Details Emerge on Senate Remix of School Funding Bill

The Texas Senate is preparing its version of a public school funding bill that would retain the House’s roughly $8 billion allotment while excising all but a minute increase to the basic allotment, according to the Quorum Report.

A preliminary copy of the Texas Senate’s committee substitute version of House Bill 2 published by the Quorum Report shows the basic allotment being increased by just $55 — less than 1% of its current value of $6,160 per student.

That’s a sharp decline from the amount agreed during bipartisan negotiations in the House, which yielded a $395 increase to the basic allotment.

But both of those figures are far less than what school districts and teachers for years have been asking for: a roughly 20% increase to the basic allotment to undo years of high inflation during the pandemic. The allotment hasn’t been increased since 2019.

Instead, the committee substitute in the upper chamber would allocate more than half of its cost — $4.2 billion — to pay raises for teachers by expanding the state’s performance bonus program and offering salary incentives for the state’s public school teachers with at least three years of experience.

That incentive explicitly lines up with Senate Bill 26, which the chamber unanimously passed in late February. The substitute would include a provision from that bill that would give teachers free preschool enrollment.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who serves as the Senate’s president, has been leading the closed door negotiations on the finance bill since it was referred to the Senate Public Education Committee three weeks ago.