by Morgan Smith | Texas Tribune
February 24, 2011
With major state funding cuts looming, for many school districts, it's not a question of if — but how and when — teacher layoffs will occur. A new bipartisan bill from education leaders in the state Senate could temporarily change how schools go about that.
Currently districts must provide 45 days notice to teachers if their contracts are not going to be renewed. Once teachers receive word of that notice, they have 15 days to request a hearing. A bill by state Sens. Royce West, D-Dallas, Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, and Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, announced at a Capitol press conference Thursday would give teachers 30 days instead of 15 to request a hearing. The idea behind the newly filed SB 912, which the senators developed with input from teacher, administrator, and school board organizations, is to buy time for districts who may be forced to fire teachers soon even as the Legislature continues to work on what many hope will be an improved budget plan.
"Teachers are the No. 1 most important element in the classroom," said Shapiro, who chairs the Senate Education committee. "They come first and we've got to make absolutely sure that teachers across this state recognize that we are working diligently every single day to help them." As the senators took questions from the media at the conference, Shapiro also said she believed the Legislature would use some of the Rainy Day Fund to increase general revenue in the budget.
Davis, who also sits on the Education committee, said she hoped the bill sent a message to teachers that the Legislature is doing "as much we can in a difficult situation."
The legislation also contains a provision that allows districts to designate a lawyer to conduct the hearings in lieu of full a school board. If the estimates of potential layoffs into the 100,000s are accurate, school boards would be overwhelmed.
Eric Hartman, spokesman for the Texas branch of the American Federation of Teachers, emphasized that the legislation was "not something that permanently changes teacher contract rights in Texas."
If it secures a two-thirds vote in both chambers, the bill would take effect immediately — and would apply only for the current school year.
Showing posts with label budget cuts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label budget cuts. Show all posts
Monday, October 24, 2011
Sunday, October 23, 2011
"Rube Goldberg" School Finance System Faces New Test
Noteworthy comment by Daniel Casey regarding possible responses to the budget shortfall and education:
-Patricia
by Ross Ramsey | Texas Tribune
2/21/2011
Cutting $10 billion from the state’s bill for public education could push more than two-dozen school districts from the group that receives state financing into the group that writes checks to the state to even things out between richer and poorer districts.
That’s dangerous political territory, but familiar terrain for Texas lawmakers. They’ve been in trouble with the courts over school finance for decades, and generally move to change things only in the face of lawsuits.
But over the years, they’ve also been careful to make sure districts don’t go backward financially, using “hold harmless” provisions to ensure that changes in school finance law don’t cost districts their state aid. By one estimate — from the Texas Taxpayers and Research Association — those requirements now account for $5.5 billion of what the state sends to school districts.
Despite those provisions, and the fact that public education eats up 41.2 percent of the state’s general revenue, the state government paid less than half of the cost of public schooling in Texas.
Texas has a school finance system that would have made Rube Goldberg giggle. It is a mash-up of state, local and federal taxes — the state paid 42.9 percent of the total, the districts paid 47.1 percent, and the federal government covered the other 10 percent in the 2009-10 school year, according to the Texas Education Agency — that is supposed to provide kids in every nook and cranny of the state with the same educational opportunity.
It forces lawmakers to balance the financing of schools where property values are high with those where the values are low, all without dictating local school property tax rates. Not surprisingly, it ends up in court every few years, with the state getting sued by whichever group of schools feels most mistreated at the time.
The state’s red budget could trigger the next round. The Texas Education Agency — directed by Robert Scott, a former aide to Gov. Rick Perry — asked lawmakers for $10.4 billion more than those lawmakers included in their proposed two-year budgets. That’s a little more than $1,000 per student, and the first set of printouts detailing what that might mean to each of the state’s school districts was a sea of negative numbers. According to the Texas Taxpayers and Research Association’s estimates, per-student spending would drop to $7,850 in 2013 from $9,200 in 2010, or about 14.6 percent.
Wealthier districts that already send locally raised tax money to the state — so-called “recapture districts” — would send more. Districts that get money from the state would get less. And depending on how it’s done, some districts that now get money from the state would have to turn around and write checks instead.
According to Moak, Casey & Associates, an Austin-based school finance and accountability consulting firm, a budget cut of that size could shift 30 new districts onto the recapture rolls, bringing the total to 195 districts and raising the amount sent by that group to the state to $1.4 billion from the current $959 million. Daniel Casey, a partner at the firm, who has years of experience in school finance, said the details of what will happen to each school district are unclear until the Legislature decides how to distribute money, what to allow school districts to do with their own taxes and so on. But there’s no way to absorb cuts of that size without affecting the whole system and, some lawmakers and experts say, without putting the state back into court defending its system.
That’s enough numbers to numb most lawmakers, but the politics of it could wake them back up. The most obvious way to make up for the cuts in state aid would be to increase financing from the federal government or to raise local property taxes. The state and the feds are arguing over $830 million in federal funding that Perry refused because of requirements it would impose on state education spending, but even that is not enough to cover a $5-billion-per-year hole.
And the financial problem is only half the trouble; getting the money always, or almost always, forces some change in the balancing formulas.
One trial balloon rises with every school finance crisis, and generally takes 24 to 48 hours to crash to the ground. In the early 1990s, it came from state Sen. Carl Parker, D-Port Arthur. Sen. Bill Ratliff, R-Mount Pleasant, gave it a try a decade later. And this week, it was Sen. Robert Duncan’s turn.
A statewide property tax could replace the local property taxes and end, for the most part, the fight over where the money comes from. The Lubbock Republican shot it down himself, talking to the local Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: “It’s just a discussion. It’s not a proposal.”
Something like that might keep the state out of court on school finance. But it wouldn’t solve the other, bigger problem.
Got $10 billion to spare?
The most obvious way to make up for the cuts in state aid would be to increase financing from the federal government or to raise local property taxes.
-Patricia
by Ross Ramsey | Texas Tribune
2/21/2011
Cutting $10 billion from the state’s bill for public education could push more than two-dozen school districts from the group that receives state financing into the group that writes checks to the state to even things out between richer and poorer districts.
That’s dangerous political territory, but familiar terrain for Texas lawmakers. They’ve been in trouble with the courts over school finance for decades, and generally move to change things only in the face of lawsuits.
But over the years, they’ve also been careful to make sure districts don’t go backward financially, using “hold harmless” provisions to ensure that changes in school finance law don’t cost districts their state aid. By one estimate — from the Texas Taxpayers and Research Association — those requirements now account for $5.5 billion of what the state sends to school districts.
Despite those provisions, and the fact that public education eats up 41.2 percent of the state’s general revenue, the state government paid less than half of the cost of public schooling in Texas.
Texas has a school finance system that would have made Rube Goldberg giggle. It is a mash-up of state, local and federal taxes — the state paid 42.9 percent of the total, the districts paid 47.1 percent, and the federal government covered the other 10 percent in the 2009-10 school year, according to the Texas Education Agency — that is supposed to provide kids in every nook and cranny of the state with the same educational opportunity.
It forces lawmakers to balance the financing of schools where property values are high with those where the values are low, all without dictating local school property tax rates. Not surprisingly, it ends up in court every few years, with the state getting sued by whichever group of schools feels most mistreated at the time.
The state’s red budget could trigger the next round. The Texas Education Agency — directed by Robert Scott, a former aide to Gov. Rick Perry — asked lawmakers for $10.4 billion more than those lawmakers included in their proposed two-year budgets. That’s a little more than $1,000 per student, and the first set of printouts detailing what that might mean to each of the state’s school districts was a sea of negative numbers. According to the Texas Taxpayers and Research Association’s estimates, per-student spending would drop to $7,850 in 2013 from $9,200 in 2010, or about 14.6 percent.
Wealthier districts that already send locally raised tax money to the state — so-called “recapture districts” — would send more. Districts that get money from the state would get less. And depending on how it’s done, some districts that now get money from the state would have to turn around and write checks instead.
According to Moak, Casey & Associates, an Austin-based school finance and accountability consulting firm, a budget cut of that size could shift 30 new districts onto the recapture rolls, bringing the total to 195 districts and raising the amount sent by that group to the state to $1.4 billion from the current $959 million. Daniel Casey, a partner at the firm, who has years of experience in school finance, said the details of what will happen to each school district are unclear until the Legislature decides how to distribute money, what to allow school districts to do with their own taxes and so on. But there’s no way to absorb cuts of that size without affecting the whole system and, some lawmakers and experts say, without putting the state back into court defending its system.
That’s enough numbers to numb most lawmakers, but the politics of it could wake them back up. The most obvious way to make up for the cuts in state aid would be to increase financing from the federal government or to raise local property taxes. The state and the feds are arguing over $830 million in federal funding that Perry refused because of requirements it would impose on state education spending, but even that is not enough to cover a $5-billion-per-year hole.
And the financial problem is only half the trouble; getting the money always, or almost always, forces some change in the balancing formulas.
One trial balloon rises with every school finance crisis, and generally takes 24 to 48 hours to crash to the ground. In the early 1990s, it came from state Sen. Carl Parker, D-Port Arthur. Sen. Bill Ratliff, R-Mount Pleasant, gave it a try a decade later. And this week, it was Sen. Robert Duncan’s turn.
A statewide property tax could replace the local property taxes and end, for the most part, the fight over where the money comes from. The Lubbock Republican shot it down himself, talking to the local Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: “It’s just a discussion. It’s not a proposal.”
Something like that might keep the state out of court on school finance. But it wouldn’t solve the other, bigger problem.
Got $10 billion to spare?
Dallas school district plans to offer incentives up to $10,000 to teachers to resign early
By MATTHEW HAAG, Staff Writer | Dallas Morning News
22 February 2011
The Dallas school district is proposing to offer up to $10,000 to teachers who agree to resign at the end of the year to lighten expenses before possible deep budget cuts.
Under a plan that could be approved Thursday by DISD trustees, the teachers would receive an incentive of 15 percent of their annual salary, up to $10,000. It could cost the district up to $10 million and force it to dip into an already low reserve fund.
The offer would be available to the first 1,000 teachers with contracts who volunteer. That would be about 10 percent of the district’s 10,600 teachers.
Employees who accept the offer must notify the district by March 11, but they would work through the rest of the school year.
“The goal is to help us lay off less people,” said DISD spokesman Jon Dahlander. “We wanted to create a very lucrative incentive. It is to get their attention.”
The proposal comes as Dallas ISD grapples with how to offset a possible $253 million state-funding cut under a worst-case scenario. A reduction that steep could prompt the district to cut 3,900 of its 21,000 positions — 3,100 of those employees would be teachers or others at the campus level.
Neighboring school districts have approved early resignation incentive packages in recent weeks as the Texas Legislature contemplates cutting $10 billion in public education funds over the next two years. But the packages pale in comparison with Dallas ISD’s proposal.
The Rockwall school board approved a $1,000 incentive this week. Cedar Hill is offering $1,000 to the first 50 teachers who step forward.
Irving is offering $500 to staff and $1,000 to teachers if they’re among the first 250 employees to resign. Only 79 employees have accepted so far.
“It’s not bad, but we are certainly not at 250 with about 21/2 weeks to go,” said Irving ISD spokesman Tony Thetford.
The idea is that the offers could be cheaper for the district than laying off employees, who could file grievances and receive unemployment benefits. They also allow districts to better understand next year’s staffing levels and prepare budgets in advance.
Possible cutback targets
Dallas school officials are already eyeing deep cuts to payroll, which consumes more than 80 percent of the district’s $1.2 billion annual budget.
Local and state teacher associations praised the district’s proposal and said they believe many teachers will jump at the offer.
“I think it’s great,” said Rena Honea, president of teachers association Alliance-AFT Dallas. She said teachers at or nearing retirement age would be the most likely candidates.
The deal comes with caveats, however: An employee who takes the offer cannot file for unemployment benefits.
Also, few teachers would qualify for the $10,000 incentive cap, which applies to those making about $66,000 a year. Only those with about 35 years of experience are paid that much, according to DISD records.
Clay Robison, spokesman at the Texas State Teachers Association, said it was the largest offer he’s heard of and he believes it will get teachers’ attention.
“If the teacher is nearing retirement or thinking about retirement, it’s certainly preferable so they can have a little extra,” he said.
But Dallas ISD’s incentive package wasn’t praised by everyone.
DISD trustee Lew Blackburn said he believes the incentive would be accepted by 1,000 teachers, but a $15,000 offer might be snatched up sooner.
He said he would like to know how much money the district expects to save by offering the incentives compared to laying off the same number of employees. “We are going to have to find out,” he said. “But I’d be willing to bet that we are going to save money.”
Savings unknown
Dahlander, the district’s spokesman, said he didn’t know how much the district could save or the size of the severance package laid off employees might receive.
In 2008, DISD laid off 415 educators, who received a severance package of two months pay and benefits if they didn’t challenge the termination.
If trustees approve the proposal, the district could use up to $10 million of its roughly $70 million in reserves. Dallas ISD projects to end this school year with a $20 million surplus, but district officials have tried to improve the reserves and have cautioned against tapping into it.
Michael MacNaughton, a founding member of the watchdog group Dallas Friends of Public Education, questioned the proposal.
“Since DISD is already recommending that 3,100 teachers should lose their jobs, why spend $10M to nudge 1,000 out the door early,” MacNaughton wrote in an e-mail. “Aren’t these teachers going to be let go anyway under DISD’s preliminary proposal in the ‘worst case’ scenario?”
Staff writer Tawnell D. Hobbs contributed to this report.
22 February 2011
The Dallas school district is proposing to offer up to $10,000 to teachers who agree to resign at the end of the year to lighten expenses before possible deep budget cuts.
Under a plan that could be approved Thursday by DISD trustees, the teachers would receive an incentive of 15 percent of their annual salary, up to $10,000. It could cost the district up to $10 million and force it to dip into an already low reserve fund.
The offer would be available to the first 1,000 teachers with contracts who volunteer. That would be about 10 percent of the district’s 10,600 teachers.
Employees who accept the offer must notify the district by March 11, but they would work through the rest of the school year.
“The goal is to help us lay off less people,” said DISD spokesman Jon Dahlander. “We wanted to create a very lucrative incentive. It is to get their attention.”
The proposal comes as Dallas ISD grapples with how to offset a possible $253 million state-funding cut under a worst-case scenario. A reduction that steep could prompt the district to cut 3,900 of its 21,000 positions — 3,100 of those employees would be teachers or others at the campus level.
Neighboring school districts have approved early resignation incentive packages in recent weeks as the Texas Legislature contemplates cutting $10 billion in public education funds over the next two years. But the packages pale in comparison with Dallas ISD’s proposal.
The Rockwall school board approved a $1,000 incentive this week. Cedar Hill is offering $1,000 to the first 50 teachers who step forward.
Irving is offering $500 to staff and $1,000 to teachers if they’re among the first 250 employees to resign. Only 79 employees have accepted so far.
“It’s not bad, but we are certainly not at 250 with about 21/2 weeks to go,” said Irving ISD spokesman Tony Thetford.
The idea is that the offers could be cheaper for the district than laying off employees, who could file grievances and receive unemployment benefits. They also allow districts to better understand next year’s staffing levels and prepare budgets in advance.
Possible cutback targets
Dallas school officials are already eyeing deep cuts to payroll, which consumes more than 80 percent of the district’s $1.2 billion annual budget.
Local and state teacher associations praised the district’s proposal and said they believe many teachers will jump at the offer.
“I think it’s great,” said Rena Honea, president of teachers association Alliance-AFT Dallas. She said teachers at or nearing retirement age would be the most likely candidates.
The deal comes with caveats, however: An employee who takes the offer cannot file for unemployment benefits.
Also, few teachers would qualify for the $10,000 incentive cap, which applies to those making about $66,000 a year. Only those with about 35 years of experience are paid that much, according to DISD records.
Clay Robison, spokesman at the Texas State Teachers Association, said it was the largest offer he’s heard of and he believes it will get teachers’ attention.
“If the teacher is nearing retirement or thinking about retirement, it’s certainly preferable so they can have a little extra,” he said.
But Dallas ISD’s incentive package wasn’t praised by everyone.
DISD trustee Lew Blackburn said he believes the incentive would be accepted by 1,000 teachers, but a $15,000 offer might be snatched up sooner.
He said he would like to know how much money the district expects to save by offering the incentives compared to laying off the same number of employees. “We are going to have to find out,” he said. “But I’d be willing to bet that we are going to save money.”
Savings unknown
Dahlander, the district’s spokesman, said he didn’t know how much the district could save or the size of the severance package laid off employees might receive.
In 2008, DISD laid off 415 educators, who received a severance package of two months pay and benefits if they didn’t challenge the termination.
If trustees approve the proposal, the district could use up to $10 million of its roughly $70 million in reserves. Dallas ISD projects to end this school year with a $20 million surplus, but district officials have tried to improve the reserves and have cautioned against tapping into it.
