The Available School Fund is not always in the news, but the Texas Tribune highlights a recent controversy involving it, the School Land Board, Jerry Patterson and the Texas Legislature.
The School Land Board voted Tuesday to release $300 million into the Available School Fund for public schools.
The money will be released in two $150 million installments, one in February and the other on June. The funds had been caught in a standoff between the Legislature and the School Land Board, which operates out of the General Land Office and oversees the state’s public school land.
A constitutional amendment proposed in 2011 by state Rep. Rob Orr, R-Burleson, allowed the board to put a portion of earnings from investments on real estate assets into the Available School Fund, which along with property and sales taxes helps pay for public education.
Voters passed the amendment last November, but the little-watched School Land Board decided not to distribute the money in July. Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, who sits on the three-member board, said it wanted to protect the funds for upcoming investment opportunities.
Members of the Legislature are a bit ticked at Patterson saying they expected the money to be spent, and seem to have reduced general revenue funding to education with the expectation that they would.
We'll file this away for now and dig into it when we look at pubic education in 2306 later this semester.
