The legislative text of the negotiated FY 2011 budget compromise was released this morning as H.R. 1473, The Department of Defense and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011. According to the Texas Office of State – Federal Relations, included in the legislation is a possible repeal of the Texas-specific requirements on federal education funds that were enacted as part of the Education Jobs and Medicaid Assistance Act (PL 111-226). Specifically, Section 1861 of H.R. 1473 strikes paragraph (11) of Section 101 of Public Law 111–226 (124 Stat. 2389).
The battle began last summer when Doggett and other House Democrats supported an amendment to the EduJobs bill that allocated $10 billion in federal money for education.
The “Save Our Schools” amendment from U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, was aimed at prohibiting Texas from using federal dollars to replace state funding of schools. Doggett has said the amendment was meant to protect schools because Perry and state lawmakers used $3.25 billion in federal stimulus money meant for education to supplant state funding for schools in 2009.
The amendment stipulated that Texas couldn’t use its $830 million portion of the money to supplant rather than supplement education funding unless Governor Rick Perry would guarantee education funding levels would not decrease. Perry said he couldn’t commit the Legislature to certain funding levels and the US Department of Education denied Texas’ application for the money.
It has been reported that the currently proposed federal budget compromise will allow an estimated $830 million in federal education funds to be released to Texas. However, an analysis of the federal language is necessary to determine the implications of all federal requirements and timelines.
The House of Representatives and Senate will consider H.R. 1473 later this week, ahead of the expiration of federal funding authority on Friday, April 15.