Texas schools are hurting financially. Abbott should call a special session | Editorial

After four special legislative sessions pushing a failed school voucher plan, Gov. Greg Abbott is ignoring Texas students. Across the state, school districts, including Austin ISD, are in financial distress. But this month, when 39 House Democrats requested a special session to help, Abbott refused. In doing so, the governor denies Texas students their constitutional right to quality public education.

The Democrats’ ask was reasonable: 30 days to hash out more state funding per student and for school safety needs. Numerous districts are reeling from inflation, campus safety costs, and a basic per-student funding level that's been stagnant since 2019. Austin ISD, struggling with an $89 million deficit, announced plans to shrink it to $59 million with cutbacks such as 42 layoffs in the central office, and trimming overtime, contracts and other costs.

The school board also is mulling a request for a tax hike that could bring $44 million into the district's budget of $956 million, enabling a three percent pay raise for teachers along with other needs. The tax hike would need voter approval.

The focus in this crisis should be Texas kids. Instead, Abbott lambasts schools for the deficits, citing overdependence on temporary federal COVID funds and lower enrollment. He blames the funding freeze on lawmakers who rightly balked at sharing their voters’ public education funds with private schools. In truth, under Abbott’s influence, legislation for public school funding was pulled from a vote after House members voted to strip out an attached voucher plan.

The school budget crisis has been a long time coming.

“The biggest reason that schools are in financial trouble now is because the state legislature was unable to pass a bill for public school funding,” said David DeMatthews, a University of Texas associate professor specializing in education policy. Like districts in other states, Texas school districts are grappling with inflation in goods, utilities, and technology, wage competition and the academic and mental health fallout of COVID. AISD additionally has been slammed by lower-than-expected property tax growth, and cost of state and federal special education requirements.

Districts overall are shouldering unique new expenses. After the mass shooting of Uvalde elementary school students, House Bill 3 required each school to hire an armed guard, allotting $15,000 per campus plus $10 per student, or about $2.5 million for AISD. But AISD estimates that the new hires will cost $8 million plus related costs, leaving an unfunded state mandate of about $5.5 million a year.

Underlying the school emergency is years of underinvestment. An American-Statesman analysis found that once adjusted for inflation, Texas’ per-student funding from state and local sources has dropped by 12.9% since 2020. Texas ranks 42nd in the country for per-student public education funding. The state’s share of ISD funding dropped from 44 percent in 2011 to 31 percent in 2022, education consultant Paul Colbert said.

“Other states are dealing with the same problems and taking steps to remedy them," DeMatthews told the Editorial Board. "But they don’t have the history that Texas does.”

Also distinctive to Texas: the backdrop of a history-making budget surplus of $32.7 billion last year. The Legislature tapped existing revenue for $4 billion in school funding. But under Abbott's sway, these funds were tied to voucher approval, a package repeatedly rejected by House members. Among them were 21 Republicans, many from rural districts where public schools are cherished community centers.

Texas has $5 billion in unspent school funds, Rep. Jon Rosenthal, D-Houston, wrote Abbott, who is still stinging over the defeat of vouchers at the legislature. To access that money, Abbott wrote back, lawmakers need to “muster the votes to get it passed.” In short, they must vote for a program their voters don’t want, or Abbott holds billions of school dollars hostage.

Texas has a constitutional obligation to provide free public schools

This isn’t how government should work. As the Texas Constitution states, “It shall be the duty of the Legislature of the State, to establish and make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of public free schools.”

If Abbott valued Texas students as much as he does vouchers, he would call a special session so lawmakers can help Texas students. The need is urgent. The money is there. And Texans have a right to adequately funded public schools.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas districts are hurting. Gov. Abbott should call special session.