State Rep. Pat Curry said “critics are wrong” about Texas schools being underfunded. His opponent, Ashley Bean Thornton, remains one of those critics.
Thornton is challenging the freshman Republican incumbent in House District 56 with an eye to become McLennan County’s first Democrat representing McLennan County since 2010. It’s an uphill battle: Curry won nearly 69% of the vote in 2024 against Democrat Erin Shank.
In the lead-up to election day, KWBU and The Waco Bridge sat down with both candidates.
Here is the transcript, edited lightly for clarity, from our conversation with Republican incumbent, Pat Curry.
Raquel Villatoro: You were elected in 2024 and served your first full legislative session in 2025. Looking back at that session, what do you think you accomplished for the residents of McLennan County, and what are you most proud of?
Pat Curry: That list is long. I will tell you that I ran on water and protecting our water in McLennan County and the Central Texas area, and shortly after I won the primary, actually, I was able to solve the water problem that we had going on at the time.
To be a voice for McLennan County and for Central Texas. I became that. I used it first on the water and I used it further when we were in session. I also said that I was going to try to keep Austin out of Waco and Washington out of Austin, and I think we did a pretty good job of that.
Mental health was a huge issue for me, and I've said it at this station before and I'll say it again, it is probably a bigger problem today than it was then. I was trying to get some excess funding to help us, because we had lost our mental health facility here in town and I was able to secure, with the help of Representative Angela Orr, we were able to secure an additional $5 million in funding from the state, above and beyond the regular behavioral health funding. And we have been able to use that successfully to also do a study on what we our needs are for the future, which we're just now receiving the copy of that study back, and also to be able to add some programs both to our local police departments and in the behavioral health network itself, to further extend our capabilities around the community to help solve our growing mental health problem.
As part of that, we learned that we really had no good programs for children. And I have to tell you, it shouldn't have been a surprise to me, but Waco Family and Dr. Griggs really stepped up and started partnering with our schools and honestly moved the needle in a short period of time with mental health issues in some of our local schools. And it'll ultimately be a model for the rest of the state, so I'm really proud of that. And I could go on and on, but those were the things I'm most proud of.
I will say, in final thought on that, I was extremely proud that as a freshman, I could move the needle. And I passed 11 bills to the governor, all signed, and honestly, most of them were very important bills. and I will say that, that we, I think I was the only freshman that was able to pass that many bills, and so I'm proud of that.
R V: What, if anything, do you regret or wish you’d done differently?
Well, not much, strangely. There was a lot of furor over the speaker's race at the time, and I ended up voting for the losing candidate, which is usually not a good thing in the House because you don't get priorities on committee assignments and so on. And I have to tell you, we got the best candidate in Speaker Burrows, and he was fair with everyone. He graciously appointed me to the Government Efficiency Committee and to Transportation, both awesome committees, which I have a ton of experience because of my business background and my transportation background.
So my only regret, honestly, was just not voting for him in the first place and bowing a little bit maybe to too much political pressure rather than doing the right thing.
Molly-Jo Tilton: I want to talk first about property taxes, which were a major issue last session, and you supported legislation increasing the homestead exemption, among some other property tax legislation.
Your party has said that continued property tax relief is a priority in the upcoming session, but there's some disagreement about how to approach that and what exactly to do to bring property tax relief. What do you think the state should do next to continue reducing property taxes, and where should the money, that is then not coming from property taxes come from
You know, the property tax is no different than water. Those are going to be two huge fights, and they're going to always be huge fights, right? The state itself doesn't have a property tax. We do get a big chunk of sales tax money, and so we do get extra funds in ordinary years to be able to use for things like compression of tax rates and buy and providing more money to the schools and trying to lower that tax rate.
There's a couple of areas that I'm going to be focused on, one of which is I've got a couple of bills that I'm drafting right now to file regarding allowing renters to be able to lower their property tax by having the right to protest their appraisals, right? So right now, only the landowner, only the property owner has the right to protest. And my thought is, is open it up to where a lot of landowners and a lot of these small homeowners that are renting out a bunch of houses in town, they don't go and fight it. So those taxes are just passed through to the renters.
Well, those are our friends, our family, our employees, and so it hurts small business too. So you have to take property tax in steps. So the first step was, okay, let's deal with the homestead exemption, what deals with over 55% of the homes, right? And so that's critically important, and we accomplished that for veterans, we accomplished it for seniors, and I'm sure that they would like to take that and further it.
That money comes out of the state budget to reimburse the schools. It doesn't necessarily reimburse the cities and counties, and it doesn't from that standpoint. So there's some, some pieces and parts to that that still have to be dealt with, right? Costs are going up. We still want our roads. We want our infrastructure. We want our water. We want our police departments. We want our fire department. We want our local services, social services and otherwise.
