The Texas State Supreme Court ruling that the school funding system met the “minimum constitutional requirements,” has caused insiders to ponder what the future holds for public school funding in Texas. Thompson & Horton attorneys wrote in their analysis to clients, “The decision represents a marked departure in the Court’s willingness to enforce and give substance to the Constitution’s guarantees.” Furthermore, that “the Court was extremely deferential to the Legislature’s policy decisions – regarding the goals of the education system, the means to achieving those goals, and how to measure whether the system is meeting those goals.” In light of legislative deference, many eyes are now turned towards legislative discussion about school funding for the 85th Session.
House Speaker Joe Straus signaled his desire to focus on the school finance system when during the first week of June, Straus released interim charges to further review school finance. Both the House Committee on Appropriations and the Committee on Public Education were charged with reviewing Additional State Aid for Tax Relief (ASATR) and the subject of recapture, generally known as “Robin Hood”. They also build on Speaker Straus’ earlier calls for the Public Education Committee to study the Cost of Education Index and school districts’ facility needs.
As Straus pointed out in his press release, the continuing recapture increases are why he asked lawmakers to recommend ways to reverse the increasing reliance on recapture payments to fund public education statewide.
According to the Texas Education Agency (TEA), in 1994, the first year of the program, 34 school districts paid just over $127M into recapture. In 2015 those numbers had grown to 243 school districts with just under $1.5 billion recaptured. The number of school districts is expected to grow in 2016 and it has been said that the estimated amount of recapture could be over $2 billion if property values continue to grow.
The increase in recapture will continue to be a windfall to state General Revenue and without legislative intervention, Texas will continue to live off the property tax value increases that would have gone to public schools.