TCTA participated in the invitation-only School Finance Summit held by Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott in late July. Participants included other teacher and administrator groups and a number of superintendents representing diverse Texas school districts.

Superintendents related their concerns about districts’ inability to increase local revenue under the current school finance structure. Districts that have already increased local tax rates by the four pennies allowed without a vote are uncertain that voters will approve additional increases, especially when local property appraisals continue to rise. Though the tax burden on citizens has increased because of those higher appraisals, districts do not gain revenue unless the tax rate goes up; the money brought in from higher appraisals goes straight into state coffers.

The focus of the meeting was to comment on various “Hot Topics” that were presented for discussion by Commissioner Scott and TEA staff.  The topics consisted of several possible scenarios for increased funding to districts as temporary or incremental increases to assist public education for the next biennium.  TEA presented some possible increases to several school finance components and forecast a cost to the state for those increases, making it clear that TEA was not necessarily advocating any of the scenarios.  While the group did discuss necessary permanent solutions to the school finance system, the consensus of the group was that a real fix to the school finance system is unlikely to be passed next session.

Among the topics considered were increases in the technology, transportation, and high school allotments.  The group also discussed revamping the cost of education index.  The topics that seemed to get the most support were simply applying an inflation adjustment to school districts’ “target revenue” and making the mid-sized adjustment apply to more school districts.  The target revenue is an amount each district receives that is based on the funding it received in the 2005-2006 or 2006-2007 school year, whichever is greater.  The cost of a 1% increase for the first year and an additional 1% increase the second year would cost $949 million, according to TEA.

The last topic the group considered was a teacher pay raise.  The biennial cost to increase the salaries of teachers and other employees subject to the state minimum salary schedule by $1000 would be $774 million.  Interestingly, there was wide support for additional pay for teachers – though of course the amount and mechanism would have to be negotiated.  TCTA promoted the structure of recent pay raises that have required a pass-through increase to educators, while most of the school administrators clearly prefer a grant of money to school districts with discretion left up to school leaders regarding how to use it.

Texas Association of Business president Bill Hammond took the opportunity to reiterate his objections to class size ratios, teacher salary schedules, teacher contracts, and the defined benefit structure of the Teacher Retirement System. However it was TCTA’s impression that most of the district leaders present were more concerned about financial issues and are not anxious to take on the battles of eliminating teacher benefits and legal protections. A notable exception was Cypress-Fairbanks ISD superintendent David Anthony, who agreed with many of Hammond’s pronouncements, at one point alleging that it cost the district $80,000 to fire an incompetent teacher, and labeling the class size limits as “harmful” to taxpayers.

Commissioner Scott hoped to use the discussion as the basis for determining priorities for finance-related legislative proposals considered by the 81st Texas Legislature.

Web posted:  08/01/08