Welcome to the RISD Legislative Corner designed to inform you about what did happen, what is happening and what might happen in the Texas Legislature regarding education.
The good news is property tax relief. Property owners will see their school tax rate for maintenance and operations (M&O) decrease by almost $0.11 per $100 of assessed value. And if voters approve the proposition in November, homeowners will be able to reduce the market value of their property by $100,000 using the increased homestead exemption that rose from $40,000 in 2022.
Politicians will tout that they have put more money into public education than ever before, and while that is true, more money earmarked for public education doesn’t mean more funding for school districts.
In this case, the state allocating more money for education simply means the Legislature will replenish the loss of funding it created by lowering the tax rate. The Legislature will ensure that schools do not lose funding because of the lower tax rate and will contribute $12.6 billion to Texas public schools from the state’s budget surplus to fill in any gaps. The $12.6 billion buys down the tax rate, but none of those tax dollars go to school districts for teacher salaries or to cover increasing costs.
The state also plans to spend $5.3 billion to increase the homestead exemption with voter approval in November.
Legislators will meet again this fall. The state budget passed by the Legislature in the spring includes nearly $4 billion in new money for school districts. But, legislators couldn’t decide how to spend it, so no laws were passed to allocate those dollars.
Those approved state dollars for schools remain unallocated waiting for the Legislature to direct the distribution of funding. Gov. Greg Abbott will call another special session, most likely in October, to provide legislators yet another opportunity to spend what they budgeted.
The major sticking point during the regular session came when the Texas Senate tied public school funding to a voucher program known as Education Savings Accounts. The House didn’t want those two issues linked, and the stalemate resulted in no laws being passed to provide additional funding to public schools.
Gov. Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick have promised that voucher-like legislation will again happen during the special session, and to ensure it does, they plan to support proposals that tie voucher funding to funding for public schools.
RISD trustees – along with many other public education advocates – want the two issues voted on separately: one vote to fund schools, and one vote on a voucher proposal. Regardless of the voucher issue, approved state funding must not continue to be withheld from Texas school districts and the more than 5 million students they educate.
Contact RISD Chief Officer of Government Affairs Liz Morse with questions, ideas, suggestions and feedback. Liz.Morse@risd.org