Michael MacNaughton, a founding member of the watchdog group Dallas Friends of Public Education, questioned the proposal.
“Since DISD is already recommending that 3,100 teachers should lose their jobs, why spend $10M to nudge 1,000 out the door early,” MacNaughton wrote in an e-mail. “Aren’t these teachers going to be let go anyway under DISD’s preliminary proposal in the ‘worst case’ scenario?”
Staff writer Tawnell D. Hobbs contributed to this report.
Texas Education Agency layoffs begin
Officials won't confirm numbers, but past state budget history could signal losses in the hundreds.
By Andrew Kaspar | AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2011
The Texas Education Agency laid off an unspecified number of its 1,054 employees Tuesday, with Education Commissioner Robert Scott releasing a brief statement acknowledging the beginning of a process that could reduce the agency's staff by hundreds.
"Based on the impending budget reductions, we have taken steps to reduce the size of the agency. We will continue our mission to serve our school districts and students," he said.
The final tally of axed employees will be determined in the Legislature's final appropriations bill. Texas' 2003 budget shortfall — about $10 billion — resulted in 200 TEA layoffs, and this year, lawmakers are attempting to close a gap of $15 billion to $27 billion.
Debbie Ratcliffe, a spokeswoman for the agency, described the mood as "very somber" around the William B. Travis Building, where the bulk of TEA employees work.
She declined to give specifics on the number of state employees or positions that were eliminated, saying the agency was informing employees individually. Exact numbers would probably be available later this week, she said.
At the beginning of 2010, Gov. Rick Perry and legislative leaders asked all state agencies to reduce their costs by 5 percent. In December, they requested that agencies find an additional 2.5 percent of their budgets to cut. Tuesday's layoffs are the latest development in a budget crisis that could cut up to 9,600 state jobs before all is said and done.
TEA has cut about $153 million from its budget since the reduction orders were issued, Ratcliffe said, but Tuesday's layoffs were the first significant hit for the agency since 2003. Ratcliffe said these layoffs are not so much part of Perry's belt-tightening request but rather "more in anticipation of what's to come."
"We know that this may not be the end of it, depending on what happens with the budget," Ratcliffe said.
Other state agencies are feeling similar budget pain. The Department of Information Resources cut 22 positions in late January. The Department of Criminal Justice will cut 555 positions by April 15, with notifications to employees beginning next week, agency officials said. Depending on the final budget, as many as 1,200 more jobs could be eliminated from the state's correctional agency.
TEA, which serves as a guiding force and administrative hub for public education statewide, is cutting positions as school districts are also preparing for big cuts to teachers and other personnel. On Monday night, the Austin school district upped its estimate of those to be laid off, bringing its potential job losses to more than 1,100.
"There's probably some sentiment that if school districts are going to be hit, then the state education agency also needs to get leaner," said Andy Homer, director of government relations for the Texas Public Employees Association.
By Andrew Kaspar | AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2011
The Texas Education Agency laid off an unspecified number of its 1,054 employees Tuesday, with Education Commissioner Robert Scott releasing a brief statement acknowledging the beginning of a process that could reduce the agency's staff by hundreds.
"Based on the impending budget reductions, we have taken steps to reduce the size of the agency. We will continue our mission to serve our school districts and students," he said.
The final tally of axed employees will be determined in the Legislature's final appropriations bill. Texas' 2003 budget shortfall — about $10 billion — resulted in 200 TEA layoffs, and this year, lawmakers are attempting to close a gap of $15 billion to $27 billion.
Debbie Ratcliffe, a spokeswoman for the agency, described the mood as "very somber" around the William B. Travis Building, where the bulk of TEA employees work.
She declined to give specifics on the number of state employees or positions that were eliminated, saying the agency was informing employees individually. Exact numbers would probably be available later this week, she said.
At the beginning of 2010, Gov. Rick Perry and legislative leaders asked all state agencies to reduce their costs by 5 percent. In December, they requested that agencies find an additional 2.5 percent of their budgets to cut. Tuesday's layoffs are the latest development in a budget crisis that could cut up to 9,600 state jobs before all is said and done.
TEA has cut about $153 million from its budget since the reduction orders were issued, Ratcliffe said, but Tuesday's layoffs were the first significant hit for the agency since 2003. Ratcliffe said these layoffs are not so much part of Perry's belt-tightening request but rather "more in anticipation of what's to come."
"We know that this may not be the end of it, depending on what happens with the budget," Ratcliffe said.
Other state agencies are feeling similar budget pain. The Department of Information Resources cut 22 positions in late January. The Department of Criminal Justice will cut 555 positions by April 15, with notifications to employees beginning next week, agency officials said. Depending on the final budget, as many as 1,200 more jobs could be eliminated from the state's correctional agency.
TEA, which serves as a guiding force and administrative hub for public education statewide, is cutting positions as school districts are also preparing for big cuts to teachers and other personnel. On Monday night, the Austin school district upped its estimate of those to be laid off, bringing its potential job losses to more than 1,100.
"There's probably some sentiment that if school districts are going to be hit, then the state education agency also needs to get leaner," said Andy Homer, director of government relations for the Texas Public Employees Association.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Aid Cuts Have Texas Schools Scrambling
Yesterday's House Appropriations Hearing on Article III revealed Commissioner Scott's restoration requests (what we can expect him to expend political capital to fight for) though even he admits it's not enough.
Add to this scarce projections on how district and school budgets will be impacted with the transition to the STAAR system and the HB 3 mandates.
-Patricia
By JAMES C. McKINLEY
February 14, 2011
HUTTO, Tex. — The school superintendent in this rural town outside the state capital has taken steps to trademark the district’s oddly un-Texan school mascot — the Hutto Hippo — in a frantic effort to raise cash. He is also planning to put advertisements on school buses and to let retailers have space on the school Web site.
“I’m doing some weird stuff in the district because we are low on money,” said the superintendent, Douglas Killian, sitting in an office full of Hippo figurines.
He added, “We hope to make our hippo as recognizable as Mickey Mouse.” (The mascot was adopted shortly after a hippopotamus escaped from a circus train in 1915 and took up temporary residence in a local creek.)
But the money expected from the sale of “Hustling Hippos” merchandise would be peanuts compared with the hole expected to open up in the district’s budget, as the Legislature moves to slash about $4.8 billion in state aid to schools over two years to close a budget gap.
So Mr. Killian and the beleaguered school board have agreed to shut down a recently built grade school and to cut a 10th of the staff, among them a principal, 2 assistant principals, 4 librarians and 38 teachers. That round of staff cuts is a just first step, he says, and layoffs will follow if the budget bills proposed in the Legislature are enacted without changes.
All across Texas, school superintendents are bracing for the largest cuts to public education since World War II, and the state is not alone. Schools across the country are in trouble as billions in emergency stimulus grants from the federal government have run out, and state and federal lawmakers have interpreted the victory of fiscal hawks in November’s midterm elections to mean that tax increases are out of the question.
Nowhere has that political trend been more potent than in Texas, where Republicans who ran on a promise to never raise taxes not only retained every statewide office, but also added to their majorities in both houses of the Legislature.
Gov. Rick Perry, easily re-elected in November, made it clear in his annual speech to lawmakers last week that he regarded raising revenue for schools as out of the question, saying Texas families “sent a pretty clear message with their November votes.” He has also refused to consider using $9.4 billion in a reserve fund to bail out the schools.
“They want government to be even leaner and more efficient,” Mr. Perry said, “and they want us to balance the budget without raising taxes on families and employers.”
To balance the budget with cuts alone, the governor and Republican leaders in the Legislature have put forth bills that would reduce the state’s public school budget by at least 13 percent — nearly $3.5 billion a year — and would provide no new money to schools for about 85,000 new students that arrive in Texas every year. School administrators predict that as many as 100,000 school employees would have to be laid off to absorb the cuts.
Not only are the proposed cuts to school aid draconian, but in addition the Legislature in 2006 put strict limits on how much districts can raise local property taxes. That means local school boards find themselves trapped amid rising enrollment, double-digit drops in state aid and frozen local taxes.
Many school administrators attribute the current budget crisis to an overhaul of the school finance system five years ago, which Mr. Perry and Republican leaders pushed through in response to popular anger over high property taxes. The Legislature put a cap on property taxes for schools and promised to make up the difference with a new business tax. But that tax has never produced enough revenue to make the districts’ budgets whole.
The chronic shortfall in money for schools was papered over in the last two-year budget passed in 2009. Mr. Perry and Republican leaders in the Legislature used about $3.3 billion in federal aid under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to plug the hole. That aid has disappeared this year.
“We had a problem before the shortfall ever occurred,” said John M. Folks, the superintendent of Northside Independent School District in San Antonio. “Now we have put this shortfall on top of an already horrible funding situation.”
Mr. Folks said the proposed budget bills would require him to cut about a sixth of his budget, and he sees see no way to avoid laying off teachers and letting classes become larger.
That view was echoed by administrators in districts large and small, from tiny rural districts with one high school and a six-man football team to the giant urban districts in Houston and Dallas.
In Austin, school administrators on Friday recommended in a letter to the school board that 1,000 jobs — roughly 8 percent of the work force — be cut to balance the budget, while in Dallas officials on Thursday proposed cutting about 4,000 positions.
Terry Grier, the superintendent in Houston, said the city stood to lose 15 percent to 20 percent of its total budget. The district could still raise the local property tax rate a few cents and stay under the state-imposed cap, but it would produce nowhere near enough to cover the loss of state money, Mr. Grier said. One way to cushion the blow, he said, would be to lift state rules on class size and to let administrators single out unproductive teachers for layoffs, regardless of their seniority. “Let us get out from under some of these state mandates,” he said.
Even relatively wealthy suburban districts are in trouble. Officials in the Clear Creek Independent School District south of Houston, which serves the communities around NASA, estimate they would have to cut about 975 jobs — about a fifth of the work force. Like most other administrators, Superintendent Greg Smith is urging the Legislature to tap into the Rainy Day Fund instead of making the cuts. “It’s not raining,” he said. “It’s pouring.”
On Thursday night in Hutto, two school board members wept as they read the motion to close Veterans’ Hill Elementary School, a sleek building that opened in 2008 amid wheat fields and horse paddocks.
“In the 10 years I’ve been on this board, this is the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make,” said Sheila Knapp, the board’s vice president. “I’m very angry with the Legislature for putting us in this position and affecting our kids this way.”
Michele Bischoffberger, the principal at Veterans’ Hill, said the school was built just before the economic downturn, when Hutto was growing rapidly as developers built suburbs for workers at high-tech companies around Austin.
“All this land out here was supposed to be houses, but when the crash came, that didn’t happen,” Ms. Bischoffberger said, gesturing at nearby fields.
She recounted wistfully how she helped design the school, insisting on elements like a large gymnasium and a computer lab. “It’s your baby,” she said. “Being a new principal, this is where you get to make your dreams come true. It’s going to be hard to walk away.”
The 475 children at the school will be divided among the district’s other four elementary schools, and the entire fifth grade will be moved to the two middle schools to make room. The shuttered school — with its library, computer lab and state-of-the-art classrooms — will be mothballed or rented out to a community college, Ms. Bischoffberger said.
Plans to start a garden to be used as an outdoor classroom this spring have been scotched, killing a long-held dream for Vanessa Henson, a kindergarten teacher who had raised money from local businesses for the project.
“I don’t know about the politics,” Ms. Henson said, breaking into tears. “I just know something went awry.”
Some young teachers and support staff members said they were uneasy, since it was unclear if they would have jobs in September. Sharon Case, the school librarian, is among those whose job is on the line. She has two children in college and works nights as a cashier at Wal-Mart.
“I’m just doing a lot of praying and depending on God to know where I’m supposed to be,” Ms. Case said.
Add to this scarce projections on how district and school budgets will be impacted with the transition to the STAAR system and the HB 3 mandates.
-Patricia
By JAMES C. McKINLEY
February 14, 2011
HUTTO, Tex. — The school superintendent in this rural town outside the state capital has taken steps to trademark the district’s oddly un-Texan school mascot — the Hutto Hippo — in a frantic effort to raise cash. He is also planning to put advertisements on school buses and to let retailers have space on the school Web site.
“I’m doing some weird stuff in the district because we are low on money,” said the superintendent, Douglas Killian, sitting in an office full of Hippo figurines.
He added, “We hope to make our hippo as recognizable as Mickey Mouse.” (The mascot was adopted shortly after a hippopotamus escaped from a circus train in 1915 and took up temporary residence in a local creek.)
But the money expected from the sale of “Hustling Hippos” merchandise would be peanuts compared with the hole expected to open up in the district’s budget, as the Legislature moves to slash about $4.8 billion in state aid to schools over two years to close a budget gap.
So Mr. Killian and the beleaguered school board have agreed to shut down a recently built grade school and to cut a 10th of the staff, among them a principal, 2 assistant principals, 4 librarians and 38 teachers. That round of staff cuts is a just first step, he says, and layoffs will follow if the budget bills proposed in the Legislature are enacted without changes.
All across Texas, school superintendents are bracing for the largest cuts to public education since World War II, and the state is not alone. Schools across the country are in trouble as billions in emergency stimulus grants from the federal government have run out, and state and federal lawmakers have interpreted the victory of fiscal hawks in November’s midterm elections to mean that tax increases are out of the question.
Nowhere has that political trend been more potent than in Texas, where Republicans who ran on a promise to never raise taxes not only retained every statewide office, but also added to their majorities in both houses of the Legislature.
Gov. Rick Perry, easily re-elected in November, made it clear in his annual speech to lawmakers last week that he regarded raising revenue for schools as out of the question, saying Texas families “sent a pretty clear message with their November votes.” He has also refused to consider using $9.4 billion in a reserve fund to bail out the schools.
“They want government to be even leaner and more efficient,” Mr. Perry said, “and they want us to balance the budget without raising taxes on families and employers.”
To balance the budget with cuts alone, the governor and Republican leaders in the Legislature have put forth bills that would reduce the state’s public school budget by at least 13 percent — nearly $3.5 billion a year — and would provide no new money to schools for about 85,000 new students that arrive in Texas every year. School administrators predict that as many as 100,000 school employees would have to be laid off to absorb the cuts.
Not only are the proposed cuts to school aid draconian, but in addition the Legislature in 2006 put strict limits on how much districts can raise local property taxes. That means local school boards find themselves trapped amid rising enrollment, double-digit drops in state aid and frozen local taxes.
Many school administrators attribute the current budget crisis to an overhaul of the school finance system five years ago, which Mr. Perry and Republican leaders pushed through in response to popular anger over high property taxes. The Legislature put a cap on property taxes for schools and promised to make up the difference with a new business tax. But that tax has never produced enough revenue to make the districts’ budgets whole.
The chronic shortfall in money for schools was papered over in the last two-year budget passed in 2009. Mr. Perry and Republican leaders in the Legislature used about $3.3 billion in federal aid under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to plug the hole. That aid has disappeared this year.
“We had a problem before the shortfall ever occurred,” said John M. Folks, the superintendent of Northside Independent School District in San Antonio. “Now we have put this shortfall on top of an already horrible funding situation.”
Mr. Folks said the proposed budget bills would require him to cut about a sixth of his budget, and he sees see no way to avoid laying off teachers and letting classes become larger.
That view was echoed by administrators in districts large and small, from tiny rural districts with one high school and a six-man football team to the giant urban districts in Houston and Dallas.
In Austin, school administrators on Friday recommended in a letter to the school board that 1,000 jobs — roughly 8 percent of the work force — be cut to balance the budget, while in Dallas officials on Thursday proposed cutting about 4,000 positions.
Terry Grier, the superintendent in Houston, said the city stood to lose 15 percent to 20 percent of its total budget. The district could still raise the local property tax rate a few cents and stay under the state-imposed cap, but it would produce nowhere near enough to cover the loss of state money, Mr. Grier said. One way to cushion the blow, he said, would be to lift state rules on class size and to let administrators single out unproductive teachers for layoffs, regardless of their seniority. “Let us get out from under some of these state mandates,” he said.
Even relatively wealthy suburban districts are in trouble. Officials in the Clear Creek Independent School District south of Houston, which serves the communities around NASA, estimate they would have to cut about 975 jobs — about a fifth of the work force. Like most other administrators, Superintendent Greg Smith is urging the Legislature to tap into the Rainy Day Fund instead of making the cuts. “It’s not raining,” he said. “It’s pouring.”
On Thursday night in Hutto, two school board members wept as they read the motion to close Veterans’ Hill Elementary School, a sleek building that opened in 2008 amid wheat fields and horse paddocks.
“In the 10 years I’ve been on this board, this is the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make,” said Sheila Knapp, the board’s vice president. “I’m very angry with the Legislature for putting us in this position and affecting our kids this way.”
