SB 8: Key differences between the House and Senate versions

On Monday, the Senate refused to concur with the House amendments to SB 8, noting the sheer number of amendments as one reason to appoint a conference committee. Last week, the Texas House added approximately 21 amendments to SB 8 during floor debate, and we previously reported how three of these amendments made a bad bill even worse.  Those three amendments, however, are not the only differences between the Senate version and the House version of SB 8.

The Senate version of the bill did not address class size limits in any way, leaving in place current law. The House version, on the other hand, retains most of current law though it adds a provision allowing the commissioner of education to grant waivers based on district financial difficulties.

In addition, the House substitute for the bill makes very specific provisions if a district declares a financial exigency. One such provision allows a district to terminate teachers pursuant to a mid-year reduction in force due to financial exigency. A teacher whose contract is terminated due to this mid-year RIF is entitled to only a hearing before the school district board of trustees or its designee. The decision of the school board or its designee could not be overturned as long as it is supported by substantial evidence, which is a very low standard. Current law treats all mid-year contract terminations, for good cause or financial exigency, identically, allowing a teacher to request a full hearing before an impartial hearing examiner.

Another amendment added on the House floor further erodes teacher due process rights by allowing a school district to overturn the decision of an independent hearing examiner with regard to findings of fact in any teacher termination. Under current law, the factual findings can be overturned only if they are not supported by substantial evidence. The change basically undermines the impartiality of the whole process. A provision in the bill to eliminate the current requirement that reductions in force for continuing contract teachers be based on reverse order of seniority was made worse by a House floor amendment that would require such reductions to be based primarily on teacher observations, ironically going against the theme of deregulation and flexibility.

Both the Senate and House versions of the bill outline the procedure a district must follow in order to implement furloughs (or unpaid work days). The legislation limits the number of furlough days to six and requires development of the furlough plan to be discussed in a public meeting, where employees are provided the opportunity to express opinions about the proposal. This must be done before implementation of the furlough plan can take place. A furlough program can only be implemented if the commissioner certifies that the district will receive less state and local funding than was provided for the 2010-11 school year.  This is almost assured for each district given the $4 billion cut to public education in the budget passed by the Legislature.

Both versions eliminate the Education Code provision that requires districts to pay teachers, counselors, librarians, nurses and speech pathologists at least as much as they made last school year as long as they remain in the same district, thus giving districts the ability to reduce salaries and implement unpaid furloughs. The good news is that both the House and Senate versions of the bill retain the minimum salary schedule, but the minimum salary schedule provides the only limitation to the amount that teacher salaries can be reduced. The minimum salary schedule ranges from $27,320 for a new teacher to $44,270 for a teacher with 20 years of experience or more.  Both versions of the bill would effectively allow districts that implement unpaid furloughs to pay less than state minimum, subject to the six-day limit. An amendment by Rep. Bill Callegari requires that if districts decrease salaries for classroom teachers due to financial exigency, then district administrator salaries must also be reduced. Along similar lines, Rep. Marisa Marquez amended Rep. Callegari’s amendment to also allow a school district to terminate a superintendent’s contract, or amend its terms, due to a financial exigency.  These amendments are meant to “spread the pain.”  Though TCTA continues to oppose SB 8,  if a district should institute a salary decrease, it should at least encompass all contract personnel.

Today the House named Representatives Rob Eissler, Jimmie Don Aycock, Myra Crownover, Kelly Hancock and Dan Huberty to the SB 8 conference committee. All of the differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill will be discussed and negotiated during conference committee meetings. Once the conference committee report has been written and distributed, the report will return to both chambers for a final yes or no vote.