So what we want and what we can afford are probably two different things. the sensible thing to do is to make sure that number one, our valuations are correct, and number two, that we're not, by increasing the homestead exemption, that we're not pushing that tax off on our renters.
So it is a tough situation. When it comes to schools and their M&O tax, their maintenance and operations tax, we have a plan for trying to eliminate those over time as fast as we can, and that's the largest chunk of the property taxes right now. So that will make the biggest effect.
Molly-Jo Tilton: Speaking about the M&O tax for schools, if the plan is to eliminate that on the property owner, is the plan then for the state to take over funding when critics have already said the state is underfunding schools?
Well, critics are wrong on the funding of schools. I can just tell you. Do different school districts have different funding issues? They do. There's no doubt about that. And, by the way, it's no different than various businesses. It just happens that way.
But I will say that our goal is to make sure that our teachers are the best paid in America, so we're working on that. I do like the way that we bucketed out the school funding this time. It's not perfect, and because of a lot of huge inflationary measures that have been going on, all the extra money for the non-teacher employees as well as the transportation and the buildings and things like that's we probably didn't get enough in that bucket. But we did bucket it out and silo it to where it we're putting as much money directly to the teachers and the students as we possibly can.
But as far as the funding was concerned, the funding was increased greatly. Now, was it enough? I don't know. We’ve been very blessed in Texas being the seventh or eighth largest economy in the world. We've excess money to spend. Constitutionally, we have to spend everything we bring in, right? But our business growth and state's growth has allowed us to have excess money. How long will we have that? and we used $51 billion for property taxes and teacher pay and things like that and that money went to, a lot of that money went to schools, because of the homeowner exemption. The homeowner exemption helped, but, it, obviously we had to offset what that did to the school property tax base, and so how much more is left? That's going to be decided when we, when we get the numbers from the Comptroller's office later this year.
R V: You voted for the state's new $1 billion private school voucher program last session. And now an, an analysis has shown that a majority of that money has gone to students who were not previously enrolled in public schools. What do you say to public school advocates who argue that money should instead go towards strengthening- strengthening public schools?
I actually heard that statistic recently, and frankly, I'm shocked. That the rhetoric all the way through that was that it would be done that way. And the way that thing was structured, it went to the Comptroller's office, to structure the program and then ultimately implement the program to get the students in.
I think one of the - misunderstandings in it all is that we made it a point to reserve seventy percent of the money for special needs students, right? And so seventy percent... and that's exactly what happened, by the way, and that's, that was near and dear to my heart for lots of reasons.
As you all well know, the special needs is a more broad category than what you might think. I will say that as part of that program, they didn't want to leave the family members behind. And so no matter where they were, if they were a special needs student, they could go to the right school that they needed or get the money to go to the proper school that they needed.
A lot of those students were not in public schools, they were already in private environments or not in a school. So, this is my understanding, and I haven't broken down the numbers. Recognize it was a billion dollars on a three hundred and thirty plus billion dollar budget, right? And it really affects only about forty thousand plus students. A lot of those students are siblings to the students that did get accepted. But again, you're still only talking about forty thousand students out of five point six million students in the state of Texas.
MJ T: Staying on that voucher bill, when you were here two years ago you told me that you would want to see significant CTE requirements before you would support a voucher bill.
Going forward, how would you approach requests for more funding for that program? Would you want to see more CTE requirements? I know that was something that wasn't significant in that program when it was approved.
First off, those are two different things. So no, that program was not designed for that. But we significantly changed the CTE programs, and I was a big part of that. So I did what I said I was going to do. And the reality is that we, we basically did it by changing the amount of money that the schools get as a reward, if you will, for encouraging students to go into those programs, and we lowered the amount of money on floral design, which we discussed last term, and we raised the money on more of the critical jobs, such as hospital workers and, and electricians and so on and so forth.
And so the, workforce development is a huge thing for me. And I have to tell you, I've got some great plans for that, because not only did we make a big step with our budget and with the money that's offered to the schools to reward the proper programs for that, but I'm going to propose a bill this session to try to lower the age so students can start working in these jobs at 16 years old while they're in high school.
So insurance companies, unbeknownst to me, and it just happened over the years, where insurance companies won't let you hire somebody under 18. Well, I've got these kids that are in programs that, where they need hours and they need experience, and they could gain them while they're in high school and have an apprentice license when they graduate high school. But we've got to pass a bill to allow the government or to allow, to have the government allow insurance companies to say, "Hey, you can hire a 16-year-old, put them in a job, get them in some experience, and get them qualified hours to to get their certificates."
