Early end to school finance law?
Bill would repeal revenue sharing next year if alternative OK'd
AUSTIN – House sponsors of a bill to repeal the state's share-the-wealth school-finance law will seek to move up the deadline for change to September 2004 – but also will likely allow the system to remain if no alternative is passed by the deadline.
Rep.
Dan Branch, R-Dallas, a member of the House Public Education and Appropriations
committees, said Friday that he will offer an amendment that would set
Key
Republican House members are backing the amendment, according to Mr. Branch,
who will propose it when the legislation comes before the full House within the
next few weeks. The measure by Rep. Kent Grusendorf,
R-Arlington, has already been approved by the Public Education Committee.
Mr. Branch said the push to set
a deadline for next year instead of the following year is based on assurances
from Gov. Rick Perry that he will call a special session on school finance in
the next year.
"The
governor has reaffirmed his desire to call a special session in the fall or
next spring to deal with the issue and any tax restructuring that goes with
it," the
"That time frame makes the most sense. It will allow the Legislature to focus on school finance while there is pressure to fix the system."
At the same time, he added, House leaders are sensitive to the concerns of rural Republican members who don't want the law automatically repealed by a certain date regardless of what legislators do.
Many rural school districts benefit from the law, which requires high-wealth districts to share their property-tax revenues with lower-wealth districts. Schools are mostly funded with state aid and local property taxes.
During Wednesday's House debate on the new state budget, some of those Republicans threatened to join Democrats on a key vote over a $1.2 billion appropriation for schools unless GOP leaders agreed to back away from the drop-dead date.
Among them was Rep. Rick Hardcastle, R-Vernon, who said GOP leaders finally agreed to accept a change to the Grusendorf bill that preserves the current school-funding law if legislators don't pass a new system by the 2004 deadline.
"It's only reasonable that we have a safety net," Mr. Branch said. "There's nothing wrong with having some language that says if we have an impasse, there will still be a funding system for schools."
An association of property-poor school districts indicated Friday that it might ease its strong opposition to the Grusendorf bill if it eliminates automatic repeal of the existing law.
"Our concern with the drop-dead date was that something worse than the
current funding system would be presented to the Legislature in a take-it-or-leave-it
vote," said Wayne Pierce of the
"Making this change would send a message that the Legislature is taking this issue seriously and intends to do something – but not by having a train wreck as the original bill proposed," he said, adding he still wants to see how the bill is amended.
"This would provide a safety net to protect our public school system and our schoolchildren."
Besides setting a deadline to repeal the school-finance law, Mr. Grusendorf's bill also calls for giving all school districts – regardless of property wealth – an extra $300 per student over the next two years. The two-year budget passed by the House includes $1.2 billion in new money to provide the supplements.
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