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Texas House Vows To Tackle School Finance By Changing Funding Formula

flickr.com/ichsageuchmalwas
The Texas House to Tackle School Finance

A bi-partisan group of House members has found a way to change the funding formula for school districts this session.   Texas Public Radio’s Ryan Poppe reports the effort related to property taxes would fully restore the cuts taken from public education in 2011.

 

The plan would adjust per pupil spending by changing the funding formulas that feed into local school districts.  House leaders hope those changes would result in an additional $2.2 to 3 billion dollars for schools. Representative Jimmie Don Aycock, who authored the bill, led a group of lawmakers tasked with examining the issue of school finance in 2014.

“It became apparent that some of our factors that drive huge amounts of money are antiquated, some of those things have been in place for many many years without justification", Aycock said. 

 Aycock added that the House cannot sit and wait for the Texas Supreme Court to rule on a lawsuit where a Travis County District Judge labeled the state’s current funding formula unconstitutional.

 But He admits, under his plan not every school district will immediately benefit.

 “Some districts will gain, some districts will gain more and some districts will lose", Aycock said. "As we work through this process we will work real hard to try to limit the losses so that there is very minimal suffering from anybody.” 

It’s a plan that has the support of San Antonio Democratic Rep. Rick Galindo. He represents some of the school districts that filed the lawsuit challenging the state’s school finance system.

"My wife is a public school teacher for Northside Independent School District in San Antonio", Galindo said, "and this is for them also and it is very important that we get this going.” 

House budget writers say it would not affect a bill promising billions of dollars in tax cuts

Ryan started his radio career in 2002 working for Austin’s News Radio KLBJ-AM as a show producer for the station's organic gardening shows. This slowly evolved into a role as the morning show producer and later as the group’s executive producer.