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The 81st session of the Texas Legislature convenes on Jan. 13, 2009. Recent elections could set the tone for the session, which is expected to address the normal range of education issues, with particular attention to topics such as accountability, teacher pay and benefits (including retirement benefits), school funding and more.

Though relatively small in numbers, partisan changes in the composition of the Texas House and Senate could have a major impact on the course of the upcoming legislative session.

Texas Senate

Though Republicans retained a strong majority (18-12 with one seat yet to be determined) in the Senate, Democrats gained a seat with the election of newcomer Wendy Davis to the seat previously held by veteran Republican Senator Kim Brimer of Fort Worth. The race to replace Republican Kyle Janek of Houston, who resigned earlier in the year, resulted in a Dec. 16 runoff election between former gubernatorial candidate and Democrat Chris Bell and Republican Joan Huffman.

A change in even one or two seats is significant, assuming that the Senate continues to operate under its traditional two-thirds rule. The two-thirds rule ensures compromise in the Senate by requiring that any bill receive a two-thirds majority vote in order to be brought up for consideration on the floor. Previously, the 11 Democrats in the Senate were able to prevent consideration of numerous bills through this procedure, but only by voting as a bloc. The gain of one and potentially two Senate seats will give Democrats more “breathing room” for bills to be blocked if a senator is absent or out of the room, and may change the outcome on some bills even when Democrats and Republicans are not voting along party lines.

Texas House

Depending on the final results of two close races that are subject to a recount, Democrats gained between two and four seats in the Texas House (the most likely outcome is an increase of three). Some observers believe the small gain may be enough to unseat Republican Speaker Tom Craddick (who easily won re-election to his Midland House seat), though in the absence of a Democratic majority the new speaker would almost assuredly still be a Republican.

At last count, 10 legislators had filed for the speaker’s race – six Republicans (including Craddick) and four Democrats. The behind-the-scenes wrangling is intense, and few people would place bets on the outcome. The general feeling is that Craddick has not retained the same level of support that helped elect him in 2007, but anyone paying attention in the last few years knows that Craddick can be persistent and is still a very formidable candidate.

For educators, the greatest impact of the speaker’s race will be felt in the subsequent selection of committee chairs. A friendly chair can help pass good bills and keep bad ones from ever seeing the light of day. Of course, the speaker’s race can also set the tone for the session in determining whether the session will operate smoothly or whether lawmakers will be distracted by internal procedural or political battles.

Budget, budget, budget…Education

At a November legislative conference, a panel of four veteran lawmakers was asked to predict the hot topics for the 2009 session. While Sen. Florence Shapiro (R-Plano), chair of the Senate Education Committee, felt that education issues would be high on the list, the remaining three legislators all responded emphatically, “The budget.”

Texas has weathered the global economic downturn fairly well, but a lower-than-hoped-for surplus, structural problems with the state’s revenue stream, and uncertainty about future conditions may give this surplus session a deficit tone.

The first prediction about the state’s revenue situation for 2009 came from Speaker Tom Craddick, who estimated a $15 billion surplus. That was quickly dampened by Texas Comptroller Susan Combs, who revised the figure to around $10 billion. But subsequent projections present a more sobering picture – one source lowers the estimate to around $2 billion, noting that approximately $8 billion of the comptroller’s estimated $10 billion is locked up in dedicated funds. Over $5 billion is in the Rainy Day fund and cannot be spent without a super-majority vote of the House and Senate (two-thirds or three-fifths, depending on the situation). Another $3 billion is dedicated by the Constitution to helping pay for property tax cuts.

Various sectors of the budget are already calling dibs on the remaining $2 billion. A top priority will be paying for 150,000-plus new students in the public schools. Without any increase in services, just the addition of those schoolchildren will add hundreds of millions of dollars to the budget. And of course the traditional culprits - general inflation, Medicare/Medicaid, transportation, criminal justice, and higher education - are part of the picture as well.

Of additional concern is the state’s new business tax, which is now expected to not meet its original revenue projections. When legislators cut property tax rates in 2006, the mechanism for bringing in money to pay for those cuts was flawed from the beginning – the new tax was expected to bring in only around $8 billion of the $12 billion needed to offset the property tax cuts. Lawmakers were counting on other funding, particularly the Rainy Day fund, to make up the difference. Now, though, the business tax is projected to come in about $2 billion shy of the $8 billion estimate, leaving an even wider funding gap to cover.

And finally, while dropping oil prices provided some relief for consumers in the fall of 2008, it creates problems for Texas revenues. The healthy oil industry has been largely responsible for Texas being an exception to the national recession, but prices under $50/barrel could sharply reduce tax revenues and slow industry growth.

So while Texans can be grateful that we are weathering the financial storm better than most states (California is expecting a $28 billion budget deficit over the next biennium), this session will still bring budget battles, making our efforts to put new money into education and improve employee pay and benefits even more difficult.

Education issues

Even when we don’t expect an “education session” (those usually occur when the Legislature is required by the courts to reform the school finance system), education is always a high priority for lawmakers. TCTA will be tracking a few hundred education-related bills, many of which will never see the light of day, but others of which could affect your classroom, your pocketbook, or your legal rights and benefits.

Structural changes in the accountability system and funding issues for the Teacher Retirement System are likely to be major topics during the 2009 session.

Though major school finance changes are not expected, some “tweaking” may be in order. In particular, districts are pushing for measures that would allow for automatic adjustments in funding to account for inflation. TCTA will be working to ensure that any additional revenues flowing to districts are subject to provisions directing some of those revenues into teacher compensation; historically, if districts are not required to pass funding increases through to teachers, the funds never make it there.

Continued attention to the state’s ongoing dropout problem is also expected. This issue may dovetail with a renewed emphasis on rigorous and relevant career and technology education. TCTA supports enhanced career/tech programs as a way of ensuring viable options for a student after high school, regardless of whether higher education is part of the student’s plan.

Private school vouchers will likely be under consideration (one of the first bills filed prior to the session was a pilot voucher program that applies to the state’s six largest school districts), but we expect that the emphasis may shift to modifying the number of and requirements on permitted charter schools (another prefiled proposal completely eliminates the cap on the number of charter schools). TCTA will vigorously resist all efforts to provide charter schools with public funding if they are not required to meet the same standards as public schools.

As in previous sessions, we expect to see school districts pushing for freedom from regulation, under the rallying cries of “local control” and “no unfunded mandates.” Unfortunately, the mandates from which relief is sought are likely to include important statutes such as class-size caps, planning and preparation requirements, and duty-free lunch. TCTA will support elimination of meaningless requirements that consume energy and resources (mandatory bus evacuation training is often cited as an example) but will fight hard to retain employee rights and benefits.

TCTA values the ideas and input of our members, and we will need your help throughout the session to keep legislators focused on the right issues for Texas public schools and students. Be sure to check our regular communications (daily web updates and a weekly review) to stay informed and active throughout the upcoming months. There’s no lobbyist as effective as a constituent.

Posted online: 01/14/09