Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows has agreed to the Senate’s changes to an $8 billion school funding bill, including a revision to almost totally eliminate the House’s increase to the basic allotment, the Houston Chronicle reported.
Burrows, a Republican from Lubbock, formally endorsed the changes on Wednesday along with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who acts as the president of the Senate, and Gov. Greg Abbott.
Though the Senate has not yet made available copies of its substitute version of House Bill 2 — a political tactic from Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick that breaks from a tradition of discussing those changes in open meetings, according to the Quorum Report — copies of the summary of changes posted online sketch its contours.
More than half of the bill’s price tag, $4.2 billion, would go to increasing pay and benefits for public school teachers explicitly modeled on Senate Bill 26, which the Senate unanimously approved in late February.
Those changes would include expansions to the state’s performance bonus program for top-performing teachers.
There’s also a provision to offer flat salary bonuses to teachers based on experience and district size.
For smaller districts of fewer than 5,000 students, teachers would make an extra $5,000 per year once they have taught in Texas for more than three years, and an extra $5,000 on top of that each year once they’ve taught for more than five years here.
In larger school districts, that raise would be smaller: $2,500 per year for teachers with more than three years of experience up to $5,500 total per year for teachers with more than five years.
The Senate Public Education Committee heard the committee substitute this morning. It went into recess when the full Senate reconvened at 11 a.m. but will return to its deliberations once the full body concludes its business.
This is a developing story. It will be updated with more information.
