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Several months after a major school finance law rewired how billions of dollars get funneled into hundreds of school districts across the state, educators and state officials are still trying to untangle the threads.
House Bill 3, an $11.6 billion measure, gave school districts more money for employee salaries and programs like full-day pre-K and dual language. But at a House Public Education hearing Monday, educators and advocates pointed to problems with the way the law was written that have resulted in unexpected increases or decreases in funding for individual school districts.
While lawmakers gave the state education agency power to correct those glitches, it's still unclear exactly how broad that power is. Meanwhile, some school officials are holding back on spending their money until they get more clarity on how much they really have.
"The problem is, districts don't have the data," said Lonnie Hollingsworth, general counsel for the Texas Classroom Teachers Association. "They basically have to guess as to what their funding is going to be."
Educators have been directly affected by this lack of clarity. School districts were required by the new law to use a chunk of their additional money to give teachers and other employees raises. But Hollingsworth said some have chosen to "lowball" those raises until they get final calculations from the state on things like tax revenue and funding for low-income students, promising to increase salaries once there is more financial certainty.
Beyond questions of financial clarity, another question that bubbled up at Monday's hearing was how much power the state’s education agency has to resolve problems in the law now that lawmakers have gaveled out until 2021. HB 3 explicitly gave Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath significant authority to "resolve unintended consequences" if school districts saw unexpected losses or gains in funding. But it requires Morath to provide an explanation to lawmakers and then get approval from the governor and state budget board before making any changes.
Morath himself acknowledged the complicated position he is in: "One thing is what's for y'all to address next session," he said to lawmakers. "And another thing is what's for me to surface as an unintended consequence this interim."
