Senate Education Takes Up Two Mandate Relief Bills

The Senate Education Committee considered two bills, SB 3 (Shapiro) and SB 443 (Patrick), that would provide flexibility for school districts in addressing unfunded mandates.

SB 443 by Patrick changes to the 22-student cap in grades K-4 brought about much debate. Sen. Patrick said that the average class size with the hard cap of 24 students per classroom would give districts more flexibility to appropriately staff classes and contain costs.

Senators Royce West (D-Dallas) and Wendy Davis (D-Fort Worth) were extremely cautious and asked superintendents if changes to the class size cap, including lifting the 10:1 cap for remediation classes, would affect student learning.

Generally, teacher groups testified against these bills and school districts and the school board association testified for the bills.

The committee substitute for SB 443 would:

(1) Make it easier and less costly to terminate the contract of an employee who has been convicted of certain felonies.

(2)  Replace the 22:1 elementary class size limit with a 21:1 district-wide average to for grades K-4. Sen. Dan Patrick (R-Houston) added language to the bill that would put a cap of 24 students in a classroom.

(3) Eliminate the requirement that 8th grade students must take the Math and English Language Arts STARR tests if the student is taking the Algebra I and English I end-of-course exam.

(4) Make it optional rather than mandatory for a district to offer a bilingual prekindergarten program;  and

(5) Extend the academic freedoms offered by the "excellence exemptions" to recognized campuses and districts; currently, these are only available to exemplary campuses and districts. Sen. Patrick did note that the section related to exemptions might change.

SB 3, which replaces SB 468 (Shapiro), would do the following:

(1) Change the deadline for notice of nonrenewal of contract to no later than the 10th day prior to the last day of instruction rather than the 45th day prior to the last day of instruction. It would also repeal a portion of the education code that prevents school districts from reducing the salaries of teachers, speech pathologists, librarians and counselors.

(2) Eliminate the current maximum student-to-teacher ratio of 10:1 for accelerated instruction triggered by a student's failure to perform satisfactorily on a required assessment.

(3) Repeal requirements related to integrated pest management programs, including a requirement that districts must use the least toxic methods available to control pests, rodents, insects and weeds.

(4) Provide that the commissioner not limit the number of electronic courses a student may take through the state virtual school network as long as the student is eligible.

(5) Remove the requirement for additional publication, notification or meeting in the event a school district tax rate decreases after the initial publication of the notice.

Both bills were left pending in committee, but senators were overall amenable to providing local school districts with the flexibility and autonomy to make the best fiscal decisions for their own districts, especially in light of the massive state budget shortfall.

House Pub Ed Works Through Bills

The House Public Education Committee met today to discuss a variety of bills impacting special education and the University Interscholastic League (UIL). All of the bills were heard but left pending for future discussion. Bills heard in today's hearing include the following:

HB 357 (Rodriguez) - This bill would require a district to provide transition and employment services to special education students beginning at age 14. Districts or shared services arrangements would be required to designate an employee as the transition and employment services coordinator. Rep. Eddie Rodriquez (D-Austin), author of the bill, said his intent is not to create an unfunded mandate for school districts facing devastating budget cuts.

HB 370 (Hochberg) - This bill would enable a student to participate in UIL extracurricular activities and competitions after transferring or moving from one public school to another.

HB 675 (Lucio III) - This bill would require school districts to replace football helmets after sixteen years of use or refurbish them if they are ten years or older.

HB 677 (Lucio III) - This bill would require a student athlete who is currently required to receive a physical exam to also receive a cognitive-linguistic assessment performed by a licensed health care professional before being allowed to participate in the activity. If a student sustains a concussion, the student must obtain a cognitive-linguistic assessment before being allowed to resume participating in or practicing for the activity.

HB 861 (Patrick, Diane) - This bill would add special education representation to the state continuing advisory committee for special education services.

HB 1189 (Callegari) - This bill addresses vendor contracts and would require a school district to consider where a company is located before awarding a contract.

HB 1286 (Howard, Donna) - This bill would require the UIL to develop a fiscal note on proposed changes to UIL rules.

The House Public Education Committee will meet again next Tuesday.

Hochberg Unveils School Finance Bills  

Representative Scott Hochberg (D-Houston) filed two bills on Tuesday outline school finance options available to the legislature for addressing the $9.8 billion public education funding shortfall using current revenue and not accessing the Rainy Day Fund.

