to keep getting worse,” he said.
HB 21 was the first time in years that the Legislature has taken up major school finance reform without a court mandate.
HB21 was also the vehicle for addressing the recapture issue that is costing HISD (among other districts) millions and which is being litigated on the grounds that the TEA didn’t make its changes to the formula properly. You can kiss that good-bye as well. It’s somehow fitting that the Lege could not come to an agreement on school finance, as this proves the lie of the Supreme Court ruling that insisted they could do this on their own without the Supremes forcing them to. Not as long as we have Dan Patrick presiding over this Senate they won’t. The Chron has more.
I was staunchly Against writing the check. I did not buy the YES assertion that the Lege would deal with public school financing out of common sense and fairness. Why should it? It is not broken. Cash is coming into the general fund from the unofficial Recapture state property tax, thereby, allowing the GOP run Lege to take care of their corporate friends who donate $ to their campaigns. I was hoping that Detachment would spurn a law suit by the wealthy and powerful downtown property owners and real estate developers against Recapture and our byzantine school finance system. They have the personal cell numbers of Abbott and Patrick. They contribute thousands of dollars to their campaigns. But alas, they got their way in May. No higher Aldine ISD tax rate and the TEA is keeping our money. Their world of inequality has not changed but life for the HISD children has – less money.
Hold on… just last week or so we were discussing Ms. Eastman’s support for ‘just cutting a check’. Are you telling me the folks in Austin didn’t follow through on their non-promise to fix the broken system ?
No Suprise.
There were multiple ways to reform school finance.
Maybe Huberty could ask his legislative staff to put ideas on his website?
@Mark, what would be the basis for a lawsuit by the property owners? I can’t imagine they would be successful in getting the law changed, just because their property got moved to another school district.
Yes, CL. Patrick and gang stripped out $1 billion out of HB 21 and then added vouchers which drains more public dollars from public schools for charters and home schooling dealing with SPED kids. Our faith in the good intentions of Rep. Huberty was co-opted by the likes of Abbott, Patrick, the Greater Houston Partnership and our guile trustees. Bottom line: our struggling urban HISD kids face years of budget stagnation under “Recapture state property tax”. Recapture is about capping. We will see the first volley of the Great Decade Long HISD Constriction War June 8. The real war starts next year when the $210 m TEA Recapture bill becomes due.
But what is going unnoticed is the new state support to charter school expansion by subsidizing its building program. The State may be guaranteeing the Yes, Kipp, Harmony’s building bonds. While the publicly elected HISD board is dealing with contraction, the closed, appointed Houston charter boards will be discussing expansion.
Mark,
I seem to remember approving over a billion dollars in bonds for H.I.S.D. How is that going?