Michele Bischoffberger, the principal at Veterans’ Hill, said the school was built just before the economic downturn, when Hutto was growing rapidly as developers built suburbs for workers at high-tech companies around Austin.
“All this land out here was supposed to be houses, but when the crash came, that didn’t happen,” Ms. Bischoffberger said, gesturing at nearby fields.
She recounted wistfully how she helped design the school, insisting on elements like a large gymnasium and a computer lab. “It’s your baby,” she said. “Being a new principal, this is where you get to make your dreams come true. It’s going to be hard to walk away.”
The 475 children at the school will be divided among the district’s other four elementary schools, and the entire fifth grade will be moved to the two middle schools to make room. The shuttered school — with its library, computer lab and state-of-the-art classrooms — will be mothballed or rented out to a community college, Ms. Bischoffberger said.
Plans to start a garden to be used as an outdoor classroom this spring have been scotched, killing a long-held dream for Vanessa Henson, a kindergarten teacher who had raised money from local businesses for the project.
“I don’t know about the politics,” Ms. Henson said, breaking into tears. “I just know something went awry.”
Some young teachers and support staff members said they were uneasy, since it was unclear if they would have jobs in September. Sharon Case, the school librarian, is among those whose job is on the line. She has two children in college and works nights as a cashier at Wal-Mart.
“I’m just doing a lot of praying and depending on God to know where I’m supposed to be,” Ms. Case said.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
House GOP Looks to Slash Education Spending
By Alyson Klein | Ed Week
February 12, 2011
House Republican leaders put out a bill last night that would slice and dice education funding far below current levels and far below what President Barack Obama wanted in his never-enacted fiscal year 2011 budget request. (List of cuts is here.)
The measure, which would continue federal funding for rest of the fiscal year, takes aim at some programs that were previously considered untouchable, including special education spending and Pell Grants to help low-and-moderate income students pay for college. Overall it would cut $4.9 billion from the U.S. Department of Education's fiscal year 2010 budget of $63.7 billion.
"This absolutely would be the largest cuts ever in history for education programs," said Joel Packer, a principal with the Raben Group in Washington, who works with the Committee for Education Funding, a coalition that advocates for increasing education spending.
The bill would cover fiscal year 2011, which technically started back on Oct. 1. Most of the federal government, including the Education Department, has been funded at fiscal year 2010 levels through a series of stop-gap measures, the latest of which expires on March 4.
It's tough to imagine the administration swallowing these cuts. And it's unlikely they'll get through the Senate, which is still controlled by Democrats.
Read on...
February 12, 2011
House Republican leaders put out a bill last night that would slice and dice education funding far below current levels and far below what President Barack Obama wanted in his never-enacted fiscal year 2011 budget request. (List of cuts is here.)
The measure, which would continue federal funding for rest of the fiscal year, takes aim at some programs that were previously considered untouchable, including special education spending and Pell Grants to help low-and-moderate income students pay for college. Overall it would cut $4.9 billion from the U.S. Department of Education's fiscal year 2010 budget of $63.7 billion.
"This absolutely would be the largest cuts ever in history for education programs," said Joel Packer, a principal with the Raben Group in Washington, who works with the Committee for Education Funding, a coalition that advocates for increasing education spending.
The bill would cover fiscal year 2011, which technically started back on Oct. 1. Most of the federal government, including the Education Department, has been funded at fiscal year 2010 levels through a series of stop-gap measures, the latest of which expires on March 4.
It's tough to imagine the administration swallowing these cuts. And it's unlikely they'll get through the Senate, which is still controlled by Democrats.
Read on...
Rick Perry calls federal government a ‘monster’ harming states
By TODD J. GILLMAN / Washington Bureau
February 2011 11:47 AM
Gov. Rick Perry called the Obama approach to health care a "train wreck" in his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington.
WASHINGTON — Texas Gov. Rick Perry told a major conservative gathering Friday that the federal government has grown into an intrusive, overbearing “monster.”
“They call us reactionary or lacking compassion,” Perry said. “Do you agree with them that the only answer to our challenges is more taxation, more borrowing, more spending, more central control?”
The crowd of several thousand at a Washington hotel shouted no.
“Me neither,” he said.
Perry joined a parade of big-name Republicans and would-be presidents, from Mitt Romney to Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich and Donald Trump , all appearing at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference.
He insisted ahead of his speech that he’s not interested in higher office, and he made no hints to the contrary. But he embraced the high-profile chance to push a vision of a vastly shrunken federal government and boast about Texas’ relative prosperity.
“It’s not some problem-free nirvana,” he joked, though it’s “close.”
He offered a vision of a federal government that is vastly more humble and honors the 10th Amendment — the one restricting its role. He thundered at the Environmental Protection Agency, calling it “hellbent” on replacing a highly effective Texas air pollution permit system with regulations that would kill jobs and industry.
“We ought to be getting praise from our federal government,” he said. “But we’re being threatened by a fine and a lawsuit.”
Earlier Friday, in a breakfast speech to the Texas State Society, Perry unloaded on Texas Democrats for impeding the state’s access to $830 million in federal education funds.
Last summer, Texas Democrats in the House inserted an amendment in an education law that requires Perry to promise a certain level of state education outlays in order to qualify; they accused him of hypocritically tapping $3.2 billion in emergency school funds to balance the Texas budget, and said they needed to ensure he couldn’t do that again.
Perry insists that he’s not lawfully able to make such a promise — a point he reiterated in a terse letter to Texas congressional Democrats on Friday night.
Singling out Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, in his breakfast appearance, Perry said that “everything that he’s done on this issue is what the November elections were about — Washington, D.C., trying to micromanage the states. … That’s hurting the kids of the state of Texas.”
The political action conference Perry addressed, a major annual gathering in GOP circles, attracted about 11,000 people this year.
In both speeches, Perry described the Obama approach to health care as a costly “train wreck.” And he complained that instead of meddling in such areas, Washington should pay closer attention to true federal responsibilities it has neglected, such as security along the state’s 1,200-mile border with Mexico.
“We’re stuck in this frustrating paradox where Washington actually neglects the things they’re clearly supposed to be doing, while interfering in other areas in which they are neither welcome nor authorized,” he told the conservative gathering.
The good news, he said, is that in November, voters rejected politicians in both parties who pursued that path.
“Ladies and gentlemen who championed that big government idea of bailouts, those so-called stimulus programs, supported government giveaways — they got a pink slip,” he said. “It was awesome.”
Paul, a Texas congressman, spoke just before Perry. He offered no clues as to whether he’ll run for president again, though legions of Paulistas in the crowd would have been thrilled to hear that.
He did bask in his role as herald of the 2010 tea party surge, and father of freshman Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky.
“I’m glad to see the revolution is continuing!” Paul proclaimed, playing on his slogan from the 2008 presidential race.
After warming up the crowd with a Libertarian-tinted case to eliminate the Federal Reserve, and curtail U.S. military activity and foreign aid, he offered a caustic judgment on the ideal of bipartisanship. Too often, he said, lawmakers cross party lines to allow government to expand beyond its true mandate.
February 2011 11:47 AM
Gov. Rick Perry called the Obama approach to health care a "train wreck" in his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington.
WASHINGTON — Texas Gov. Rick Perry told a major conservative gathering Friday that the federal government has grown into an intrusive, overbearing “monster.”
“They call us reactionary or lacking compassion,” Perry said. “Do you agree with them that the only answer to our challenges is more taxation, more borrowing, more spending, more central control?”
The crowd of several thousand at a Washington hotel shouted no.
“Me neither,” he said.
Perry joined a parade of big-name Republicans and would-be presidents, from Mitt Romney to Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich and Donald Trump , all appearing at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference.
He insisted ahead of his speech that he’s not interested in higher office, and he made no hints to the contrary. But he embraced the high-profile chance to push a vision of a vastly shrunken federal government and boast about Texas’ relative prosperity.
“It’s not some problem-free nirvana,” he joked, though it’s “close.”
He offered a vision of a federal government that is vastly more humble and honors the 10th Amendment — the one restricting its role. He thundered at the Environmental Protection Agency, calling it “hellbent” on replacing a highly effective Texas air pollution permit system with regulations that would kill jobs and industry.
“We ought to be getting praise from our federal government,” he said. “But we’re being threatened by a fine and a lawsuit.”
Earlier Friday, in a breakfast speech to the Texas State Society, Perry unloaded on Texas Democrats for impeding the state’s access to $830 million in federal education funds.
Last summer, Texas Democrats in the House inserted an amendment in an education law that requires Perry to promise a certain level of state education outlays in order to qualify; they accused him of hypocritically tapping $3.2 billion in emergency school funds to balance the Texas budget, and said they needed to ensure he couldn’t do that again.
Perry insists that he’s not lawfully able to make such a promise — a point he reiterated in a terse letter to Texas congressional Democrats on Friday night.
Singling out Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, in his breakfast appearance, Perry said that “everything that he’s done on this issue is what the November elections were about — Washington, D.C., trying to micromanage the states. … That’s hurting the kids of the state of Texas.”
The political action conference Perry addressed, a major annual gathering in GOP circles, attracted about 11,000 people this year.
In both speeches, Perry described the Obama approach to health care as a costly “train wreck.” And he complained that instead of meddling in such areas, Washington should pay closer attention to true federal responsibilities it has neglected, such as security along the state’s 1,200-mile border with Mexico.
“We’re stuck in this frustrating paradox where Washington actually neglects the things they’re clearly supposed to be doing, while interfering in other areas in which they are neither welcome nor authorized,” he told the conservative gathering.
The good news, he said, is that in November, voters rejected politicians in both parties who pursued that path.
“Ladies and gentlemen who championed that big government idea of bailouts, those so-called stimulus programs, supported government giveaways — they got a pink slip,” he said. “It was awesome.”
Paul, a Texas congressman, spoke just before Perry. He offered no clues as to whether he’ll run for president again, though legions of Paulistas in the crowd would have been thrilled to hear that.
He did bask in his role as herald of the 2010 tea party surge, and father of freshman Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky.
“I’m glad to see the revolution is continuing!” Paul proclaimed, playing on his slogan from the 2008 presidential race.
After warming up the crowd with a Libertarian-tinted case to eliminate the Federal Reserve, and curtail U.S. military activity and foreign aid, he offered a caustic judgment on the ideal of bipartisanship. Too often, he said, lawmakers cross party lines to allow government to expand beyond its true mandate.
Gov calls out Democrats
More on the Perry/Doggett clash.
-Patricia
By Gary Martin
Saturday, February 12, 2011
WASHINGTON — Gov. Rick Perry asked Republican leaders in Congress on Friday to repeal a provision by Texas Democrats that dictates how the state can use federal education funds and criticized the Obama administration over border security.
“From this administration there is a very clear, almost hands-off approach to the Texas-Mexico border,” Perry said. A Homeland Security Department spokesman dismissed the accusation.
And Perry, a Republican, charged that Democrats in Congress, led by Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, have harmed state public education with a provision dictating state use of federal funds that has tied up $830 million for Texas schools.
“Once Texans really figure out what Lloyd Doggett did — for a rank political stunt — he will be rejected by the voters of Texas,” Perry said.
Doggett accused Perry of making personal attacks to avoid taking responsibility for diverting federal funds to shore up state deficits instead of using the money on Texas schoolchildren.
“This is not about differences between two political figures, but about the future for thousands of Texas schoolchildren,” Doggett said. “It seems to me that he is a little desperate.”
The governor made his comments about education and border security to Texas reporters after a breakfast speech to the Texas State Society at the Capitol Hill Club.
After the breakfast speech, Perry met with House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., the chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, and Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Lewisville.
Burgess has filed a bill co-sponsored by Texas' 22 Republican congressmen that would repeal the Doggett amendment and ease requirements on how Texas spends its federal education funds.
A similar bill was filed in the Senate by the senators from Texas, Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, both Republicans.
Texas congressional Democrats, meanwhile, say a repeal of the amendment would indicate a desire by Perry and Republicans to “simply replace state educational dollars as was done in 2009.”
Doggett claims the state used $3.25 billion in emergency federal education funds in 2009 to replace state funding, denying state support for “improvements in the quality of education.”
“I consider it one of the greatest abuses of stimulus funds across the country,” Doggett said of the state's use of federal education money to plug state budget gaps.
Perry claimed the amendment was merely “Washington trying to micromanage the state. That is what this issue is about.”
The governor also said the federal government has failed to secure the U.S.-Mexico border and has ignored his pleas for 1,000 National Guardsmen in Texas until 3,000 Border Patrol agents can be hired and trained.
A Homeland Security spokesman said the “Obama administration continues to deploy unprecedented resources to the Southwest border, including Texas.”
Last year, in Laredo, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Perry could follow the lead of Arizona and New Mexico governors and pay for National Guardsmen to provide immediate security.
The governor said he wants the federal government to pay for the deployment.
Perry was in Washington to attend the Conservative Political Action Conference. He has been mentioned as a potential presidential candidate because of his conservative credentials. He denied again Friday that he is interested in the job.
-Patricia
By Gary Martin
Saturday, February 12, 2011
WASHINGTON — Gov. Rick Perry asked Republican leaders in Congress on Friday to repeal a provision by Texas Democrats that dictates how the state can use federal education funds and criticized the Obama administration over border security.
“From this administration there is a very clear, almost hands-off approach to the Texas-Mexico border,” Perry said. A Homeland Security Department spokesman dismissed the accusation.
And Perry, a Republican, charged that Democrats in Congress, led by Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, have harmed state public education with a provision dictating state use of federal funds that has tied up $830 million for Texas schools.
“Once Texans really figure out what Lloyd Doggett did — for a rank political stunt — he will be rejected by the voters of Texas,” Perry said.
Doggett accused Perry of making personal attacks to avoid taking responsibility for diverting federal funds to shore up state deficits instead of using the money on Texas schoolchildren.
“This is not about differences between two political figures, but about the future for thousands of Texas schoolchildren,” Doggett said. “It seems to me that he is a little desperate.”
The governor made his comments about education and border security to Texas reporters after a breakfast speech to the Texas State Society at the Capitol Hill Club.
After the breakfast speech, Perry met with House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., the chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, and Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Lewisville.
Burgess has filed a bill co-sponsored by Texas' 22 Republican congressmen that would repeal the Doggett amendment and ease requirements on how Texas spends its federal education funds.
A similar bill was filed in the Senate by the senators from Texas, Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn, both Republicans.
Texas congressional Democrats, meanwhile, say a repeal of the amendment would indicate a desire by Perry and Republicans to “simply replace state educational dollars as was done in 2009.”
Doggett claims the state used $3.25 billion in emergency federal education funds in 2009 to replace state funding, denying state support for “improvements in the quality of education.”
“I consider it one of the greatest abuses of stimulus funds across the country,” Doggett said of the state's use of federal education money to plug state budget gaps.
Perry claimed the amendment was merely “Washington trying to micromanage the state. That is what this issue is about.”
The governor also said the federal government has failed to secure the U.S.-Mexico border and has ignored his pleas for 1,000 National Guardsmen in Texas until 3,000 Border Patrol agents can be hired and trained.
A Homeland Security spokesman said the “Obama administration continues to deploy unprecedented resources to the Southwest border, including Texas.”
Last year, in Laredo, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Perry could follow the lead of Arizona and New Mexico governors and pay for National Guardsmen to provide immediate security.
The governor said he wants the federal government to pay for the deployment.
Perry was in Washington to attend the Conservative Political Action Conference. He has been mentioned as a potential presidential candidate because of his conservative credentials. He denied again Friday that he is interested in the job.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Back-and-forth goes on over stuck Texas education funds
Dems urge Perry's cooperation; he tells them to repeal Doggett amendment.
FROM STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
Friday, Feb. 11, 2011
Gov. Rick Perry is asking Congress to repeal a federal provision that has stirred up a political hornet's nest and tied up about $830 million intended to help struggling Texas schools.
In a letter to Texas Democrats on Friday, Perry reiterated his position that state law forbids him from making the assurances about spending that the federal law requires.
Perry, who was in Washington to speak to several groups Friday, urged the delegation to repeal the amendment, which he said "unfairly targets Texas schoolchildren, teachers and taxpayers."
State Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, added the amendment to last year's $10 billion education jobs bill that required Texas to certify that the state's public education spending would hold steady as a proportion of the state budget for three years. Other states had to make that assurance for one year.
The U.S. Department of Education kicked back Texas' application for the money and asked Perry to resubmit it.
He refused, saying that it would violate the state constitution because a governor cannot appropriate money nor obligate a future Legislature to a certain level of spending.
Texas officials then sued the federal government seeking to overturn the federal decision.
Perry cited Doggett and the amendment in his State of the State speech this week, saying the current tight budget was "made worse by a certain Texas congressman who singled out our state for punishment in pursuit of his own agenda."