The first bill, HB 2485 (Hochberg) would simplify school finance, but would also have the following features:

• Two Tiers, one equalization and matching rate up to $1.06, and another equalization rate after $1.06 up to $1.17;
• Eliminates target revenue and puts everyone on formula ($5.5 billion out of funding system);
• Eliminates Golden Pennies;
• Reduces the basic allotment by $235 from $4,765 to $4,530
• Eliminates dedicated funding for gifted and talented and career and technology;
• Eliminates the high school allotment;
• Changes classification of small school district to mid-sized if they are located within major metropolitan areas, presumably because consolidation is an option;
• Removes 92-93 hold-harmless;
• Increases Compensatory Education Weight from .20 to .22, and also slightly increases rate for bilingual;
• Current year rather than prior year values will be used;
• 100% equalized bill, no rich districts and no poor districts; and
• Legislators can add on in the future, while keeping districts relatively equal to each other.

Rep.  Hochberg noted that this is a bill that he would not vote for in its current form, but if there is to be no other revenue, it is a fair way to lean on those that have been advantaged by the current system and to avoid undue harm to those who have suffered under the current system.  He hopes that this bill is a starting point.

The second bill, HB 2484 (Hochberg), would allow the commissioner of education to raise the compression rate to let school districts have a vote to raise local revenue to fully fund schools if the state fails to supply enough funds to hold schools harmless according to 2006 school finance legislation. 

Under this bill, school districts would have the authority to raise tax rates once the compression rate is determined.  In addition, Hochberg filed a constitutional amendment with this bill that would raise the homestead exemption from $15,000 to $45,000 to give homeowners some protection from the property tax increases that would occur.

Senators Consider Method For Reducing Education Funding    

The Senate Finance Subcommittee on Public Education Funding continued its school finance discussion on Monday, taking testimony on yet another option to reduce education funding.

John McGeady, Legislative Budget Board (LBB) manager, presented a fourth option for reducing spending with the goal of saving $2 billion a year from current school finance formulas while combining certain elements of some previously reviewed models.  In particular, the new model has an elements similar to those found in: 

• Model 3 where a proportional reduction of target revenue occurs so that higher target revenue districts receive higher reductions; and
• Model 2 wherein there was a broad based reduction across districts.

McGeady also referred to this model as a "hybrid model" that consists of a three-quarter reduction in target revenue (about $1.45 billion annually in savings), and a one-quarter reduction of formula funding.  However, the formula portion of this hybrid model was structured so that: 

• salary increases for employees (also referred to as "supplement conversion") who were not on the minimum salary schedule that were granted in 2006 were eliminated (about $130 million in savings annually, $500 for full-time, and $250 for half-time employees);
• the adjusted basic allotment for the regular program is changed from 1 to 0.985. This has the effect of changing a district's WADA.  This will also effect on revenue generated in the enrichment tier because this model changes WADA ( about $350 million in savings annually); and
• it includes savings related to charter school formulas (about $85 million annually). 

Senator Kel Seliger (R-Amarillo) wondered if the committee was defeating the whole object of the exercise if they were reducing target revenue to return schools to formulas while simultaneously reducing formulas.  He thought that the legislature would increase inequity by this process. 

McGeady agreed that the hybrid model would not return as many districts to the formulas as other models because cuts were being applied so broadly.  He also noted that the model would not eliminate target revenue by 2016.  Senator Florence Shapiro (R-Plano) thought that the committee should attempt to eliminate the target revenue system by 2016.  She tasked the LBB and Texas Education Agency to develop a model that eliminates target revenue both in 2015 and 2016 for both the hybrid model and Model 3. 

Senator Eddie Lucio (D-Brownsville) asked if it was fair to cut lower-revenue districts as proposed in the hybrid model. Senator Dan Patrick (R-Houston) said that his superintendents were willing to give up funding, but were upset that some districts were asked under other models to give up nothing.  Sen. Shapiro said that she was having the same conversations with her districts and that every district should have some "skin in the game" given the current economic conditions.

Sen. Seliger challenged the committee to determine the goal of this process -- what the plan should look like and how it will impact local tax effort.  Sen. Shapiro answered that one goal should be the elimination of target revenue and another should be to look at weights and allotments. She added that a select committee was tasked with looking into weights and allotments over the interim. The select committee could not come to any conclusions except that the weights and allotments system "crashed and burned," leaving legislators to work toward provide schools with what they need rather than adjusting weights and allotments to reflect reality.

The Senate Finance Subcommittee on Public Education Funding will meet again Wednesday, March 9, and Thursday, March 10, at 9 a.m. 

Excerpted from TASB Legislative Update

March 8, 2011