The House Public Education Committee met Tuesday and Thursday to hear testimony concerning Chairman Brad Buckley’s (R–Salado) school finance bill, House Bill (HB) 2.  

On Tuesday, the committee heard invited testimony only, and Thursday was dedicated to public testimony. Both hearings were lengthy, each taking the entire day. 

HB 2 is a sweeping 148-page bill and the chairman’s priority school finance package. The bill would: 

• Modestly increase the Basic Allotment (BA), the amount schools receive from the state each year per student, by $220 (from $6,160 to $6,380).  
• Raise the amount of new revenue derived from a BA increase that districts are required to dedicate to educator compensation from 30% to 40%. Consistent with current law, 75% of those compensation dollars would go to teachers and full-time counselors, librarians, and nurses, while the remaining 25% would go to other non-administrative campus staff (such as school psychologists, diagnosticians, and paraprofessionals). 
• Provide a boost to the Small and Midsize Allotment for districts. 
• Establish a Fine Arts Allotment. 
• Expand pre-K for students with special needs 
• Offer an incentive to districts that choose to follow a longer school year. 
• Increase special education funding and realign special education funding weights to an intensity of service versus placement-based model. 
• Changes the rules around teacher certification in core curriculum courses.  
• Expand the Teacher Incentive Allotment (TIA) and create a local optional teacher designation grant. 

Committee members press superintendents on finance situation 

Invited testimony on Tuesday consisted of 10 panels of testifiers, ranging in expertise from school superintendents to special education advocates and educators who have earned TIA designations. Committee members heard testimony on HB 2 for more than eight hours on Tuesday. Many of the school superintendents who testified praised the bill and effusively thanked Buckley while also acknowledging that $220 was not enough of an increase to help them cover expenses due to high inflation. District officials across the state have spent the interim sounding the alarm about the lack of funding received during the 2023 session, a situation forcing many districts to close schools, shutter programs, and begin reductions in force in their districts. The tone of the testimony, however, did not match the urgency expressed over the past couple of years, and Democratic committee members, frustrated, called that out, asking district officials to be more explicit in advocating for their students and educator needs if they expected to get more out of the bill.  

Rep. John Bryant (D–Dallas) pressed district officials for specifically how much of a BA increase was necessary to meet their needs. He also expressed concern that superintendents were testifying for the bill before seeing runs showing how the bill would impact their districts. “That's a very hard question,” said Lorena ISD Superintendent Joe Kucera, representing the Texas Association of Midsize Schools. “Obviously, we're thankful for anything we get to improve the Basic Allotment. I don't know that I have that number off the top of my head. I know that I'm very thankful for Chairman Buckley to give us an increase to the Basic Allotment.” 

Tyler ISD Superintendent Marty Crawford, representing the Texas School Alliance, gave a similar answer: “I think it would be irresponsible of me to give you a number that would satisfy all of those needs, because we also need to make sure we keep the taxpayers in mind on this, too, and [make] sure that we're not penalizing them, because they're struggling as well. I think the starting point of around $220 is a good starting point. I would love to see an increase to that. If you want to put something to it, double that and see how it goes. But again, y'all are the decision makers on that.” 

Rep. Gina Hinojosa (D–Austin) said: “You can't let ‘nice’ get in the way of advocating for what your districts need. If this is enough, then OK, but you can't expect us to fight if you're not going to fight for your districts. When you close schools in your district, when you lay off teachers, you're going to own that if you're not going to come here and fight for what you need.” 

The superintendents’ answers also seemed to frustrate Rep. Charles Cunningham (R–Humble), who said: “If you’re asked a question, don't sugarcoat it. Give us an answer because I can tell you my district … already gave me an answer.” 

Rep. James Talarico (D–Round Rock) asked each district official whether the bill would continue to leave their classrooms with less inflation-adjusted funding than they had in 2019. All said yes, the bill would continue to leave them with less purchasing power than they had in 2019 after the passage of HB 3 by the 86th Legislature. 

Public testimony from ATPE and others 

After a one-day break, the committee reconvened Thursday to hear public testimony on the bill.  Common themes in the testimony included the need to increase the BA by much more than $220, to provide an across-the-board pay raise rather than focusing on just TIA, and to do more to attract and retain quality teachers. Educators and parents from all over the state testified about their districts’ operating in deficit budgets, closing schools, and making choices to decrease teacher planning time or increase class sizes in order to close budget gaps.  

Hinojosa asked one panel of testifiers what they would do if their school were fully funded and they could decide what to do with the money. The panel said they would prefer increasing the BA to allow for more flexibility in usage of funds, providing mental health support for teachers and students, and improving working conditions for educators. “A teacher’s working conditions are a student’s learning conditions,” said Austin ISD Elementary Teacher of the Year Megan Vasquez.  

ATPE Governmental Relations Director Monty Exter testified on the bill and also provided written testimony. (Watch Exter’s oral testimony.) Exter focused on the bill’s compensation provisions, thanking Buckley for increasing the BA, as well as increasing the amount of the BA required to go to compensation from 30% to 40%. He also expressed appreciation for the dual approach of increasing the BA and also adjusting dedicated funding to other areas, such as special education or the Small/Midsize Allotment. Exter did express concern about the uncertainty districts face in waiting until settle-up to fully understand their funding from the state and asked legislators to more clearly spell out the amount of compensation that would be given to educators. He asked legislators to address the pay gap between rural and more urban districts by not only increasing the Small/Midsize Allotment but also increasing the Minimum Salary Schedule to at least $45,000, creating a floor that makes pay more competitive in those districts.  

In response to a question from Hinojosa about the educator preparation portions of the bill, Exter praised the bill’s attempts to slow the flood of uncertified educators into schools, noting that these sections of the bill contain language for which ATPE has been advocating for several years. He asked lawmakers to consider moving fine arts to foundation rather than enrichment, with the hope that it would potentially prevent districts from moving certified fine arts teachers into core classes due to the bill’s certification changes. He also asked the committee to tighten language that would give districts $1,000 to assist teachers in becoming certified so the districts could also use the money to reimburse teachers for certification tests or programs, as well as to ensure districts don’t collect money for teachers whom they are not helping gain certification. He expressed concern about the bill’s preservice partnership program, telling the committee that preservice (student teaching and residency) isn’t broken and doesn’t need to be fixed and the state doesn’t need to create more bureaucracy in that area. When asked by Vice Chair Diego Bernal (D–San Antonio) if the existing program to reimburse certification expenses for classroom educators who have been in the classroom at least five years should be expanded, Exter responded 100%, yes, and asked for marketing to let people know the program exists. Exter recommended adding to the bill a section on high-intensity tutoring focused on compensatory education, special education, and bilingual students and hiring paraprofessionals to do the tutoring. These paraprofessionals could then become an important pool of potential certified educator candidates. Talarico agreed with this and shared how a paraprofessional had changed the environment in his own classroom.  

Buckley and Bernal stressed this bill as drafted is meant to be a starting point and said committee members would go through a two week “bootcamp” working to improve the bill before it is voted out of committee March 18. ATPE will continue to have conversations with committee members and work to improve the bill before it is voted out of committee.