Doggett and the other eight Democratic members of the Texas congressional delegation have since responded twice; in a letter to Perry on Thursday, they urged Perry to cooperate in getting the money released, saying, "there does not appear to be any policy reason for your failing to complete a proper application for federal funding."
The letter concluded: "Please take the opportunity of your visit to Washington to file the application or to work with us to constructively help our schools to avoid closures and layoffs."
FROM STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
Friday, Feb. 11, 2011
Gov. Rick Perry is asking Congress to repeal a federal provision that has stirred up a political hornet's nest and tied up about $830 million intended to help struggling Texas schools.
In a letter to Texas Democrats on Friday, Perry reiterated his position that state law forbids him from making the assurances about spending that the federal law requires.
Perry, who was in Washington to speak to several groups Friday, urged the delegation to repeal the amendment, which he said "unfairly targets Texas schoolchildren, teachers and taxpayers."
State Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, added the amendment to last year's $10 billion education jobs bill that required Texas to certify that the state's public education spending would hold steady as a proportion of the state budget for three years. Other states had to make that assurance for one year.
The U.S. Department of Education kicked back Texas' application for the money and asked Perry to resubmit it.
He refused, saying that it would violate the state constitution because a governor cannot appropriate money nor obligate a future Legislature to a certain level of spending.
Texas officials then sued the federal government seeking to overturn the federal decision.
Perry cited Doggett and the amendment in his State of the State speech this week, saying the current tight budget was "made worse by a certain Texas congressman who singled out our state for punishment in pursuit of his own agenda."
Doggett and the other eight Democratic members of the Texas congressional delegation have since responded twice; in a letter to Perry on Thursday, they urged Perry to cooperate in getting the money released, saying, "there does not appear to be any policy reason for your failing to complete a proper application for federal funding."
The letter concluded: "Please take the opportunity of your visit to Washington to file the application or to work with us to constructively help our schools to avoid closures and layoffs."
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Perry to Push Texas Colleges to Offer $10,000 Degree
by Ross Ramsey | Texas Tribune
2/8/2011
Gov. Rick Perry will challenge the state's colleges and universities to offer a $10,000 bachelor's degree, including books, in his State of the State speech later this morning, according to sources familiar with some of the proposals.
Perry also wants lawmakers to consider outcome-based financial support for those schools, basing a substantial portion of their funding on the number of degrees they issue, with particular attention to degrees for at-risk students and for those in critical or essential areas of study.
In his sixth State of the State speech, the governor will be addressing a joint session of the Texas Senate and House and telling them how he sees the condition of the government he's led since 2000. The higher education proposals are part of a call for a streamlined and more efficient state budget; Perry will try to sell the state's fiscal troubles as an opportunity to reshape the government.
If the past is guide, he'll start with some nice words for his wife, Anita, for Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and House Speaker Joe Straus. He'll recognize some guests and might mention something in the news.
And then he'll start in on the state, on what's gone right, what has happened with some of his pet projects from years past (economic development is a perennial favorite), and then he'll touch on what have become his standard topics for this particular venue: public education, frivolous lawsuits, the Texas Enterprise and Emerging Technology Funds, the state budget and taxes, jobs and economic development, immigration and border security, and the federal government's reluctance to leave regulation and other matters to the states.
Expect the governor to talk about the budget (he'll release his proposal for state spending today), the economy, mushrooming health care expenses and to reiterate his pledge not to raise taxes. That's all in line with what he said during the campaign. He'll talk about public education, and about having losers of frivolous lawsuits pay for the winners' lawyers. Perry has been pushing the federal government to give states more control over Medicaid expenses, and Texas is in lawsuits with the feds over health care and environmental regulation. Those will probably make the cut. Funding for border security is one of the few things that eluded the knife in both the House and Senate budget proposals; Perry has said his own proposal will be similar to those, so expect to hear about money for the border.
Over the last decade, the governor has used this setting to make news, to announce new initiatives and to dwell on the state's general situation. A look back:
2001
Perry's first State of the State found the state with a surplus, and the freshly minted governor came in with a wish list that included financial aid for college students, more money for public schools and teacher compensation, aggressive borrowing to build new roads and calls for more money for children's health insurance, for nursing homes and for child protective services. He wanted the state to "significantly" reduce pollution and included a line that could have come from a speech last week, saying, "Decisions affecting Texas' air quality should be made by Texans, and not federal bureaucrats." And he said he would welcome the use of DNA testing "in cases where it can prove claims of innocence, or provide further assurance of guilt."
2003
The 2003 session found Texas lawmakers in something like the fix they're in now, staring down a budget shortfall with a big class of freshman lawmakers who had just finished promising voters there were no new taxes coming. Perry started by touting the accomplishments of the previous two years — underlined with the introduction of Toyota execs who had just announced plans to start building trucks in San Antonio. He jumped into the budget mess, saying the state government had grown faster than the state economy and setting the table for the budget cuts that would follow. Education, he said then, was his top priority. He said the budget should be transparent, and said it should be balanced without new taxes. And he had a list of cuts and other ideas he said totaled $9.5 billion: redirecting a telecommunications tax to education, deregulating tuition at state colleges and universities, making a change in gas taxes to net the state $300 million, giving Medicaid a close inspection to find savings and adopting a set of performance reviews suggested by then-Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn. He proposed creation of the Texas Enterprise Fund to promote economic development and said the state should only use the Rainy Day Fund for one-time expenses. He asked for more "tools" to help the state build transportation projects, and he called for caps on noneconomic damages in medical malpractice lawsuits.
2005
Two years later, he was crowing about the recovery, the TEF, the growth in jobs in the state and his Trans Texas Corridor, "with the private sector willing to expend $7.2 billion up front without asking for one dime in state money for construction." His education pitch was aimed at lowering the state's dropout rate and at doing better college prep in the state's public schools. He suggested salary incentives for teachers, turnaround teams for troubled schools, school choice and more charter schools. He proposed lowering school property taxes and replacing that with state funds, generated by a revised business franchise tax and said it could be done without a net tax increase. That became the subject of a 2006 special session, and the start of a so-called "structural deficit" because the tax didn't bring in the money needed to cover the costs of the property tax cut. That difference, according to the comptroller's office, amounts to about $10 billion every two years. Perry touted the TEF and proposed a new companion to it, the Emerging Technology Fund, to invest in cutting-edge ideas. He asked for full funding for a medical school in El Paso and a pharmacy school in Kingsville, called for an end to "frivolous asbestos lawsuits" and said he would sign legislation, if it passed, to require parental consent for minors seeking abortions.
2007
The budget outlook was good again, with a surplus "larger than ever just four years removed from our largest shortfall ever." Perry had just won his second election to the office with 39 percent of the vote in a field with four well-known candidates. He proposed a "Healthier Texas" program that would pay up to $150 per individual for health insurance premiums, depending on family income. He asked for Washington's help reforming Medicaid. He proposed a $3 billion program to fight cancer and touted a vaccine against HPV — human papillomavirus — that he wanted parents to administer to the state's 12-year-old girls. He said the cancer program and an education endowment could be funded by selling the state lottery to the private sector for $14 billion. He talked about an epidemic of obesity for the first time, and asked for money for pre-kindergarten, for college financial aid and to address the state's shortage of nurses. He called for property appraisal reforms and said the state should refund some of its surplus to taxpayers. Perry asked for money for border security, for limited border fencing and for penalties against hiring undocumented workers. And he asked lawmakers to replenish the TEF and ETF to bring jobs to Texas.
2009
Two years ago, the governor opened with the national economic downturn, which was starting to appear here. He played small ball in that address, talking more about legislation he'd like to see than about new initiatives from his office. He talked about Texas' relative strength, cautioned against using all of the money in the Rainy Day Fund, asked lawmakers to refill his two economic funds, and said he would support raising the small-business exemption in the state's under-performing franchise tax. He said, generally, that the state should invest in infrastructure and education and should freeze tuition for each student for four years at the rate they paid when they came in. He recommended spending more money on community colleges and job skills programs. He railed against "an increasingly activist EPA" and said it could hurt the state's energy sector. He asked lawmakers to pass an eminent domain bill (that's back this year) and to beef up border security. He called for an end to sanctuary cities in Texas, asked the Legislature to approve a voter ID bill and said the state should track the citizenship of people receiving state-funded services. He said he'd sign a sonogram bill and threw in his standard caution against using the Rainy Day Fund for anything but one-time expenses.
Much of that is on the plate again this year. Eminent domain, sonograms, voter ID and sanctuary cities are all on the governor's "emergency" list for immediate consideration by the Legislature. Along with the usual suspects — education, the budget, economic development — those will probably come up today, too.
2/8/2011
Gov. Rick Perry will challenge the state's colleges and universities to offer a $10,000 bachelor's degree, including books, in his State of the State speech later this morning, according to sources familiar with some of the proposals.
Perry also wants lawmakers to consider outcome-based financial support for those schools, basing a substantial portion of their funding on the number of degrees they issue, with particular attention to degrees for at-risk students and for those in critical or essential areas of study.
In his sixth State of the State speech, the governor will be addressing a joint session of the Texas Senate and House and telling them how he sees the condition of the government he's led since 2000. The higher education proposals are part of a call for a streamlined and more efficient state budget; Perry will try to sell the state's fiscal troubles as an opportunity to reshape the government.
If the past is guide, he'll start with some nice words for his wife, Anita, for Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and House Speaker Joe Straus. He'll recognize some guests and might mention something in the news.
And then he'll start in on the state, on what's gone right, what has happened with some of his pet projects from years past (economic development is a perennial favorite), and then he'll touch on what have become his standard topics for this particular venue: public education, frivolous lawsuits, the Texas Enterprise and Emerging Technology Funds, the state budget and taxes, jobs and economic development, immigration and border security, and the federal government's reluctance to leave regulation and other matters to the states.
Expect the governor to talk about the budget (he'll release his proposal for state spending today), the economy, mushrooming health care expenses and to reiterate his pledge not to raise taxes. That's all in line with what he said during the campaign. He'll talk about public education, and about having losers of frivolous lawsuits pay for the winners' lawyers. Perry has been pushing the federal government to give states more control over Medicaid expenses, and Texas is in lawsuits with the feds over health care and environmental regulation. Those will probably make the cut. Funding for border security is one of the few things that eluded the knife in both the House and Senate budget proposals; Perry has said his own proposal will be similar to those, so expect to hear about money for the border.
Over the last decade, the governor has used this setting to make news, to announce new initiatives and to dwell on the state's general situation. A look back:
2001
Perry's first State of the State found the state with a surplus, and the freshly minted governor came in with a wish list that included financial aid for college students, more money for public schools and teacher compensation, aggressive borrowing to build new roads and calls for more money for children's health insurance, for nursing homes and for child protective services. He wanted the state to "significantly" reduce pollution and included a line that could have come from a speech last week, saying, "Decisions affecting Texas' air quality should be made by Texans, and not federal bureaucrats." And he said he would welcome the use of DNA testing "in cases where it can prove claims of innocence, or provide further assurance of guilt."
2003
The 2003 session found Texas lawmakers in something like the fix they're in now, staring down a budget shortfall with a big class of freshman lawmakers who had just finished promising voters there were no new taxes coming. Perry started by touting the accomplishments of the previous two years — underlined with the introduction of Toyota execs who had just announced plans to start building trucks in San Antonio. He jumped into the budget mess, saying the state government had grown faster than the state economy and setting the table for the budget cuts that would follow. Education, he said then, was his top priority. He said the budget should be transparent, and said it should be balanced without new taxes. And he had a list of cuts and other ideas he said totaled $9.5 billion: redirecting a telecommunications tax to education, deregulating tuition at state colleges and universities, making a change in gas taxes to net the state $300 million, giving Medicaid a close inspection to find savings and adopting a set of performance reviews suggested by then-Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn. He proposed creation of the Texas Enterprise Fund to promote economic development and said the state should only use the Rainy Day Fund for one-time expenses. He asked for more "tools" to help the state build transportation projects, and he called for caps on noneconomic damages in medical malpractice lawsuits.
2005
Two years later, he was crowing about the recovery, the TEF, the growth in jobs in the state and his Trans Texas Corridor, "with the private sector willing to expend $7.2 billion up front without asking for one dime in state money for construction." His education pitch was aimed at lowering the state's dropout rate and at doing better college prep in the state's public schools. He suggested salary incentives for teachers, turnaround teams for troubled schools, school choice and more charter schools. He proposed lowering school property taxes and replacing that with state funds, generated by a revised business franchise tax and said it could be done without a net tax increase. That became the subject of a 2006 special session, and the start of a so-called "structural deficit" because the tax didn't bring in the money needed to cover the costs of the property tax cut. That difference, according to the comptroller's office, amounts to about $10 billion every two years. Perry touted the TEF and proposed a new companion to it, the Emerging Technology Fund, to invest in cutting-edge ideas. He asked for full funding for a medical school in El Paso and a pharmacy school in Kingsville, called for an end to "frivolous asbestos lawsuits" and said he would sign legislation, if it passed, to require parental consent for minors seeking abortions.
2007
The budget outlook was good again, with a surplus "larger than ever just four years removed from our largest shortfall ever." Perry had just won his second election to the office with 39 percent of the vote in a field with four well-known candidates. He proposed a "Healthier Texas" program that would pay up to $150 per individual for health insurance premiums, depending on family income. He asked for Washington's help reforming Medicaid. He proposed a $3 billion program to fight cancer and touted a vaccine against HPV — human papillomavirus — that he wanted parents to administer to the state's 12-year-old girls. He said the cancer program and an education endowment could be funded by selling the state lottery to the private sector for $14 billion. He talked about an epidemic of obesity for the first time, and asked for money for pre-kindergarten, for college financial aid and to address the state's shortage of nurses. He called for property appraisal reforms and said the state should refund some of its surplus to taxpayers. Perry asked for money for border security, for limited border fencing and for penalties against hiring undocumented workers. And he asked lawmakers to replenish the TEF and ETF to bring jobs to Texas.
2009
Two years ago, the governor opened with the national economic downturn, which was starting to appear here. He played small ball in that address, talking more about legislation he'd like to see than about new initiatives from his office. He talked about Texas' relative strength, cautioned against using all of the money in the Rainy Day Fund, asked lawmakers to refill his two economic funds, and said he would support raising the small-business exemption in the state's under-performing franchise tax. He said, generally, that the state should invest in infrastructure and education and should freeze tuition for each student for four years at the rate they paid when they came in. He recommended spending more money on community colleges and job skills programs. He railed against "an increasingly activist EPA" and said it could hurt the state's energy sector. He asked lawmakers to pass an eminent domain bill (that's back this year) and to beef up border security. He called for an end to sanctuary cities in Texas, asked the Legislature to approve a voter ID bill and said the state should track the citizenship of people receiving state-funded services. He said he'd sign a sonogram bill and threw in his standard caution against using the Rainy Day Fund for anything but one-time expenses.
Much of that is on the plate again this year. Eminent domain, sonograms, voter ID and sanctuary cities are all on the governor's "emergency" list for immediate consideration by the Legislature. Along with the usual suspects — education, the budget, economic development — those will probably come up today, too.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Students Rally for UT Funding
Aziza Musa | Texas Tribune
2/9/2011
Cries of "Texas fight" and "It's 8:45, and we're still underfunded" rang across a crowd of nearly 100 students, who marched to the Capitol this morning to rally for adequate funding for the University of Texas at Austin.
The Senate Finance Committee, led by Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, took up the matter of the UT System's finances and funding this morning, and public testimony is expected in the afternoon. The Senate's proposed budget for the 2012-13 biennium cut financial aid programs by $381 million and state and federal funds to the university by $87.9 million, according to a press release sent by a coalition of UT student organizations known as Invest in Texas. The group is lobbying today for adequate funding, the protection of financial aid programs and the maintenance of the university's tier-one status.
Jimmy Talarico, Student Government executive director and director of Invest in Texas, said the coalition is trying to create a commotion so legislators can have a better idea of the decisions they will soon make.
"After the budget conversations on campus, after we’ve seen entire programs close down, we realized there was sort of an urgency that required more significant coordination," Talarico said. "We know that students at our university can’t just be people standing in line demanding more state assistance. We have to give a sales pitch about why the state funding is not an expenditure, but an investment."
Student Government Vice President Muneezeh Kabir, who is scheduled to testify this afternoon, said students are not apathetic, and that they know the university's budget is in danger.
"I want to tell the committee about how this year, I have to cut essential services and actually put prices on things that were once free before, like mental health care — at a time when college suicides are at an all time high," Kabir said. "Honestly, we’re not necessarily asking for more funding, but sometimes if you shoot a little higher, you might just get what you want."
2/9/2011
Cries of "Texas fight" and "It's 8:45, and we're still underfunded" rang across a crowd of nearly 100 students, who marched to the Capitol this morning to rally for adequate funding for the University of Texas at Austin.