And if they don't end up in that job, then fine.They go on to college. They do whatever they're going to do. I would also like to tie to that a reward for those businesses that do it so they get some kind of a tax credit back, at the state expense, to be able to help the business out for supporting our workforce development and our technical education.
R V: Do you think there should be any limits on how much funding should or can go to private education through the voucher programs if schools in the same community are struggling with funding?
100% I believe in that, yes. Look, I'm one of 150. It's a difficult fight, right?
At the end of the day, if it's working, put more into it. But don't just guess that it's working or hope that it's working to put more into it. Let's get some metrics. let's get the key performance indicators. Is it really working or is it not? Is it working to increase our public education? Is that competition that they talked about so much, is it working, right? And to some extent, we know that it is. Our scores have increased. Waco ISD scores have increased. Midway ISD scores have increased. We've made some strides. was it because of that program? I think it's too early to tell.
So no, I'm not largely in favor of going and adding a ton of funding to it. I will tell you that public schools are the core of our community, and they always will be. That's not going to change. And my support for public schools and overall my party's support for public schools is there. it's in our heart.
MJ T: A you mentioned, when you do things like increase the homestead exemption, and allow, for more property tax exemptions, it does create a strain on cities and municipalities to be able to fund the needed services, the roads, and the police force. And, even in, like Waco, we've seen them cut back on libraries and do a hiring freeze.
And they've said largely it's because of those, those external forces from the state. what limits, if any, should the state government be able to place on municipalities' ability to raise and spend money? And if it's property taxes, how should that balance be?
First and foremost, you have to understand that there are unintended consequences in every bill that's passed, just about. It drives you crazy. We spend half our time fixing previous legislation. And then when you have significant changes like that change the unintended consequence of that change is okay, well, it certainly doesn't help the cities from that standpoint, but they also have the ability to raise their taxes, their tax rate based upon what that appraisal is, right?
MJ T: But isn't the state government also making it harder for cities to be able to raise their tax rate? They have to go through this extensive process of review to be able to raise it above a certain amount that cities have said, is making it harder for them to raise it to a level to be able to meet their needs.
If they go above three and a half percent, they have to go to the voters.
MJ T: And voters are never going to say, "Yes, raise my taxes."
Well, it depends on how it's sold, right? We could argue this all day long. But the reality is, it may be 5%, so don't quote me on that.
Right now we're talking about a lot of property tax proposals and limitations because there are some limitations that have been put on in the past that didn't anticipate that homestead exemptions would go from 40,000 to 200,000 on 60, on 65 and older, right? Those absolutely hit home locally.
Now, I'm proud of Waco. Waco's actually done a very good job of holding their tax rate and keeping their fund balances and still providing the services in a great way that they should. McLennan County had to increase their tax rate a little bit, which they haven't done in, I think, 17 years, because of it. But it, but they kept it under the limit where it didn't have to go to the voters.
Would voters approve something over 3.5%? Honestly, a lot of those elections do pass because the cities do explain, and the council people have, have to get out and work and say, "Hey, here's why this is happening." And they can blame the state if they want to. I would certainly come out with them and tell them. But I will tell you that the reality is that they have to go sell it. we need more policemen. We need this.
So one of the adjustments that keeps flying around in Austin right now before the session is having, having it based upon a certain percentage level, that's kind of tied to inflation and also real inflation, I hope, and then another percentage level that is tied to the growth in the community, right? That probably makes a little more sense with what's happening and, and give them a little more latitude to be able to do that. But, but I still think above a certain level the voters should approve it.
MJ T: Do you think constitutional amendments for things like homestead exemptions and, property tax make sense when those are things that are going to, impact generations of taxpayers?
Well, first off, it's required by the Constitution to have amendments. So, right , recognize that our Constitution, A, says that we cannot have a state income tax. B, we cannot take on debt, right? And C, we have our own limitation on the growth rate of what we can spend in the state of Texas for state money. Everything above that has to be approved by the voters. And so that's why that was a proposition on the last November election, and it passed overwhelmingly.
And now our job in the state and in the Appropriations is to make sure that's funded. And so we do have a $30 billion rainy day fund that we can peel into. I'd like to see that increased based upon the size of our budget at this point, but that's constitutional as well, and that's got to go to a constitutional amendment to do that. So we've invested it wisely, and it's doing well, but the reality is that y- you do want those things to go to the voters, and constitutionally we have to.
R V: The last legislature set aside funding to incentivize community colleges to get more students on paths to employment, but that funding ran out, and that affected colleges like McLennan Community College, which had to raise taxes to deal with the $3.1 million state funding shortfall. What should the state do in the next session to provide more predictable funding for community colleges?
