LBB Budget Hearing: Texas Education Agency – September 30, 2022

On September 30 the Texas Education Agency and Windham School District presented their Legislative Appropriations Request at a joint budget hearing.

 

This report is intended to give you an overview and highlight of the discussions on the various topics taken up. It is not a verbatim transcript of the discussions but is based upon what was audible or understandable to the observer and the desire to get details out as quickly as possible with few errors or omissions.

 

Mike Morath, Commissioner of TEA

• Four strategic priorities with 6 interrelated key actions to help draw progress
• The legislative appropriation request is based on strategic focus
• Majority of money that is in the TEA’s portion of the bill pattern is pass through funds we distribute to school systems
• There is complication in analyzing our budget request due to the huge amount of one-time funds the federal government has given in the past 2 years
• The base request for our LAR are estimates for fully fund current law in public education
• The instruction material allotment received a one-time adjustment in the last legislative session due to the huge federal resources in response to COVID.
• They have requested the instruction material budget to be funded at normal levels of $1.2b
• Key drivers of the formula for their budget is ADA and property values
• Reduction in general revenue does not mean a reduction in budget
• Base budget includes funds for the foundation school program
• Reappropriated the special education funds to keep up with obligations under IDEA given issues with maintenance of financial support
• The funding targets request the special education services program to meet a significant demand that exceeds current levels of funding
• HB 4545, ensuring students don’t fall behind has funds that has been sustained in the base request
• $30m allocated for ongoing support for learning acceleration efforts
• TEA has administrated the federal funding and prioritize their focus on getting results, passing out grants with strong technical assistance ensures strong execution
• The IMA has been restored to normal levels because it’s in rider 8
• PTEC existed as 3 separate riders, we recommend they be consolidated with a funding floor in the rider
  • This will allow them to meet the demand
• Asking for UB authority with regard to the teacher incentive allotment
• Asking for further clarification related to the use of the DCS for their funding
• 6 exceptional items with 3 being internally focused on the agencies, and 3 externally focused on the LEAs
• The permanent school fund is now becoming its own entity and there is now a funding hole created in the agencies budget due to separation
• The funding for the agency’s administrative budget is compromised of 4 items: general revenue, permanent school fund, recurring federal funds, one time infusion of federal funds
• In the new biennium, the one-time federal funds will expire but the PSF license is completely removed
• Originally projected a $8m need but have gotten that down to a necessity need of $5.5m
• Strategic compensation is needed to become the best version of ourselves as a agency and talent management practices
• It is harder and harder to hire/retain workers at the current salaries we can afford, so we are asking for $5m a year to compensate for salaries
• IT work is not regularly fully funded yet we do what the legislative asks of us, but we do that by building up a lot of debt creating risk in our applications
  • Asking for additional funds to fill that void, the amount will get them out of debt for 4-5 years
• Data privacy funds are needed for the purpose of preventing confidential student information being leaked
• We do not have the exact numbers, but we are requesting funds to support and retain teachers
• The school safety ask is significant and despite the lack of exact numbers, we will be asking for funds for Governor Abbotts teacher vacancy test
• Tedd Holladay, Legislative Budget Board – Can you talk about HB 1525 that contained a substantial amount of funding and its impact, legislation, and nature of the funding?
  • The funding contained by HB 1525 provided direction on all SR2 and SR3 projects
  • Provided appropriations to state funds
  • The bill was around $17m
  • There was a creation of a TCLAS (Texas Covid Acceleration supports initiative) and included tutoring supports, strategic planning supports, investments in instructional materials, teacher pipelines, redesign schools’ calendar, and significant launch in PTEK
  • T-class has had a significant impact on both teachers and students and improved literacy/learning rates show that
  • Accelerated learning had increased percentages in literacy, reading, and math
  • We were at 60 P-TECH schools to 235 P-TECH schools
  • The strategic planning work is a force multiplier and allowed districts to accelerate in all areas at once
  • The sum of money is largely a one-time grant
• Tedd Holladay, Legislative Budget Board – Could you share about the two placeholder exceptional items?
  • School safety is divided into three buckets: one-time facility and safety practice support, ongoing funding to support safety initiatives, and state support for school districts
  • Making improvements in preparation quality is particularly important in keeping a good retention
  • There is a presentation from the chair of the teacher vacancy test that provides a synopsis of what the vacancy test force was examining