The Senate Finance Committee, led by Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, took up the matter of the UT System's finances and funding this morning, and public testimony is expected in the afternoon. The Senate's proposed budget for the 2012-13 biennium cut financial aid programs by $381 million and state and federal funds to the university by $87.9 million, according to a press release sent by a coalition of UT student organizations known as Invest in Texas. The group is lobbying today for adequate funding, the protection of financial aid programs and the maintenance of the university's tier-one status.
Jimmy Talarico, Student Government executive director and director of Invest in Texas, said the coalition is trying to create a commotion so legislators can have a better idea of the decisions they will soon make.
"After the budget conversations on campus, after we’ve seen entire programs close down, we realized there was sort of an urgency that required more significant coordination," Talarico said. "We know that students at our university can’t just be people standing in line demanding more state assistance. We have to give a sales pitch about why the state funding is not an expenditure, but an investment."
Student Government Vice President Muneezeh Kabir, who is scheduled to testify this afternoon, said students are not apathetic, and that they know the university's budget is in danger.
"I want to tell the committee about how this year, I have to cut essential services and actually put prices on things that were once free before, like mental health care — at a time when college suicides are at an all time high," Kabir said. "Honestly, we’re not necessarily asking for more funding, but sometimes if you shoot a little higher, you might just get what you want."
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Texas Tier-One University Contender Wary of Cuts
On Tuesday and Wednesday, February 8th and 9th, the Senate Finance Committee will be holding its hearings on Article III, education. Those two days will be focused on higher education and the UT system schools.
Also, register for the Texas Tribune's next breakfast series on Feb. 10th: A Conversation with Dr. R. Bowen Loftin, Texas A&M President, and William Powers Jr., UT President
-Patricia
by Reeve Hamilton | Texas Tribune
February 4, 2011
Two miles from the site of Super bowl XLV, inside the University of Texas at Arlington’s new 234,000-square foot multi-disciplinary research building, Mario Romero-Ortega, an associate professor of bioengineering, investigates how robotic arms could be made more reliable and lifelike for amputees returning from war.
Down the hall, assistant computer science professor Vassilis Athitsos tinkers with new technology for building interactive sign language dictionaries. The two, who probably would not have crossed paths before the new digs opened up, are discussing a collaboration on communication tools for people with cerebral palsy.
Jim Spaniolo, the president of UT-Arlington, said the university is committed to increasing its engagement with research that “could change the quality of life of many, many people.” But, he said, funding cuts resulting from the state’s $15 billion to $27 billion budget shortfall could slow that momentum.
UT-Arlington already cut $8.3 million from its budget at the state’s blanket request for 5 percent budget cuts in 2010. With more state funding cuts looming, Spaniolo warned that further reductions would compromise the university’s commitment “to provide a high quality academic environment” and specifically threaten its progress toward becoming a national research, or "tier-one," university.
In 2009, a bill authored by state Rep. Dan Branch, R-Dallas, provided UT-Arlington and six other up-and-coming schools incentives to boost their research output with that goal in mind. California has three times as many universities recognized among the nation’s top universities for research as Texas — a statistic some find embarrassing, in addition to being a drag on economic development.
Total research expenditures at UT-Arlington jumped to $63.6 million in 2010 from $50.3 million in 2008. Only 11 percent of that research is directly funded by state appropriations, but Spaniolo says the importance of state support — both direct and indirect — cannot be discounted.
Romero-Ortega described it as a “vicious circle.” A university cannot attract the research faculty it needs, he said, “if it is not investing, the facilities are old, there’s no support for students, and because of that the students in the university are not of a high caliber.” He said his project, funded by a $2.2 million grant from DARPA — the Department of Defense’s research and development arm — is “proof of principle” that only when that circle is broken, will federal dollars follow.
Spaniolo credits the tier-one race with bolstering university pride, enrollment and student caliber. Money for one of its key elements, an incentive fund that matches private gifts aimed at research, was left out of the draft budget in the Texas House. Branch says he is “cautiously optimistic” that it will be included in the final version.
Branch and other lawmakers have indicated early support for another round of bonds this session to encourage additional construction. UT-Arlington wants $74.8 million to renovate its life sciences building.
With more higher ed cuts all but inevitable, they might consider themselves lucky just to get that.
“This legislative session and maybe the next session will be a major challenge for us,” Spaniolo said. “But we haven’t changed our vision and our commitment and that’s the basis on which we’re proceeding.”
Also, register for the Texas Tribune's next breakfast series on Feb. 10th: A Conversation with Dr. R. Bowen Loftin, Texas A&M President, and William Powers Jr., UT President
-Patricia
by Reeve Hamilton | Texas Tribune
February 4, 2011
Two miles from the site of Super bowl XLV, inside the University of Texas at Arlington’s new 234,000-square foot multi-disciplinary research building, Mario Romero-Ortega, an associate professor of bioengineering, investigates how robotic arms could be made more reliable and lifelike for amputees returning from war.
Down the hall, assistant computer science professor Vassilis Athitsos tinkers with new technology for building interactive sign language dictionaries. The two, who probably would not have crossed paths before the new digs opened up, are discussing a collaboration on communication tools for people with cerebral palsy.
Jim Spaniolo, the president of UT-Arlington, said the university is committed to increasing its engagement with research that “could change the quality of life of many, many people.” But, he said, funding cuts resulting from the state’s $15 billion to $27 billion budget shortfall could slow that momentum.
UT-Arlington already cut $8.3 million from its budget at the state’s blanket request for 5 percent budget cuts in 2010. With more state funding cuts looming, Spaniolo warned that further reductions would compromise the university’s commitment “to provide a high quality academic environment” and specifically threaten its progress toward becoming a national research, or "tier-one," university.
In 2009, a bill authored by state Rep. Dan Branch, R-Dallas, provided UT-Arlington and six other up-and-coming schools incentives to boost their research output with that goal in mind. California has three times as many universities recognized among the nation’s top universities for research as Texas — a statistic some find embarrassing, in addition to being a drag on economic development.
Total research expenditures at UT-Arlington jumped to $63.6 million in 2010 from $50.3 million in 2008. Only 11 percent of that research is directly funded by state appropriations, but Spaniolo says the importance of state support — both direct and indirect — cannot be discounted.
Romero-Ortega described it as a “vicious circle.” A university cannot attract the research faculty it needs, he said, “if it is not investing, the facilities are old, there’s no support for students, and because of that the students in the university are not of a high caliber.” He said his project, funded by a $2.2 million grant from DARPA — the Department of Defense’s research and development arm — is “proof of principle” that only when that circle is broken, will federal dollars follow.
Spaniolo credits the tier-one race with bolstering university pride, enrollment and student caliber. Money for one of its key elements, an incentive fund that matches private gifts aimed at research, was left out of the draft budget in the Texas House. Branch says he is “cautiously optimistic” that it will be included in the final version.
Branch and other lawmakers have indicated early support for another round of bonds this session to encourage additional construction. UT-Arlington wants $74.8 million to renovate its life sciences building.
With more higher ed cuts all but inevitable, they might consider themselves lucky just to get that.
“This legislative session and maybe the next session will be a major challenge for us,” Spaniolo said. “But we haven’t changed our vision and our commitment and that’s the basis on which we’re proceeding.”
Saturday, October 1, 2011
School chiefs warn Austin of instability
Education cuts decried; districts demand priority
By GARY SCHARRER
Jan. 31, 2011
AUSTIN — Some Texas school districts will have a tough time operating under the state's first budget proposal, a leading school superintendent said Monday, expressing fears that massive layoffs of support staff will make it harder to meet accountability standards.
More than half of the state's 1,030 school districts already have approved resolutions urging lawmakers to "make education a priority."
School administrators meeting here this week are warning lawmakers that they will greatly harm public education if they embrace the early budget plan cutting public education by about $10 billion from current service levels, including the cost of educating an additional 170,000 students during the next two years.
Legislative leaders say the gloom-and-doom scenario is premature as they look to free school districts of state mandates to give them more flexibility.
Millions will be lost
San Antonio's Northside Independent School District would lose about $97 million a year under the state's preliminary budget plan.
"I don't know how we could operate. When you take almost $200 million out of an (two-year) operating budget of $680 million, that's a 28.5 percent cut," said John Folks, Northside superintendent and immediate past president of the Texas Association of School Administrators.
About 85 percent of a school district budget goes for salaries.
"There is no question that we will be laying off people. Education is labor intensive, and we use people to serve kids," Folks said, predicting that academic support staff, including instruction coaches and language support teachers, will lose their jobs.
"It's that extra help that have allowed school districts all across Texas to raise student achievement and narrowing the gap. That's going away," he said. "That's one of my biggest fears. It's going to hurt student achievement as we eliminate jobs, as we raise class size."
Folks said his school district could not survive the proposed budget cuts.
"At $50,000 a pop, that's 2,000 teachers," he said of the nearly $100 million a year in cuts. "We have 7,500 teachers at Northside. We can't operate."
The concern of school administrators is legitimate, said House Public Education Chairman Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands.
"They are right to try to plan on a reduced budget. I see that as a reality," said Eissler, who sported a "Make Education a Priority" button on his coat lapel.
Most lawmakers made public schools a priority because they often are large employers, Eissler said.
"If it's a priority, they will make any cuts minimal," he said. "I want to keep the quality up in a down budget year. But there will be less money."
Proposals unite districts
The proposed budget cuts and their impact on Texas schools and communities have united school districts like never before, said Bobby Rigues, vice president of the Aledo Independent School District board of trustees.
Rigues and his colleagues launched the on-going "Make Education a Priority " campaign last summer from a tent pitched alongside a major Aledo street west of Fort Worth.
School districts are tired of fighting for fair and adequate funding, he said, noting the Texas Constitution requires the Legislature to provide a free and efficient education for all Texas children without a clause saying "unless funds are not available."
Educators do not want to lower academic standards because Texas children will have to compete on a global stage with China, India and other countries, said John Fuller, president of the Texas Association of School Administrators and superintendent of the Wylie ISD.
If lawmakers do not provide adequate funding, "we may need to slow this train down," Fuller said of new and more rigorous standards.
Giving some options
Senate Education Chair Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, and her committee today will begin looking at state mandates.
If the state does not have enough money, lawmakers should, at least, give school districts more flexibility, she said.
Shapiro called it "unacceptable" for the proposed budget not to provide money for new school textbooks.
The stars are out of alignment, she said.
"We will realign those stars in hopes that everybody will not be quite as unhappy."
By GARY SCHARRER
Jan. 31, 2011
AUSTIN — Some Texas school districts will have a tough time operating under the state's first budget proposal, a leading school superintendent said Monday, expressing fears that massive layoffs of support staff will make it harder to meet accountability standards.
More than half of the state's 1,030 school districts already have approved resolutions urging lawmakers to "make education a priority."
School administrators meeting here this week are warning lawmakers that they will greatly harm public education if they embrace the early budget plan cutting public education by about $10 billion from current service levels, including the cost of educating an additional 170,000 students during the next two years.
Legislative leaders say the gloom-and-doom scenario is premature as they look to free school districts of state mandates to give them more flexibility.
Millions will be lost
San Antonio's Northside Independent School District would lose about $97 million a year under the state's preliminary budget plan.
"I don't know how we could operate. When you take almost $200 million out of an (two-year) operating budget of $680 million, that's a 28.5 percent cut," said John Folks, Northside superintendent and immediate past president of the Texas Association of School Administrators.
About 85 percent of a school district budget goes for salaries.
"There is no question that we will be laying off people. Education is labor intensive, and we use people to serve kids," Folks said, predicting that academic support staff, including instruction coaches and language support teachers, will lose their jobs.
"It's that extra help that have allowed school districts all across Texas to raise student achievement and narrowing the gap. That's going away," he said. "That's one of my biggest fears. It's going to hurt student achievement as we eliminate jobs, as we raise class size."
Folks said his school district could not survive the proposed budget cuts.
"At $50,000 a pop, that's 2,000 teachers," he said of the nearly $100 million a year in cuts. "We have 7,500 teachers at Northside. We can't operate."
The concern of school administrators is legitimate, said House Public Education Chairman Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands.
"They are right to try to plan on a reduced budget. I see that as a reality," said Eissler, who sported a "Make Education a Priority" button on his coat lapel.
Most lawmakers made public schools a priority because they often are large employers, Eissler said.
"If it's a priority, they will make any cuts minimal," he said. "I want to keep the quality up in a down budget year. But there will be less money."
Proposals unite districts
The proposed budget cuts and their impact on Texas schools and communities have united school districts like never before, said Bobby Rigues, vice president of the Aledo Independent School District board of trustees.
Rigues and his colleagues launched the on-going "Make Education a Priority " campaign last summer from a tent pitched alongside a major Aledo street west of Fort Worth.
School districts are tired of fighting for fair and adequate funding, he said, noting the Texas Constitution requires the Legislature to provide a free and efficient education for all Texas children without a clause saying "unless funds are not available."
Educators do not want to lower academic standards because Texas children will have to compete on a global stage with China, India and other countries, said John Fuller, president of the Texas Association of School Administrators and superintendent of the Wylie ISD.
If lawmakers do not provide adequate funding, "we may need to slow this train down," Fuller said of new and more rigorous standards.
Giving some options
Senate Education Chair Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, and her committee today will begin looking at state mandates.
If the state does not have enough money, lawmakers should, at least, give school districts more flexibility, she said.
Shapiro called it "unacceptable" for the proposed budget not to provide money for new school textbooks.
The stars are out of alignment, she said.
"We will realign those stars in hopes that everybody will not be quite as unhappy."
With school jobs on the line, little agreement on where to make cuts
Some say nonteaching positions should go first, but officials say they are crucial part of system.
Andrew Kaspar | AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Monday, Jan. 31, 2011
If the nonteacher employees of Texas public schools were a company, its work force would be larger than those of all but six of the Fortune 500. It would be larger than the population of Corpus Christi and that of the world's 10 smallest nations combined.
The image of bloated bureaucracy is a favorite target of small-government advocates, a boogeyman all the more popular in these austere times for public finances.
Fiscal conservatives say nonteaching jobs are the first place school districts should look when considering layoffs, but school officials say such positions are crucial to a functional public school system. The need for janitors and bus drivers is obvious, they say, but grant writers and data analysts are also essential; they bring in federal money and compile valuable information on school performance.
Almost half of the state's more than 661,000 public education employees are not teachers, and most of the nonteachers are so-called auxiliary personnel — janitors, cafeteria workers and bus drivers who on average make less than $23,000 a year, according to Texas Education Agency data from 2009-10. The same data indicate that the ratio of teaching to nonteaching positions has remained about the same for the past 15 years.
Peggy Venable , director of the Texas chapter of the conservative group Americans for Prosperity, says it's time for that to change.
"We have to do a better job of educating our children with less," she said. "If there's one nonteaching staffer for every teacher in our school districts, you bet we can cut significant spending without cutting teachers, without cutting classroom instruction."
Jenny Caputo , spokeswoman for the Texas Association of School Administrators, said classroom instruction is just one piece of the puzzle.
"Clearly that's the most important thing, but somebody has to get (students) to that classroom; someone has to register them in the front office; someone has to feed them lunch every day," Caputo said.
With the state facing a multibillion-dollar revenue shortfall, school districts grappling with dwindling property tax receipts and federal stimulus money running out, many districts are slashing their budgets, and teaching positions are on the line.
Last week, the Austin school district proposed cutting 485 jobs to make ends meet, the vast majority of them (421 ) teaching positions. The district eliminated 113 administrative and other nonteaching positions last year. This year, Superintendent Meria Carstarphen said, trustees will have to trim another 50 to 100 administrative positions to help make up for the lost state aid.
Venable said that districts should look first toward nonteaching positions and that high-paying professional support and administrative jobs would be a good place to start. Such cuts would have less impact on student learning and give schools more bang for their budget-cutting buck, the thinking goes.
On average, professional support staffers earn $8,000 more than teachers, and administrative staffers make almost $27,000 more, according to TEA data.
Bigger in Texas
A recent report by the Texas Conservative Coalition Research Institute says the state's administrative apparatus "diverts resources from classroom instruction and also grows the cost of education while not contributing to improved educational outcomes."
The Legislative Budget Board has found that among the 15 most populous states, Texas has the highest number of public school employees per 10,000 residents, with 273. New Jersey is next, with 266, and California employs only 193 people per 10,000.
Caputo said those numbers are at least partially attributable to the state's geographic breadth and diversity: Rural areas that have "in some cases 100 or fewer kids in the entire district" can't take advantage of the same administrative economies of scale as, for example, the Houston school district, which enrolls more than 202,000 students.
There is also the increasing scope of educational mandates to consider, from the state's demographic, scholastic and financial reporting requirements to the federal No Child Left Behind Act, said Leander district Superintendent Bret Champion . With each new law, schools need people to implement requirements and ensure compliance. Still, he said, "I don't have a problem in the world with looking at every process. Everything that can be looked at should be looked at."
