AUSTIN — House budget writers have removed from an emergency spending bill nearly $3.9 billion that the Senate wanted to spend on customer rate relief for costs incurred in the 2021 winter storm.
On Thursday, House Appropriations Committee members also boosted to $1.6 billion, from $600 million, the amount by which lawmakers would increase spending on school safety. The extra money would get the state closer to the Texas Education Agency’s price tag for school hardening needs identified after last May’s gun massacre in Uvalde.
House budget writers also proposed using $1.5 billion of the state’s huge revenue surplus to inaugurate the Texas Semiconductor Innovation Fund, a major priority of Gov. Greg Abbott.
It would support colleges, universities and businesses with match money to seek big grants for manufacturing and design projects, after Congress last summer passed the $52.7 billion federal CHIPS and Science Act.
But they struck the $100 million the Senate added for Abbott’s film, TV and video incentive program.
And House panel members also proposed spending $3.5 billion to give retired teachers cost of living increases, ranging from 2% to 6%, and to give a one-time payment of $5,000 to about 290,000 retired educators who are 70 years old or older. The Senate’s budget package provided $1 billion, though a separate Senate bill would spend more than the chamber has funded so far — on a different mix of inflation bumps and one-time checks for the oldest retirees.
On identical, 23-3 votes, the appropriation committee formally approved and sent to the full House a two-year, $297.2 billion budget and a nearly $14 billion “supplemental” spending bill that would plug holes in the budget lawmakers passed in 2021. Voting against were Democratic Reps. John Bryant of Dallas, Jarvis Johnson of Houston and Trey Martinez Fischer of San Antonio.
The supplemental appropriations bill actually spends more than $13.97 billion. That’s because higher property values and less robust growth than expected have let state lawmakers claw back $8.2 billion of state discretionary dollars they planned two years ago to spend on the Foundation School Program, the main way the state funds public schools.
The Legislature is approaching its only must-pass bill, the next cycle’s state budget, in an enviable position. This cycle, the state is enjoying a record-breaking $32.7 billion revenue surplus, partly a result of Texas’ rapid economic rebound from the COVID-19 outbreak, higher inflation and GOP leaders’ hoarding of federal pandemic aid. The oil and gas industry is thriving, which has fattened the state’s “rainy day fund.” And Comptroller Glenn Hegar has forecast continued economic growth.
Public schools
Martinez Fischer, who heads the House Democratic Caucus, complained the chamber’s budget package wouldn’t do enough for public schools.
While GOP state leaders have prioritized cutting school property taxes, he said only $5 billion of the state’s available revenue would be added to the hold-the-line budget bills filed in January.
“I don’t want to go home saying I spent $5 billion on pub ed,” Martinez Fischer said, using budget lingo for public education.
Appropriations committee chairman Greg Bonnen, R-Friendswood, responded, “Very good. Is there a question?”
Martinez Fischer said, “I’d like to find more money for public ed.”
“So that’s a statement,” replied Bonnen, who said the Democrat should ask questions.
“OK, can I find more money for pub ed?” Martinez Fischer persisted. “Pretty please, may I find more money for pub ed?”
Bonnen repeated that House budget writers “are doing an excellent job and we’ll continue to support public education.”
In the House’s spending plan, more than $17 billion would be used to buy down local school property tax rates in 2024-2025, Bonnen said. That and the $5 billion of additional money would increase the state’s share of the state-local tab for public schools, he noted. House leaders haven’t specified yet how the $5 billion would be spent.
Storm rate relief
Last week, when the Senate passed the supplemental spending bill, it included $3.86 billion to pay back debt that eight Texas gas utilities, including North Texas’ Atmos Energy, racked up during the 2021 winter storm.
Houston Republican Sen. Joan Huffman, author of Senate Bill 30, estimated that paying off the debt now would save consumers about $1 billion in interest payments that would have shown up in monthly gas bills. However, rural GOP senators prevailed on her to open up use of some of the $3.86 billion to possibly paying off bonds issued by rural electric cooperatives to defray debt they accrued from exorbitant fuel costs for their generators in February 2021.
On Thursday, Bryant, the Dallas Democrat, said he was disappointed to see the money removed from the House’s version of SB 30.
Bonnen noted that separate bills are in the hopper, so the issue is “still in play.”
Huffman did not respond to questions about whether she wanted the money for customer debt relief dropped from her bill.
School safety
In 2019, the Legislature created a $100 million grant program to pay for security upgrades. As of last May, almost $85 million had been disbursed, according to the Legislative Budget Board. And a new per-student safety allotment created the same year also funnels $50 million a year to local districts.
“It was $9.73 a kid, through the safety and security allotment — and it was in response to Santa Fe,” recalled HD Chambers, executive director of the Texas School Alliance, which includes 45 of the state’s largest school districts. He referred to the May 2018 mass shooting at Santa Fe High in Galveston County. A 17-year-old student fatally shot 10 people and wounded 13 others.
“If you truly wanted to provide really effective hardening of schools, that wasn’t nearly enough,” Chambers said.
Last year, Abbott and GOP legislative leaders in two funding maneuvers transferred more than $505 million to help schools improve security. Last fall, after surveying school districts, the Texas Education Agency said their remaining needs would cost $2.1 billion, Chambers said.
The House, by adding $1.6 billion in the supplemental spending bill, is trying to augment the half-billion already transferred and get to TEA’s number, he said. With more than 8,000 campuses, it’s a costly effort.
Dallas ISD Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde is vocal about the need for more money to address campus physical vulnerabilities as well as students’ mental health. The district wants an allotment of $200 per student, up from the current amount of roughly $10.
She said she’s grateful for the House’s plan to boost funding.
”That’s a great first start. I have lots of questions: Are there strings attached to the dollars? Are they going to tell us how we have to use the dollars? Because every district is different,” Elizalde said.
She also asked: Who is having the conversation about guns?
”At what point are we going to start talking about something other than after the fact — or how to harden the schools,” Elizalde said.
Retired teachers
Under the supplemental bill and Bonnen’s separate legislation for retired teachers, HB 600 and House Joint Resolution 2, about 108,000 Texans who retired from their school district jobs before January 2004 would get 6% bumps — an average of $117 a month.
Those who retired after January 2004 but before 2014 — about 163,000 people — would get a 4% raise, or an average monthly bump of $84. And an additional 150,000 people, who retired before 2021, would get a 2% increase, or an average increase of $45 a month.
“We’ve done a great job and I’m really pleased with the work product,” Bonnen said.
EdLab reporter Talia Richman in Dallas contributed to this report.