 

Kristina Hartman, Superintendent of the Windham School District

• The first component of our appropriations request is a teacher salary increase
• Our board offered a 10% increase for staff in April of this year
• We were able to make this change effective on September 1^st 2022
• Requesting continued funding for the 10% increase in the teachers’ salaries
• We are still paying below the average of public-school teachers, but are competitive in retention and assisting our recruitment efforts
• Second request is related to services for students in restrictive housing
• We have taught these students through packets but piloted to secure program chairs so that they can have face to face instruction
• This pilot was very successful and we are requesting continued funding and expansion so that when those students join back into the community they have had some form of intervention

 

Robert O’banion – Chief Financial Officer and Director of Operations for Windham School District

• Three remaining components of our exceptional items, one being the expansion of our Career and Technical Education Program
• We want to expand this program across four campuses costing $1.8m
• The next item is our family literacy program costing $960,000 dollars
• This program is an interactive one where the incarcerated parent can become more engaged and participate in their child’s education
• The last item is our work force coordinator program costing a little more than $744,000, for 6 additional positions to assist in occupational licensing
• The total request for our 5 exceptional items is $10.3m
• Tedd Holladay, Legislative Budget Board – The teacher salary increase is not an additional 10%, but to just continue it?
  • Yes that is correct, we are requesting to receive funding to continue the 10% increase
• Sydni Gaitan, Governor’s Office – On the career and technical expansion, you listed off a couple areas where it applied but what were they again?
  • Expansion would be in areas of truck driving, urban farming, and culinary arts

 

Madison Yandell, Education Policy Advisor at Texas 2036

• Asking appropriate to look at three areas when looking at budget considerations
• The first is high quality instructional materials
• Texas schools have 66.3% of SR funds left to spend and we concluded a poll that showed that majority of voters wanted the surplus of money to be used for public education
• Recent research showed that grades in the class are not aligning with those on standardized tests, so we encourage the improvement of school curriculum
• With higher quality materials teachers can close learning gaps more quickly
• The second item is improved CCMR outcomes data
• We need to push forward to improve outcomes across the educational pipeline
• We encourage the legislature to provide $250,000 for the TEA to analyze the post-secondary outcome for each college career indicator
• This will drive long term success as we can fund higher indicators and improve outcomes for the most struggling students
• Support sustaining accelerated learning

 

Gina Standard, Director of Member Relations and Outreach for TPEA

• State employee salaries has been an issue across the board, there has been a 27% decrease in purchasing power since 2014 so we ask that you strongly consider this budget request and help reduce state agency turnover

 

Shannon Hoffman, Policy Officer at the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health

• According to this LARTEA, the agency was appropriated $0 for mental health in 2022-2023
• They will no longer have funding for the next biennium
• The Hagg Foundation recommends that Texas can support its schools through flexible funding for school districts
• Children’s mental health remains a concern for families and communities in Texas especially after losses in Uvalde
• Learning is fostered in an environment where students and teachers feel safe, supported, and challenged
• Districts really need these funds so they are alleviated from the challenging situations of mental health and safety

 

Josette Saxton, Director of Texans Care for Children

• We were disappointed to not see any request related to the significant mental health concerns
• Creating an allotment where schools can directly receive funding allows schools to act further upstream to help prevent problems from emerging
• If children are struggling mentally, then how can a child focus on learning?
• The numbers are proof of this so the more we can help schools to provide support and services to prevent mental health concerns the better we off we will be now and in the future