Doing more with less
The TEA requires that each district submit information on the number, salaries and function of all district positions. While most categorization leaves little room for uncertainty, the criteria for some 19,000 "other campus professional personnel" and "other noninstructional district professional personnel" are broadly defined. The average salary of workers in these categories is almost $60,000 .
"I believe that there's a lot of monkey business being played with the school district reporting and expenditures, and the public has a right to know what those positions are," Venable said.
Agency spokeswoman Suzanne Marchman said a more specific breakdown of these 19,000 employees is not available.
"School districts can create job positions to meet their needs, so we collect it the best we can," she said.
Lawmakers looking to make cuts to education received little guidance from the Legislative Budget Board's biennial "effectiveness and efficiency" recommendations. Its analysis of public schools cites no areas where administrative overhead might be reduced for the upcoming two-year budget.
One section focuses on school counselors, nurses and librarians but finds that, if anything, most Texas schools are understaffed in these areas — personnel the report says "play a critical role in campus effectiveness and student achievement."
Districts often use staffing formulas to determine how many nonteaching employees to allocate per campus. In Eanes, for example, janitors are employed based on a school's square footage. Those formulas will probably require adjustment, and, as Eanes Superintendent Nola Wellman makes clear, virtually nothing is off the table.
"We might have teachers and kids emptying trash," she said.
Andrew Kaspar | AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Monday, Jan. 31, 2011
If the nonteacher employees of Texas public schools were a company, its work force would be larger than those of all but six of the Fortune 500. It would be larger than the population of Corpus Christi and that of the world's 10 smallest nations combined.
The image of bloated bureaucracy is a favorite target of small-government advocates, a boogeyman all the more popular in these austere times for public finances.
Fiscal conservatives say nonteaching jobs are the first place school districts should look when considering layoffs, but school officials say such positions are crucial to a functional public school system. The need for janitors and bus drivers is obvious, they say, but grant writers and data analysts are also essential; they bring in federal money and compile valuable information on school performance.
Almost half of the state's more than 661,000 public education employees are not teachers, and most of the nonteachers are so-called auxiliary personnel — janitors, cafeteria workers and bus drivers who on average make less than $23,000 a year, according to Texas Education Agency data from 2009-10. The same data indicate that the ratio of teaching to nonteaching positions has remained about the same for the past 15 years.
Peggy Venable , director of the Texas chapter of the conservative group Americans for Prosperity, says it's time for that to change.
"We have to do a better job of educating our children with less," she said. "If there's one nonteaching staffer for every teacher in our school districts, you bet we can cut significant spending without cutting teachers, without cutting classroom instruction."
Jenny Caputo , spokeswoman for the Texas Association of School Administrators, said classroom instruction is just one piece of the puzzle.
"Clearly that's the most important thing, but somebody has to get (students) to that classroom; someone has to register them in the front office; someone has to feed them lunch every day," Caputo said.
With the state facing a multibillion-dollar revenue shortfall, school districts grappling with dwindling property tax receipts and federal stimulus money running out, many districts are slashing their budgets, and teaching positions are on the line.
Last week, the Austin school district proposed cutting 485 jobs to make ends meet, the vast majority of them (421 ) teaching positions. The district eliminated 113 administrative and other nonteaching positions last year. This year, Superintendent Meria Carstarphen said, trustees will have to trim another 50 to 100 administrative positions to help make up for the lost state aid.
Venable said that districts should look first toward nonteaching positions and that high-paying professional support and administrative jobs would be a good place to start. Such cuts would have less impact on student learning and give schools more bang for their budget-cutting buck, the thinking goes.
On average, professional support staffers earn $8,000 more than teachers, and administrative staffers make almost $27,000 more, according to TEA data.
Bigger in Texas
A recent report by the Texas Conservative Coalition Research Institute says the state's administrative apparatus "diverts resources from classroom instruction and also grows the cost of education while not contributing to improved educational outcomes."
The Legislative Budget Board has found that among the 15 most populous states, Texas has the highest number of public school employees per 10,000 residents, with 273. New Jersey is next, with 266, and California employs only 193 people per 10,000.
Caputo said those numbers are at least partially attributable to the state's geographic breadth and diversity: Rural areas that have "in some cases 100 or fewer kids in the entire district" can't take advantage of the same administrative economies of scale as, for example, the Houston school district, which enrolls more than 202,000 students.
There is also the increasing scope of educational mandates to consider, from the state's demographic, scholastic and financial reporting requirements to the federal No Child Left Behind Act, said Leander district Superintendent Bret Champion . With each new law, schools need people to implement requirements and ensure compliance. Still, he said, "I don't have a problem in the world with looking at every process. Everything that can be looked at should be looked at."
Doing more with less
The TEA requires that each district submit information on the number, salaries and function of all district positions. While most categorization leaves little room for uncertainty, the criteria for some 19,000 "other campus professional personnel" and "other noninstructional district professional personnel" are broadly defined. The average salary of workers in these categories is almost $60,000 .
"I believe that there's a lot of monkey business being played with the school district reporting and expenditures, and the public has a right to know what those positions are," Venable said.
Agency spokeswoman Suzanne Marchman said a more specific breakdown of these 19,000 employees is not available.
"School districts can create job positions to meet their needs, so we collect it the best we can," she said.
Lawmakers looking to make cuts to education received little guidance from the Legislative Budget Board's biennial "effectiveness and efficiency" recommendations. Its analysis of public schools cites no areas where administrative overhead might be reduced for the upcoming two-year budget.
One section focuses on school counselors, nurses and librarians but finds that, if anything, most Texas schools are understaffed in these areas — personnel the report says "play a critical role in campus effectiveness and student achievement."
Districts often use staffing formulas to determine how many nonteaching employees to allocate per campus. In Eanes, for example, janitors are employed based on a school's square footage. Those formulas will probably require adjustment, and, as Eanes Superintendent Nola Wellman makes clear, virtually nothing is off the table.
"We might have teachers and kids emptying trash," she said.
Business leaders urged to support ‘balance'
Great article showing just how far the business community is from being a monolithic group. Props to Hobby's concern for the longer-term view of what's best for the state.
-Patricia
By Peggy Fikac And David Hendricks | SA Express News
Monday, January 31, 2011
AUSTIN — Former Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby is helping lead an effort to rally Texas business leaders against what he calls a “catastrophic” cuts-only approach to balancing the state's budget in the face of a massive shortfall, estimated at $15 billion to $27 billion over the next two years.
Hobby, a board member of the Center for Public Policy Priorities, and F. Scott McCown, the group's executive director, say in a letter being sent today to the state's hundreds of chambers of commerce that such an approach would undermine the state's economic recovery, weaken education and leave vulnerable Texans unprotected. The center focuses on low- and moderate-income Texans.
“We simply can't balance the budget through cuts alone without doing terrible damage to our economy and our future,” Hobby and McCown said in the letter.
They want business leaders to speak up for a “balanced approach” that includes spending the state's rainy day fund savings account, which is expected to contain $9.4 billion; adding new revenue through such options as increasing alcohol or tobacco taxes; raising taxes on “sugar-loaded” drinks; eliminating “unwarranted” sales tax exemptions; or temporarily increasing the state's sales tax rate.
Legislative leaders emphasize that the bare-bones proposals released by House and Senate leaders represent the start of a budget discussion that will unfold over months. GOP leaders have spoken against new taxes, saying they'd be damaging in tough economic times. Gov. Rick Perry has even said he's against spending money from the rainy day fund, although some other Republicans indicate they're open to spending at least part of it.
Among other points, legislative leaders' budget proposals would cost Texas billions of federal dollars as a result of paring back state spending. The letter notes that more than $10 billion would be lost in federal matching dollars for Medicaid.
“We're going to make these horrendous cuts in education, and we're not going to accept federal money that we have paid into the federal government,” Hobby, Democratic lieutenant governor from 1973 to 1991, said in an interview. “That's idiotic.”
Bill Hammond, president of the Texas Association of Business, which has 220 local chambers as members, said his group opposes a cuts-only approach, although it doesn't back spending the entire rainy day fund and doesn't want new taxes. It favors keeping spending about the same over the next two years.
The association has recommended items including spending $6 billion from the rainy day fund, putting slot machines at racetracks and expanding Medicaid managed care into the Rio Grande Valley, Hammond said.
“We should stay away from cuts in education,” said Ramiro Cavazos, president and CEO of the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. “The best investment for state funding is for education. ... As for tapping the rainy day fund, if now is not the time to tap it, then when is a good day?”
Hispanic Chamber leaders are traveling to Austin today. “We're going to talk to folks about how important education is,” Cavazos said.
Duane Wilson, president and CEO of the North San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, said his organization agrees that an all-spending-cuts approach is wrong.
“Texas needs educated workers. It's exactly the wrong thing to do, to cut, cut, cut,” Wilson said.
He said the North Chamber would not mind seeing San Antonio being allowed to hold local referendums for funding transportation projects if that will help the state budget. “We can build our own roads,” Wilson said.
“I think the former lieutenant governor is on the right track,” said Richard Perez, president and CEO of the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce. “I think the budgets that have come out of the Senate and the House are worst-case scenarios. I believe the rainy day fund will be tapped.”
Cindy Taylor, president of the South San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, said that “more taxes on people and businesses is not the answer. Tightening the belt across the board on spending and a common-sense approach to future spending is the key to surviving this mess.
“(I) don't mind using the rainy day fund as long as it is only temporarily used to fill funding gaps and promptly paid back. Using sin taxes is not the way to go. Taxing sugar? What's next? Coffee? Beef?”
-Patricia
By Peggy Fikac And David Hendricks | SA Express News
Monday, January 31, 2011
AUSTIN — Former Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby is helping lead an effort to rally Texas business leaders against what he calls a “catastrophic” cuts-only approach to balancing the state's budget in the face of a massive shortfall, estimated at $15 billion to $27 billion over the next two years.
Hobby, a board member of the Center for Public Policy Priorities, and F. Scott McCown, the group's executive director, say in a letter being sent today to the state's hundreds of chambers of commerce that such an approach would undermine the state's economic recovery, weaken education and leave vulnerable Texans unprotected. The center focuses on low- and moderate-income Texans.
“We simply can't balance the budget through cuts alone without doing terrible damage to our economy and our future,” Hobby and McCown said in the letter.
They want business leaders to speak up for a “balanced approach” that includes spending the state's rainy day fund savings account, which is expected to contain $9.4 billion; adding new revenue through such options as increasing alcohol or tobacco taxes; raising taxes on “sugar-loaded” drinks; eliminating “unwarranted” sales tax exemptions; or temporarily increasing the state's sales tax rate.
Legislative leaders emphasize that the bare-bones proposals released by House and Senate leaders represent the start of a budget discussion that will unfold over months. GOP leaders have spoken against new taxes, saying they'd be damaging in tough economic times. Gov. Rick Perry has even said he's against spending money from the rainy day fund, although some other Republicans indicate they're open to spending at least part of it.
Among other points, legislative leaders' budget proposals would cost Texas billions of federal dollars as a result of paring back state spending. The letter notes that more than $10 billion would be lost in federal matching dollars for Medicaid.
“We're going to make these horrendous cuts in education, and we're not going to accept federal money that we have paid into the federal government,” Hobby, Democratic lieutenant governor from 1973 to 1991, said in an interview. “That's idiotic.”
Bill Hammond, president of the Texas Association of Business, which has 220 local chambers as members, said his group opposes a cuts-only approach, although it doesn't back spending the entire rainy day fund and doesn't want new taxes. It favors keeping spending about the same over the next two years.
The association has recommended items including spending $6 billion from the rainy day fund, putting slot machines at racetracks and expanding Medicaid managed care into the Rio Grande Valley, Hammond said.
“We should stay away from cuts in education,” said Ramiro Cavazos, president and CEO of the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. “The best investment for state funding is for education. ... As for tapping the rainy day fund, if now is not the time to tap it, then when is a good day?”
Hispanic Chamber leaders are traveling to Austin today. “We're going to talk to folks about how important education is,” Cavazos said.
Duane Wilson, president and CEO of the North San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, said his organization agrees that an all-spending-cuts approach is wrong.
“Texas needs educated workers. It's exactly the wrong thing to do, to cut, cut, cut,” Wilson said.
He said the North Chamber would not mind seeing San Antonio being allowed to hold local referendums for funding transportation projects if that will help the state budget. “We can build our own roads,” Wilson said.
“I think the former lieutenant governor is on the right track,” said Richard Perez, president and CEO of the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce. “I think the budgets that have come out of the Senate and the House are worst-case scenarios. I believe the rainy day fund will be tapped.”
Cindy Taylor, president of the South San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, said that “more taxes on people and businesses is not the answer. Tightening the belt across the board on spending and a common-sense approach to future spending is the key to surviving this mess.
“(I) don't mind using the rainy day fund as long as it is only temporarily used to fill funding gaps and promptly paid back. Using sin taxes is not the way to go. Taxing sugar? What's next? Coffee? Beef?”
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Race is on to fund schools
Peggy Fikac | My San Antonio.com
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
AUSTIN — Legislative leaders continued to look for a compromise school funding plan Tuesday to allocate $4 billion worth of public school cuts they say is necessary to avoid a special session this summer.
A bill to make those cuts collapsed late Monday because of a procedural flaw that now has lawmakers scrambling back and forth between House and Senate chambers — with a stop Tuesday afternoon to meet with Gov. Rick Perry's staff — in search of a solution to buy them time until the 2013 session.
House leaders prefer a proration, an across-the-board cut for the state's 1,040 school districts amounting to nearly 6 percent for the 2012-13 school year. Senate leaders want school districts that have benefited from the controversial “target revenue system” to take larger cuts. Their plan could cut some districts 9 percent.
Lawmakers created the target revenue system five years ago that largely froze school funding at levels districts were getting in 2006 — except for enrollment growth. The temporary plan has continued and expanded to the point where most school districts no longer are funded under traditional formulas.
The current legislative session ends Monday. But legislative deadlines obligate lawmakers to settle on a school funding plan before Friday, said House Education Chairman Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands.
“In any plan where you have the same amount of money, it's how you rearrange the furniture,” Eissler said.
School funding cuts are necessary because of the state's massive revenue shortfall, and state leaders have limited the amount of money that can be used from the rainy day fund to plug budget holes. This stands to become the first time in modern history that Texas will not pay for school enrollment growth — about 170,000 additional students over the next two years.
Also pending are efforts to give school districts flexibility to absorb budget cuts by allowing larger class sizes, cutting teacher pay and giving teachers and other school employees unpaid leave.
Lawmakers have been hammering out a compromise budget for the next two years that would carve billions of dollars from current state and federal spending.
Along with the spending plan, they've still got to pass a revenue measure to help balance it, and it appeared any compromise on the school finance plan would have to be grafted onto that must-pass legislation.
Budget negotiators already have decided not to pay for $4.8 billion in anticipated Medicaid expenses in their two-year budget plan, meaning lawmakers in 2013 will have to cover that cost.
If lawmakers don't change the current school funding formulas, the state still will owe school districts an additional $4 billion — the amount that the proposed budget falls short of funding those existing formulas — said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Steve Ogden, R-Bryan.
“If we don't change the state law and basically scale back on that entitlement, then you'll have that hole that we have to fill in addition to the probable Medicaid hole, and we will really be in serious trouble in this state,” he said. “We can't kick the can down the road on both Medicaid and school finance at the same time.”Senate Education Committee Chairwoman Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, said she believes a special session is a certainty if lawmakers don't approve a new school finance plan to distribute a reduced amount of state aid.
“That was part of our budget deal,” Shapiro said.
Lawmakers said they would try to add the essential part of the school finance plan to the must-pass revenue legislation, Senate Bill 1811. Shapiro called it “the last train in town.”
Eissler speculated that lawmakers would try to develop a hybrid plan, using concepts from both House and Senate versions.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
AUSTIN — Legislative leaders continued to look for a compromise school funding plan Tuesday to allocate $4 billion worth of public school cuts they say is necessary to avoid a special session this summer.
A bill to make those cuts collapsed late Monday because of a procedural flaw that now has lawmakers scrambling back and forth between House and Senate chambers — with a stop Tuesday afternoon to meet with Gov. Rick Perry's staff — in search of a solution to buy them time until the 2013 session.
House leaders prefer a proration, an across-the-board cut for the state's 1,040 school districts amounting to nearly 6 percent for the 2012-13 school year. Senate leaders want school districts that have benefited from the controversial “target revenue system” to take larger cuts. Their plan could cut some districts 9 percent.
Lawmakers created the target revenue system five years ago that largely froze school funding at levels districts were getting in 2006 — except for enrollment growth. The temporary plan has continued and expanded to the point where most school districts no longer are funded under traditional formulas.
