Grading Texas

Remember all the taxpayer money that the governor and the legislative majority left in the Rainy Day Fund while slashing $5.4 billion from the public schools in the current two-year budget? Well, that Rainy Day sum will total at least $8.1 billion by the end of the budget period, analysts told the Legislative Budget Board today.

That is enough money to close a $4.7 billion hole in the Medicaid program, repay school districts about $2.5 billion for the upcoming school year AND have Rainy Day money left over for other needs. Additionally, an improving economy is boosting state general revenue by $5 billion more than the comptroller forecast when the current budget was written.

Months ago, TSTA urged the governor to call the Legislature into special session to appropriate $2.5 billion from the Rainy Day Fund to avoid cuts for the 2012-13 school year, which begins later this month. But the governor has refused, the fund continues to grow and school districts continue to cut jobs and reduce programs – or, in some cases, prepare to ask local voters to pay higher property taxes.

It doesn’t make much sense, except in a selfish, anti-public education political way.

State Sen. Dan Patrick of Houston, who supported Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst’s unsuccessful campaign against tea party favorite Ted Cruz for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination, is moving quickly to regain what popularity his Dewhurst endorsement may have cost him with the ultra-right. Patrick is quoted in today’s Austin American-Statesman as saying the state Senate will move at “warp speed” next year to pass an ultra-conservative agenda.

Unfortunately, Patrick’s optimism is fueled by the likely addition of four new conservative senators to the Legislature’s upper chamber. They include right-winger Donna Campbell, who unseated the more-moderate Jeff Wentworth of San Antonio in Tuesday’s GOP runoff. Campbell won the support of tea party-types and the financial backing of Texans for Lawsuit Reform members, who will sacrifice just about anything, including quality public schools, to elect another legislator to continue their assault on consumers’ access to the courthouse.

Campbell has a Democratic opponent, John Courage, but the district is heavily Republican.

As I have noted frequently and recently, elections have consequences. And, barring the restoration of some political sanity in the general election, the consequences of this year’s primary races may be even deeper budget cuts to public education and more steps toward turning public schools into profit centers for education privateers. Patrick may very well end up as chairman – ugh — of the Senate Education Committee.

Warp speed? What about warped policies? The prospect of enacting warped policies at warp speed is, indeed, scary.

http://www.statesman.com/news/texas-politics/many-expect-dewhurst-senate-to-veer-further-right-2426361.html

Whether they like it or not, suburban Austin voters in Williamson County are about to be reminded there is no such thing as a free lunch. This Republican-dominated county voted overwhelmingly (almost 59 percent) to re-elect Gov. Rick Perry two years ago, presumably because most voters liked his conservative, anti-tax record and rhetoric. The county also voted for Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst by a wide margin and elected two Republican state representatives, Charles Schwertner and Larry Gonzales.

True to form, Perry demanded deep cuts in the public education budget. The legislative majority, including Schwertner and Gonzales, obeyed and slashed $5.4 billion from public school funding, while leaving more than $7 billion unspent in the Rainy Day Fund. Dewhurst guided the budget through the Senate by engineering a parliamentary maneuver to overpower opposition.

Consequently, school districts throughout Texas, including Williamson County, have responded by laying off teachers, cramming children into overcrowded classrooms and, in some cases, even closing schools. Hutto ISD in Williamson County decided to close one elementary school this summer.

Perry, Dewhurst, Schwertner, Gonzales and others brag about holding the line on state taxes, but they have simply passed the buck. To avoid even deeper cuts in educational services, many school districts have been asking local voters for property tax increases, and Williamson County is no exception.

Voters in Hutto ISD rejected a local tax increase last year, but budget-strapped school trustees are trying again. They have scheduled a Sept. 1 election to raise school maintenance taxes by 13 cents per $100 valuation, twice the increase they sought last year. If this election also fails, other cuts to Hutto schools will be looming.

Other Williamson County districts – including Georgetown, Taylor and Florence — also are considering tax elections, as reported in the story linked below.

No, folks, there is no such thing as a free lunch. But elections do have consequences.

http://www.statesman.com/news/local/more-school-districts-are-considering-tax-elections-2425078.html

Even as many low- and middle-income students struggle to enroll or stay in college this fall, state administrators are signaling that the under-funded pool of state financial aid won’t get much better any time soon.

The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board has asked the Legislature, when it meets next year, to appropriate $580.8 million for Texas Grants, the state’s main financial aid program for low-income students, over the 2013-14 and 2014-15 school years. Granted, that would be a $21.2 million increase over the current two-year budget period, but it would still fall about $800 million short of providing what is considered full funding for the program, $1.4 billion. And, the $21.2 million increase would come from transferring money from other grant and loan programs – in other words, by shorting other students. The result is inevitable. Some bright Texas high school students will be denied the opportunity to continue their education in the fall following their graduation.

The Texas economy is improving, but the political will of the state leadership in Austin remains stingy toward education, health care and other public services that would keep Texas moving forward. Even as financial aid remains extremely tight, tuition continues to increase at many universities to make up for cuts in university appropriations. And state agencies are under orders to submit hold-the-line appropriations requests to legislative budget-writers.

Meanwhile, the Coordinating Board is nearing a 2015 deadline for its Closing the Gaps program. The goal is 1.6 million in enrollment at all public and private colleges in Texas. Enrollment, according to the Austin American-Statesman story linked below, had reached 1.5 million last fall, but it was very uneven among demographic groups.

Hispanic men had the lowest enrollment rate, 3.8 percent, well below the 5.7 percent goal for each group. That is particularly problematic because this group is one of the fastest growing in Texas and includes a high proportion of young people in need of financial aid.

“We’ve got to keep our foot on the accelerator,” said Coordinating Board Chairman Fred W. Heldenfels IV.

He may think his foot is on the accelerator, but the transmission knob is stuck in “reverse.”

http://www.statesman.com/news/local/states-financial-aid-program-to-fall-well-short-2423009.html