That is a huge issue. it was, again, an unintended consequence of a bill and a program that they put in place to pay for, to reward schools for doing, for growing and doing better and graduating more students.
And frankly, MCC is a superstar community college, and they did exactly what the program wanted them to do and got punished for it. Because frankly, a lot of the community colleges went out and did it extremely well, and there wasn't enough in the budget to cover it. So there, every session, we have what they call a supplemental budget, this will be dealt with in the supplemental budget, and it's a budget that deals with things first that were unintended from the previous budget. And so there is a lag in time for that to happen, but it, I can tell you that the sentiment in Austin that I can have, that I can tell, and I'm certainly fighting for it, is corrected.
R V: You said there's a lag in the funding. How soon can colleges like MCC expect to see any of that supplemental funding?
Usually the supplemental budget, it takes a while to flow this thing through the appropriations process, right? First and foremost, there's a whole series of processes involved here that, again, a $330-plus billion budget on a $7 trillion economy, is, an accounting nightmare if you can imagine.
And so all that's got to be pulled together to determine what is the exact effect, how does it get distributed, and then it goes in the supplemental. That supplemental will get approved earlier in the session than the budget itself.
MJ T: There are now at least two proposed data centers in McLennan County, and by estimations, there's probably going to be more coming soon.
Local leaders have expressed some concern about the lack of control that they feel they have, especially on the county level, to be able to deal with these issues. What additional regulation, if any, do you think is necessary from the state to help deal with issues like data centers?
First and foremost, if they're telling you that, they're not telling me that, they're telling me the opposite. We don't have county-level zoning in Texas, and they don't want it. It’s an added work and they've specifically told me they don't want it. But I don't think that that's on the radar screen, actually. I think what is on the radar screen is to put guardrails on the data centers from a water usage, from a resource usage standpoint, and also put, put guardrails as far as where they can be placed when it comes to neighborhoods and populations and so on and so forth.
The tax base generated by these companies, and also there will definitely be guardrails on no local money, no state money, no further tax incentives to the data centers. If they want to build one and it's using the right resources, and it's not hurting our community and hurting our constituency, then we'll be more supportive.
I'm sure the governor – I know the governor's – working to put some more guardrails in at Public Utility Commission and ERCOT, as well as, as well as as TCEQ, the Environmental Quality Commission, to make sure that we have a little more say over what's happening than they have had.
Now, recognize that the only two I know of, there's one in the county that's actually a really good deal and was brought to McGregor by the electric company itself. They had the power to do it. They had the water to do it. It was a closed loop system. The company's actually putting up money to improve the community, putting up a lot of tax base, taking no money from the public whatsoever, and it's going to be great for the school district, it's going to be great for the county, and it's going to be great for the city of McGregor. And again, that's the electric company that brought it, Heart of Texas Electric Cooperative. Great. That's a great deal.
The one that's out in Ross is a speculator. They've been a speculator from the beginning. They don't have a customer. They don't have the money. It's not a real deal, and there's 400 of those floating around the state. That's the ones that are all applying to ERCOT and so on and so forth. So a lot of people get worked up over speculators, and I get it. I do too. I don't like them. I wish they'd cross their T's and dot their I's and come in, tell us how much water are you going to use and how much power are you going to use and where are you going to get it?
And oh, by the way, your neighborhood out there is pretty ticked off, and you obviously didn't do your homework because you're in a huge Czech German community, and they do not just lay down. come on, man. So it's, I'm obviously not very happy about that one, and I've, I have been outwardly, outward spoken about that
MJ T: You won the district pretty comfortably in 2024, but pollsters are predicting that Republicans across the ticket may face an uphill battle in this election cycle.
Are you worried at, at all about that heading into the election?
Well, of course I am. if you follow me at all, and see me out and about, I'm everywhere all the time, and that has not slowed down. Look, there is a lot of discontent out there. I've known from the beginning who my voters are, right?
And I've worked with all my constituents, and I work with my voters, and I try to earn the votes and the trust of all of my constituents. I don't care about the party when it comes to that, right? Yes, I have to fight the battles in the Republican primaries, and I'm not their favorite son, evidently, but I do well in those too. And honestly, and I did well in the last November election, and I expect to do well in this one because I am that guy. I'm out amongst the people. I'm fighting for mental health. I'm fighting for our community and for everyone in our community. And I'm not just sitting out on Ridgewood Drive all the time.
I'm out in the community, in the, in all of the parts of town and giving out computers to people that can't afford them and helping people with issues that are disabled. And you wouldn't believe the Child Protective Services things and all the agency things that we do every day. And I don't know whether these people are my voters or not. I know one thing, if you call me, I'll help you.