The current legislative session ends Monday. But legislative deadlines obligate lawmakers to settle on a school funding plan before Friday, said House Education Chairman Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands.
“In any plan where you have the same amount of money, it's how you rearrange the furniture,” Eissler said.
School funding cuts are necessary because of the state's massive revenue shortfall, and state leaders have limited the amount of money that can be used from the rainy day fund to plug budget holes. This stands to become the first time in modern history that Texas will not pay for school enrollment growth — about 170,000 additional students over the next two years.
Also pending are efforts to give school districts flexibility to absorb budget cuts by allowing larger class sizes, cutting teacher pay and giving teachers and other school employees unpaid leave.
Lawmakers have been hammering out a compromise budget for the next two years that would carve billions of dollars from current state and federal spending.
Along with the spending plan, they've still got to pass a revenue measure to help balance it, and it appeared any compromise on the school finance plan would have to be grafted onto that must-pass legislation.
Budget negotiators already have decided not to pay for $4.8 billion in anticipated Medicaid expenses in their two-year budget plan, meaning lawmakers in 2013 will have to cover that cost.
If lawmakers don't change the current school funding formulas, the state still will owe school districts an additional $4 billion — the amount that the proposed budget falls short of funding those existing formulas — said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Steve Ogden, R-Bryan.
“If we don't change the state law and basically scale back on that entitlement, then you'll have that hole that we have to fill in addition to the probable Medicaid hole, and we will really be in serious trouble in this state,” he said. “We can't kick the can down the road on both Medicaid and school finance at the same time.”Senate Education Committee Chairwoman Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, said she believes a special session is a certainty if lawmakers don't approve a new school finance plan to distribute a reduced amount of state aid.
“That was part of our budget deal,” Shapiro said.
Lawmakers said they would try to add the essential part of the school finance plan to the must-pass revenue legislation, Senate Bill 1811. Shapiro called it “the last train in town.”
Eissler speculated that lawmakers would try to develop a hybrid plan, using concepts from both House and Senate versions.
Monday, May 23, 2011
The State of Things in Budget Limbo
Budget compromises seem to be chugging along—assuming they can pass some mighty controversial fiscal matters measures.
by Abby Rapoport | Texas Observer
Friday, May 20, 2011
It's looking more and more likely that the Legislature may yet reach an agreement on the budget—in the regular session. Most of this week, House and Senate lawmakers have struggled to see if they could come to a compromise on education funding, the most contentious fiscal battleground. By Thursday night, R.G. Ratcliffe and others reported the biggest sticking point is now almost a million dollars in funding for higher education. The Senate appears to have prevailed on public education, where there will likely be a $4 billion cut to funding, rather than the House's proposal of a $7.8 billion cut.
Meanwhile, credit-taking is already beginning. Speaker of the House Joe Straus sent out a press release last night arguing that the House had done its share of negotiating already by allowing the use of an extra of $3 billion in the budget, thanks to "additional revenue from the Comptroller and the improving economy." He was referring to the extra $500 million that the Comptroller added to her tax revenue projections and the $2.5 billion coming from savings and accounting tricks in the "fiscal matters" bills. The new money "allowed House budget negotiators to find an additional $2 billion to fund public schools," he said. It's quite a statement, given that the lionshare of the "fiscal matters" bills come from deferring $2 billion in payments to public schools.
And there's no guarantee that the key "fiscal matters" bill is going to pass—without which all of the compromising is for naught. The fiscal matters bills implement accounting tricks, like deferred payments, to provide extra money for budget writers to use. And there's no guarantee that the key measure, Senate Bill 1811, is going to get through easily.
Last night, after the House passed one of fiscal matters bills dealing with Medicaid savings, members braced themselves for a long debate on Senate Bill 1581, another necessary fiscal matters bill primarily about education funding. But Rep. Mike Villarreal, D-San Antonio, wasted no time marching up to the podium and calling a point of order on the bill.
His issue, he said, was with a last minute Senate amendment from Sen. Jeff Wentworth that would have allowed concealed handguns on college campuses. "The vast majority of students and their parents oppose guns on campus," he said. "So do our chancellors and presidents of universities." Plus, he said, it wasn't germane to a bill about money and funding. The speaker sustained the point of order, and sent the bill back to the Senate to strip out the measure.
But while tweets soon broke out accusing Villarreal of effectively killing the budget and prompting a special session this summer, Villarreal says there's no reason to panic. If the Senate cannot turn the bill around fast enough for the House to pass it by Tuesday's deadline, the key components of the bill he killed can simply be added onto the other fiscal matters bill, SB 1811.
That leaves a whole lot riding on one measure. The House is scheduled to debate the SB 1811 Friday at 2 p.m. If they can't pass it, it's hard to see how they'll pass the budget.
For his part, Villarreal is hoping for a special session, although he maintains the Democrats have no impact on the matter. "I don't think it can get any worse if we go into special session," he says. "The Senate budget is harmful to the quality of our kids' education. The House budget is a disaster."
by Abby Rapoport | Texas Observer
Friday, May 20, 2011
It's looking more and more likely that the Legislature may yet reach an agreement on the budget—in the regular session. Most of this week, House and Senate lawmakers have struggled to see if they could come to a compromise on education funding, the most contentious fiscal battleground. By Thursday night, R.G. Ratcliffe and others reported the biggest sticking point is now almost a million dollars in funding for higher education. The Senate appears to have prevailed on public education, where there will likely be a $4 billion cut to funding, rather than the House's proposal of a $7.8 billion cut.
Meanwhile, credit-taking is already beginning. Speaker of the House Joe Straus sent out a press release last night arguing that the House had done its share of negotiating already by allowing the use of an extra of $3 billion in the budget, thanks to "additional revenue from the Comptroller and the improving economy." He was referring to the extra $500 million that the Comptroller added to her tax revenue projections and the $2.5 billion coming from savings and accounting tricks in the "fiscal matters" bills. The new money "allowed House budget negotiators to find an additional $2 billion to fund public schools," he said. It's quite a statement, given that the lionshare of the "fiscal matters" bills come from deferring $2 billion in payments to public schools.
And there's no guarantee that the key "fiscal matters" bill is going to pass—without which all of the compromising is for naught. The fiscal matters bills implement accounting tricks, like deferred payments, to provide extra money for budget writers to use. And there's no guarantee that the key measure, Senate Bill 1811, is going to get through easily.
Last night, after the House passed one of fiscal matters bills dealing with Medicaid savings, members braced themselves for a long debate on Senate Bill 1581, another necessary fiscal matters bill primarily about education funding. But Rep. Mike Villarreal, D-San Antonio, wasted no time marching up to the podium and calling a point of order on the bill.
His issue, he said, was with a last minute Senate amendment from Sen. Jeff Wentworth that would have allowed concealed handguns on college campuses. "The vast majority of students and their parents oppose guns on campus," he said. "So do our chancellors and presidents of universities." Plus, he said, it wasn't germane to a bill about money and funding. The speaker sustained the point of order, and sent the bill back to the Senate to strip out the measure.
But while tweets soon broke out accusing Villarreal of effectively killing the budget and prompting a special session this summer, Villarreal says there's no reason to panic. If the Senate cannot turn the bill around fast enough for the House to pass it by Tuesday's deadline, the key components of the bill he killed can simply be added onto the other fiscal matters bill, SB 1811.
That leaves a whole lot riding on one measure. The House is scheduled to debate the SB 1811 Friday at 2 p.m. If they can't pass it, it's hard to see how they'll pass the budget.
For his part, Villarreal is hoping for a special session, although he maintains the Democrats have no impact on the matter. "I don't think it can get any worse if we go into special session," he says. "The Senate budget is harmful to the quality of our kids' education. The House budget is a disaster."
The Other Big Fight: School Finance Tug-of-War
by Abby Rapoport | Texas Observer
Saturday, May 21, 2011
When word came out Friday afternoon that House and Senate budget negotiators had reached a compromise, you might have thought the Capitol could relax. After all, for weeks, insiders have speculated that finding middle ground on a budget with a $23 billion shortfall would be tough—especially when the Senate only wanted to make drastic cuts to health care and education while the House seemed intent on making the cuts draconian. So when the House and Senate worked out a deal on the budget, with $4 billion slashed from school funding, it might have seemed like a time for the non-teacher, non-parent and non-student crowds to celebrate.
Instead it prompted a realization: the state is actually going to have to pass a new school finance plan—one that distributes the budget cuts to school districts. Without a school finance plan, the lawmakers will likely have to come back for a special session. But coming up with some agreement on just what that plan should look like is hardly easy. Lawmakers face two distinct problems. First they must introduce unprecedented cuts into a system that's built to be automatically financed. Secondly, they must decide whether to tackle the structural problems with the current system, created in 2006. Right now, most school districts get funded based on a "target revenue system" that's based on, among other things, on past property tax collections. The poorest districts subsist on formulas that are woefully underfunded. Vast inequalities between districts leave the system in desperate need of reform.
Then of course, there's the fact that the school finance bill will ultimately encapsulate the losses facing each district. Despite the widespread Republican support for budgets that slash public education, no one actually wants to see their school districts go without. So Friday afternoon, the entire Capitol swung into school finance mode. The Senate approved one plan—which House Republicans have already vowed won't make it to the floor. Meanwhile, some Democratic representatives were certain that a plan by House Public Education Committee Chair Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands, was the plan budget negotiators had agreed to. But that plan—which never had a hearing and was unfamiliar to most—remains at odds with another plan by Democratic Rep. Scott Hochberg, the House's school finance guru. A budget deal may be in the clear, but nothing's certain when it comes to school finance.
The senators returned to the floor around 4 p.m. to reconsider Senate Bill 1581, a fiscal matters bill essential to the budget. The bill provides $2 billion to spend by deferring state payments to school districts by one month in 2013. The Senate had the bill because the previous night, while it was getting debated on the House floor, Rep. Mike Villarreal called a point of order. The Senate had to strip out an amendment that allowed concealed handguns on college campuses. But while they were at it, the senators decided it would be a good time to tack on a school finance plan.
The plan is hardly new. Senate Education Committee Chair Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, presented it to the Senate Finance Committee a month ago, where it was favorably voted out. As I reported then: "Every district in the state gets cut somewhat in the plan, but those with more money get cut more. Of the $4 billion in cuts, the first $1 billion comes from about a 1.5 percent cut to all school districts. The other $3 billion comes from districts on target revenue." Critics of the plan argue that by cutting from all districts, including the poorest of the poor, Shapiro isn't doing enough to increase funding equity. Furthermore, while the plan sets 2017 as the date to end the target revenue system, many want to see more actions to actually transition to new longterm funding mechanisms.
On the floor, her Republican colleague Sen. Bob Deuell did not mince words. He criticized the body for the $4 billion cut to education—a cut another senator had called a "heroic effort." Deuell told the senators they should be using more of the state's $9.4 billion Rainy Day fund instead of cutting schools at all. Then he started lambasting the enormous funding differences between districts, which he said Shapiro's plan fails to adequately address.
"We knew there were inequities and we were supposed to fix them," he said. "But we haven't." He read a list of highest and lowest funded school districts that each senator represented, highlighting how some districts get almost triple the amount per student that others receive. "Members," he said, "that's why we need to get rid of target revenue." But while he had an amendment to take more school districts off of target revenue, he pulled it down as requested by Senate leadership.
Shapiro said her bill "set in motion a pathway to a better school finance system with a decrease in target revenue." But it was hard to think that was her primary goal—earlier she'd told a Democrat that "this was never a budget for public education that was based on equity." Ultimately, the plan was successfully tacked on to the fiscal matters bill, before the Senate voted the bill back to the House.
But all that effort may well have been for naught. Later, at a midnight meeting of the House Public Education Committee, members were all dismissive of Shapiro's plan.
"I'm not for the Senate's school finance bill," pronounced Democratic Rep. Scott Hochberg, whose word on school finance often carries weight despite his party affiliation.
"I'm not either," Eissler, the committee's chairman, agreed. "Wanna take it out?" he asked Hochberg, "or wanna just do it on the floor?"
Rep. Jimmie Don Aycock, R-Killeen, who will carry the Senate bill when it reaches the House floor, told members his "intention is to heavily change" the bill. In other words, don't expect the Shapiro plan to have much support in the House.
But what will take its place?
There are two primary alternatives in the House—one from Eissler and one from Hochberg. Hochberg's plan deals directly with the systemic problems of school finance and target revenue. It puts almost all districts onto the same formula for funding, drastically decreasing inequality. But that equity relies on cutting the richest districts down, and while there's a 10 percent cap on the amount a district can lose in funding, the plan isn't exactly popular with wealthy districts like Austin.
But Hochberg was disheartened throughout Friday's session. At the Public Education Committee meeting, he openly said that the budget deal was based on Eissler's school finance plan.
"I was told the Senate was agreed to Mr. Eissler's plan," he said. "We were told the deal was pro-ration."
By Saturday, however, Eissler was hardly sure of that, saying he had no idea whether his plan was "the" plan. Of course, most of his colleagues had only just learned about his school finance measure.
Eissler's plan is perhaps the most straightforward of all—simply cut around six percent of funding for every district in the state. But on Friday, he was still reworking language and adjusting the projections of just what impact the measure would have on districts. The first set of projections he sent out to members wasn't accurate; instead of cutting districts by the same percentage, it cut each district by around $300 per student. As members finally got accurate projections, they began to flood his desk with questions, even as he was still trying to make sure the language in the measure was correct.
Eissler initially planned to debate the across the board cut Friday night, as an amendment to a different fiscal matters bill. But the devil's in the details, and he couldn't finess the language in time. It wasn't until late in the evening that he gave up on passing school finance Friday night.
Senate Bill 1581 remains the bill to watch for school finance. It's expected to hit the House floor Monday, where Eissler and Hochberg may well wind up going toe-to-toe. The Eissler plan is popular with wealthy school districts because it cuts them the least. But it does nothing to deal with the long term problems of school finance; inequalities remain largely the same as each district takes the same percent cut. Hochberg's plan brings equity to the system, but it cuts wealthy districts by large percentages while leaving the poorest districts to keep more of what they have.
With the clock ticking down, this will be a key battle for members hoping to avoid a special session. Few members actually understand the school finance system, and most will vote based simply on which plan cuts the least from the school districts they represent.
As members spent much of Saturday trying to understand the differences between the plans, a diverse group of protestors, white, black and Latino, young and old, stood outside the chamber. "Teachers Don't Forget," read one sign. "Cuts Hurt Kids," proclaimed another. Many of the attendees had gathered two months earlier for the giant "Save Texas Schools" rally. The protestors kept up one loud chant: "Use the Rainy Day Fund!"
"We're making a difference," organizer Allen Weeks told the crowd.
But at this point, a $4 billion cut to public schools looks like a foregone conclusion. The only thing left to decide is which districts will be hurt the most.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
When word came out Friday afternoon that House and Senate budget negotiators had reached a compromise, you might have thought the Capitol could relax. After all, for weeks, insiders have speculated that finding middle ground on a budget with a $23 billion shortfall would be tough—especially when the Senate only wanted to make drastic cuts to health care and education while the House seemed intent on making the cuts draconian. So when the House and Senate worked out a deal on the budget, with $4 billion slashed from school funding, it might have seemed like a time for the non-teacher, non-parent and non-student crowds to celebrate.
Instead it prompted a realization: the state is actually going to have to pass a new school finance plan—one that distributes the budget cuts to school districts. Without a school finance plan, the lawmakers will likely have to come back for a special session. But coming up with some agreement on just what that plan should look like is hardly easy. Lawmakers face two distinct problems. First they must introduce unprecedented cuts into a system that's built to be automatically financed. Secondly, they must decide whether to tackle the structural problems with the current system, created in 2006. Right now, most school districts get funded based on a "target revenue system" that's based on, among other things, on past property tax collections. The poorest districts subsist on formulas that are woefully underfunded. Vast inequalities between districts leave the system in desperate need of reform.
Then of course, there's the fact that the school finance bill will ultimately encapsulate the losses facing each district. Despite the widespread Republican support for budgets that slash public education, no one actually wants to see their school districts go without. So Friday afternoon, the entire Capitol swung into school finance mode. The Senate approved one plan—which House Republicans have already vowed won't make it to the floor. Meanwhile, some Democratic representatives were certain that a plan by House Public Education Committee Chair Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands, was the plan budget negotiators had agreed to. But that plan—which never had a hearing and was unfamiliar to most—remains at odds with another plan by Democratic Rep. Scott Hochberg, the House's school finance guru. A budget deal may be in the clear, but nothing's certain when it comes to school finance.
The senators returned to the floor around 4 p.m. to reconsider Senate Bill 1581, a fiscal matters bill essential to the budget. The bill provides $2 billion to spend by deferring state payments to school districts by one month in 2013. The Senate had the bill because the previous night, while it was getting debated on the House floor, Rep. Mike Villarreal called a point of order. The Senate had to strip out an amendment that allowed concealed handguns on college campuses. But while they were at it, the senators decided it would be a good time to tack on a school finance plan.
