Parents and teachers from the Austin Independent School District urged legislators to increase state funding for schools, pointing out many school districts have insufficient funds to operate, during a Texas House Public Education Committee hearing Monday.
"Students do not experience funding formulas, they experience instability," AISD teacher Taylor Carriker-Cavin said. "They experience the instability when budgets remain in question year after year after year."
The committee hearing focused on House Bill 2 that passed last legislative session and designated more than $8 million to Texas public schools. The bill included $4.2 billion for teacher raises, focusing on experienced teachers and increasing the Teacher Incentive Allotment, which gives some teachers additional pay based on their performance.
Carriker-Cavin said that while HB 2 put money towards public education it did not significantly increase the basic allotment, or how much districts receive for each student enrolled. HB 2 included an increase of $55 to the per-student basic allotment, but advocates say that's far from the amount needed to keep up with inflation.
Some committee members questioned Texas Education Agency officials on whether the current funding formulas are working as they intended when HB 2 passed, pointing out there may be "unintended consequences." Some school districts are set to receive less funds that what was projected, legislators said.
Many school districts in Texas are facing budget deficits for next school year, including Austin ISD's projected $181 million budget shortfall. Districts across the state have also closed or announced closures of around 100 schools in the last three years.
Eric Ramos, an AISD teacher, said he wishes the state would find different ways of increasing funding for all districts.
"We're not seeing, in my opinion, a good faith effort to increase funding for public schools," he said. "I get it if they were in a budget crunch, but we're not. And even if we were, education is the last thing that we need to be nitpicky with."
AISD has announced cuts to teachers and staff as a measure to balance next year's budget.
Traci Dunlap, a pre-K AISD teacher, said the lack of public funds is harming communities. She said Texas is not able to retain teachers because educators are tired of being "demonized."
Over the last few years, AISD has been under investigation for multiple topics, including celebrating Pride Week, student walkouts and allegedly teaching critical race theory.
"I'm tired of hearing that I'm indoctrinating children in some radical leftist agenda," Dunlap said. "I'm tired of culture wars, book bans, the Ten Commandments being posted in classrooms. All of those things are contributing to teachers being just fed up. At the end of the day, when you start to feel like you're constantly under attack and undervalued, it doesn't matter how much money you throw at that person's salary."
Officials from different school districts said funding formulas are not applied consistently across the state. Paul Neuhoff, chief financial officer for Navarro ISD south of San Marcos, said that for the last three years, his school district has had to reach out to state officials to make sure they receive the appropriate funding.
"Some districts like ours saw a decrease, and it was in how those numbers were represented and nobody had informed us that there was gonna be this kind of a massive change in what those numbers looked like," Neuhoff said.
Neuhoff said his district has seen a significant increase in the cost of utilities, and state funding has not kept up. Officials from other districts said the teacher incentives provided by HB 2 do not apply to other staff, including librarians or school nurses. District officials said these staff members feel undervalued.
Last year, the Legislature also approved changes to how special education is funded. HB 2 stipulates that each district will receive $1,000 for each evaluation it provides to determine if a student is eligible for special education. Educators said evaluations can cost between $1,000 to $5,000, and reevaluations are not included.
On Monday, some House members said the state's expectations of special education are unrealistic, raising concerns about how much of districts' budgets go toward keeping up with TEA's demands.
Jessica Levesque, an AISD parent, told KUT News that it is frustrating to know that the state has more money for education that is not being invested in schools. She said it is infuriating, considering how many school districts are facing budget deficits.
"It's not a mismanagement of funds in one district when you have districts across the state that are facing deficits. Districts across the states that are losing teachers that are having to fire teachers," Levesque said. "We need to do better. We should do better, it's for our kids, it's the future of Texas."
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