The plan is hardly new. Senate Education Committee Chair Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, presented it to the Senate Finance Committee a month ago, where it was favorably voted out. As I reported then: "Every district in the state gets cut somewhat in the plan, but those with more money get cut more. Of the $4 billion in cuts, the first $1 billion comes from about a 1.5 percent cut to all school districts. The other $3 billion comes from districts on target revenue." Critics of the plan argue that by cutting from all districts, including the poorest of the poor, Shapiro isn't doing enough to increase funding equity. Furthermore, while the plan sets 2017 as the date to end the target revenue system, many want to see more actions to actually transition to new longterm funding mechanisms.
On the floor, her Republican colleague Sen. Bob Deuell did not mince words. He criticized the body for the $4 billion cut to education—a cut another senator had called a "heroic effort." Deuell told the senators they should be using more of the state's $9.4 billion Rainy Day fund instead of cutting schools at all. Then he started lambasting the enormous funding differences between districts, which he said Shapiro's plan fails to adequately address.
"We knew there were inequities and we were supposed to fix them," he said. "But we haven't." He read a list of highest and lowest funded school districts that each senator represented, highlighting how some districts get almost triple the amount per student that others receive. "Members," he said, "that's why we need to get rid of target revenue." But while he had an amendment to take more school districts off of target revenue, he pulled it down as requested by Senate leadership.
Shapiro said her bill "set in motion a pathway to a better school finance system with a decrease in target revenue." But it was hard to think that was her primary goal—earlier she'd told a Democrat that "this was never a budget for public education that was based on equity." Ultimately, the plan was successfully tacked on to the fiscal matters bill, before the Senate voted the bill back to the House.
But all that effort may well have been for naught. Later, at a midnight meeting of the House Public Education Committee, members were all dismissive of Shapiro's plan.
"I'm not for the Senate's school finance bill," pronounced Democratic Rep. Scott Hochberg, whose word on school finance often carries weight despite his party affiliation.
"I'm not either," Eissler, the committee's chairman, agreed. "Wanna take it out?" he asked Hochberg, "or wanna just do it on the floor?"
Rep. Jimmie Don Aycock, R-Killeen, who will carry the Senate bill when it reaches the House floor, told members his "intention is to heavily change" the bill. In other words, don't expect the Shapiro plan to have much support in the House.
But what will take its place?
There are two primary alternatives in the House—one from Eissler and one from Hochberg. Hochberg's plan deals directly with the systemic problems of school finance and target revenue. It puts almost all districts onto the same formula for funding, drastically decreasing inequality. But that equity relies on cutting the richest districts down, and while there's a 10 percent cap on the amount a district can lose in funding, the plan isn't exactly popular with wealthy districts like Austin.
But Hochberg was disheartened throughout Friday's session. At the Public Education Committee meeting, he openly said that the budget deal was based on Eissler's school finance plan.
"I was told the Senate was agreed to Mr. Eissler's plan," he said. "We were told the deal was pro-ration."
By Saturday, however, Eissler was hardly sure of that, saying he had no idea whether his plan was "the" plan. Of course, most of his colleagues had only just learned about his school finance measure.
Eissler's plan is perhaps the most straightforward of all—simply cut around six percent of funding for every district in the state. But on Friday, he was still reworking language and adjusting the projections of just what impact the measure would have on districts. The first set of projections he sent out to members wasn't accurate; instead of cutting districts by the same percentage, it cut each district by around $300 per student. As members finally got accurate projections, they began to flood his desk with questions, even as he was still trying to make sure the language in the measure was correct.
Eissler initially planned to debate the across the board cut Friday night, as an amendment to a different fiscal matters bill. But the devil's in the details, and he couldn't finess the language in time. It wasn't until late in the evening that he gave up on passing school finance Friday night.
Senate Bill 1581 remains the bill to watch for school finance. It's expected to hit the House floor Monday, where Eissler and Hochberg may well wind up going toe-to-toe. The Eissler plan is popular with wealthy school districts because it cuts them the least. But it does nothing to deal with the long term problems of school finance; inequalities remain largely the same as each district takes the same percent cut. Hochberg's plan brings equity to the system, but it cuts wealthy districts by large percentages while leaving the poorest districts to keep more of what they have.
With the clock ticking down, this will be a key battle for members hoping to avoid a special session. Few members actually understand the school finance system, and most will vote based simply on which plan cuts the least from the school districts they represent.
As members spent much of Saturday trying to understand the differences between the plans, a diverse group of protestors, white, black and Latino, young and old, stood outside the chamber. "Teachers Don't Forget," read one sign. "Cuts Hurt Kids," proclaimed another. Many of the attendees had gathered two months earlier for the giant "Save Texas Schools" rally. The protestors kept up one loud chant: "Use the Rainy Day Fund!"
"We're making a difference," organizer Allen Weeks told the crowd.
But at this point, a $4 billion cut to public schools looks like a foregone conclusion. The only thing left to decide is which districts will be hurt the most.
Friday, May 20, 2011
HB 400 Struggle Breaks Old Alliances, Creates New Ones
Translation: The people DO and CAN have power.
-Patricia
by Morgan Smith | Texas Tribune
May 20, 2011
Just past midnight, at the close of a 14-hour day last week on the floor of the Texas House, state Rep. Rob Eissler stood joking with reporters.
“I’m going to move my desk up to the front mic,” Eissler said, “so I can watch every bill that goes by.”
After failing on three separate occasions to pass his signature education bill for the session and running out of time on a fourth, the Woodlands Republican was describing his plan to attach the legislation as an amendment to other bills that are still working their way through the House.
The widely liked, pun-spinning Eissler has led the House Public Education Committee since 2007, and this session he has a Republican supermajority to back him. Yet even with 66 co-sponsors, he stumbled with the bill bundling several measures to relieve school district mandates required by the state — including removing the 22-to-1 student-to-teacher ratio in kindergarten through fourth grade, minimum salary requirements for teachers and contractual obligations dealing with layoffs.
The clash over the measure, House Bill 400, has been cast as teachers versus administrators, labor versus management. But in a session characterized by extreme partisanship, the legislation is notable for what it is not: Republican versus Democrat. While it has handed Democrats a rare strategic victory this session, it has drawn opponents from the left and the right.
“Education is not a partisan issue,” Eissler said. “Not everybody in one party is completely sold on one approach.”
In the months before the Legislature convened, there were many calls to free school districts from “unfunded mandates” at the state level to help them cope with the consequences of the impending deep financing cuts. Education leaders in both chambers — Eissler; Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano; and Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston — introduced separate legislation taking aim at state mandates. But even after budgets that reduced public education financing by $7.8 billion in the House and $4 billion in the Senate overwhelmingly passed, the bills have proven a tougher sell.
His joking aside, Eissler’s proposal has an uncertain future as an amendment to other legislation. And in the Senate, which requires a two-thirds vote to bring bills to the floor for consideration, mandate-relief proposals have stalled — though they could also potentially live on as amendments, at least until the session ends on May 30.
“When there is a big piece of legislation that draws lots fear and concern and opposition from significant players, that can cause members to delay or stall or wait to act until the end, or find less controversial ways of dealing with it or passing it,” said Sandy Kress, an architect of Bush administration education policy who is now an Austin lobbyist.
Lawmakers who philosophically endorse reduced spending can balk at what that means practically: teachers losing jobs, getting paid less and managing larger classes. “There’s an ugliness to a lower-funded environment that people don’t like to face,” Eissler said.
Confronting that ugliness makes legislators from both parties skittish, particularly those who represent rural districts, where schools can be the largest employers — and where the lines between labor and management are much less defined.
“With Republicans, we could say, ‘Well, surely they’ll side with management over labor,’” Kress said. “But if you’re from a small district, you don’t necessarily think unions and management if it’s the teacher you know and the school where your kid goes.”
Rep. Larry Phillips, R-Sherman, said “there’s a tension” in his party about how to handle mandate relief. He led the charge against HB 400 from the right with an amendment that would have made any measures temporary, kept the class-size ratio intact and applied salary reductions and furloughs to administrators as well as to teachers.
“Those of us who represent districts that are smaller, it’s different than maybe those big-city districts where it’s much more a business,” Phillips said. “For our school districts, it’s not a business but teaching kids.”
The state’s teachers associations have opposed the legislation in stronger language. They view the bill as an ideological attack on essential, hard-won contractual rights. For them, it represents an opportunistic use of the fiscal crisis to enact changes that the education community would not accept otherwise.
“These are management issues that shouldn’t be discussed when the Legislature is talking about way underfunding public education,” said Lonnie Hollingsworth, a lobbyist with the Texas Classroom Teachers Association, adding that the bill could be described as a “divide-and-conquer strategy.” Hollingsworth said the legislation had strained his group’s relationship with Eissler.
“I think they thought they could win HB 400 with 101 Republicans in the House, and they didn’t think they had to compromise,” he said.
Eissler said the fierce opposition from teachers groups has contributed to resistance to the bill. But he said that observing the groups’ deliberations on mandate-relief legislation in the Senate discouraged him from seeking their input.
“There were weeks and weeks and weeks of negotiations with the Senate,” he said. “Am I going to get a better deal than the Senate?”
Though Eissler’s legislation has exposed a fracture among House Republicans, it is Democrats — galvanized by the teachers associations — who can claim responsibility for derailing it. They have pummeled it to the ground with parliamentary tactics, including one from Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, after four hours of debate during the bill’s second appearance on the floor.
Martinez Fischer said he had teased his Republican colleague about the bill’s travails. “I’ve said that if this bill ever makes it to the floor again, I want you to wear a cat suit,” he said. “Because House Bill 400 has had more lives than any legislation I’ve seen in my 12 years of service.”
Cat suit or not, Eissler vowed that his measure would return to the floor — and pass. He also said his relationship with teachers associations was not in danger.
“I’ve always gotten along with the teacher groups, and I still do,” he said. “Other than this.”
-Patricia
by Morgan Smith | Texas Tribune
May 20, 2011
Just past midnight, at the close of a 14-hour day last week on the floor of the Texas House, state Rep. Rob Eissler stood joking with reporters.
“I’m going to move my desk up to the front mic,” Eissler said, “so I can watch every bill that goes by.”
After failing on three separate occasions to pass his signature education bill for the session and running out of time on a fourth, the Woodlands Republican was describing his plan to attach the legislation as an amendment to other bills that are still working their way through the House.
The widely liked, pun-spinning Eissler has led the House Public Education Committee since 2007, and this session he has a Republican supermajority to back him. Yet even with 66 co-sponsors, he stumbled with the bill bundling several measures to relieve school district mandates required by the state — including removing the 22-to-1 student-to-teacher ratio in kindergarten through fourth grade, minimum salary requirements for teachers and contractual obligations dealing with layoffs.
The clash over the measure, House Bill 400, has been cast as teachers versus administrators, labor versus management. But in a session characterized by extreme partisanship, the legislation is notable for what it is not: Republican versus Democrat. While it has handed Democrats a rare strategic victory this session, it has drawn opponents from the left and the right.
“Education is not a partisan issue,” Eissler said. “Not everybody in one party is completely sold on one approach.”
In the months before the Legislature convened, there were many calls to free school districts from “unfunded mandates” at the state level to help them cope with the consequences of the impending deep financing cuts. Education leaders in both chambers — Eissler; Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano; and Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston — introduced separate legislation taking aim at state mandates. But even after budgets that reduced public education financing by $7.8 billion in the House and $4 billion in the Senate overwhelmingly passed, the bills have proven a tougher sell.
His joking aside, Eissler’s proposal has an uncertain future as an amendment to other legislation. And in the Senate, which requires a two-thirds vote to bring bills to the floor for consideration, mandate-relief proposals have stalled — though they could also potentially live on as amendments, at least until the session ends on May 30.
“When there is a big piece of legislation that draws lots fear and concern and opposition from significant players, that can cause members to delay or stall or wait to act until the end, or find less controversial ways of dealing with it or passing it,” said Sandy Kress, an architect of Bush administration education policy who is now an Austin lobbyist.
Lawmakers who philosophically endorse reduced spending can balk at what that means practically: teachers losing jobs, getting paid less and managing larger classes. “There’s an ugliness to a lower-funded environment that people don’t like to face,” Eissler said.
Confronting that ugliness makes legislators from both parties skittish, particularly those who represent rural districts, where schools can be the largest employers — and where the lines between labor and management are much less defined.
“With Republicans, we could say, ‘Well, surely they’ll side with management over labor,’” Kress said. “But if you’re from a small district, you don’t necessarily think unions and management if it’s the teacher you know and the school where your kid goes.”
Rep. Larry Phillips, R-Sherman, said “there’s a tension” in his party about how to handle mandate relief. He led the charge against HB 400 from the right with an amendment that would have made any measures temporary, kept the class-size ratio intact and applied salary reductions and furloughs to administrators as well as to teachers.
“Those of us who represent districts that are smaller, it’s different than maybe those big-city districts where it’s much more a business,” Phillips said. “For our school districts, it’s not a business but teaching kids.”
The state’s teachers associations have opposed the legislation in stronger language. They view the bill as an ideological attack on essential, hard-won contractual rights. For them, it represents an opportunistic use of the fiscal crisis to enact changes that the education community would not accept otherwise.
“These are management issues that shouldn’t be discussed when the Legislature is talking about way underfunding public education,” said Lonnie Hollingsworth, a lobbyist with the Texas Classroom Teachers Association, adding that the bill could be described as a “divide-and-conquer strategy.” Hollingsworth said the legislation had strained his group’s relationship with Eissler.
“I think they thought they could win HB 400 with 101 Republicans in the House, and they didn’t think they had to compromise,” he said.
Eissler said the fierce opposition from teachers groups has contributed to resistance to the bill. But he said that observing the groups’ deliberations on mandate-relief legislation in the Senate discouraged him from seeking their input.
“There were weeks and weeks and weeks of negotiations with the Senate,” he said. “Am I going to get a better deal than the Senate?”
Though Eissler’s legislation has exposed a fracture among House Republicans, it is Democrats — galvanized by the teachers associations — who can claim responsibility for derailing it. They have pummeled it to the ground with parliamentary tactics, including one from Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, after four hours of debate during the bill’s second appearance on the floor.
Martinez Fischer said he had teased his Republican colleague about the bill’s travails. “I’ve said that if this bill ever makes it to the floor again, I want you to wear a cat suit,” he said. “Because House Bill 400 has had more lives than any legislation I’ve seen in my 12 years of service.”
Cat suit or not, Eissler vowed that his measure would return to the floor — and pass. He also said his relationship with teachers associations was not in danger.
“I’ve always gotten along with the teacher groups, and I still do,” he said. “Other than this.”
Monday, May 16, 2011
Villarreal: Legislature Unlikely to Pass Funding for Education
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 16, 2011
Contact: Peter Clark
Phone: 512-463-0532 (o), 512-417-9262 (c)
Email: Peter.Clark@house.state.tx.us
Legislature Unlikely to Pass Funding for Education
Governor's Focus on Divisive Social Issues Distracted from Real Responsibilities
Austin - With the Texas Legislature facing an imminent deadline to finish the
state budget, House and Senate budget negotiators are expected to announce that
the Legislature is unable to agree on a plan for funding public and higher
education. State Rep. Mike Villarreal, a member of the House Appropriations
Subcommittee on Education, released the following statement:
"The Legislature has failed to accomplish our most important responsibility --
providing schools with the support they need to educate our children. The
Legislature has been focused on divisive social issues that the Governor put at
the top of the agenda instead of ensuring our schoolchildren receive a quality
education. If the Legislature returns over the summer, parents, teachers, and
students will have an opportunity persuade their elected representatives to put
our kids' education first."
State Representative Mike Villarreal
Texas House of Representatives
###
May 16, 2011
Contact: Peter Clark
Phone: 512-463-0532 (o), 512-417-9262 (c)
Email: Peter.Clark@house.state.tx.us
Legislature Unlikely to Pass Funding for Education
Governor's Focus on Divisive Social Issues Distracted from Real Responsibilities
Austin - With the Texas Legislature facing an imminent deadline to finish the
state budget, House and Senate budget negotiators are expected to announce that
the Legislature is unable to agree on a plan for funding public and higher
education. State Rep. Mike Villarreal, a member of the House Appropriations
Subcommittee on Education, released the following statement:
"The Legislature has failed to accomplish our most important responsibility --
providing schools with the support they need to educate our children. The
Legislature has been focused on divisive social issues that the Governor put at
the top of the agenda instead of ensuring our schoolchildren receive a quality
education. If the Legislature returns over the summer, parents, teachers, and
students will have an opportunity persuade their elected representatives to put
our kids' education first."
State Representative Mike Villarreal
Texas House of Representatives
###
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