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Texas House Debate on School Finance Bill Off to Rocky Start

By J. Lyn Carl, GalleryWatch.com

Austin, TX – When House Speaker Tom Craddick (R-Midland) cut off the back microphone stopping Rep. Jim Dunnam (D-Waco) mid-sentence, the tone was set for debate of school finance legislation on the House floor today.

Dunnam sought to ask a question as Rep. Kent Grusendorf (R-Arlington) was laying out his HB 1, the school finance bill.

Craddick said no questions would be taken until various members of the committee had finished laying out different portions of the bill.

Dunnam finally got his chance to speak when a point of order was offered, and sustained, after one of the members' time to speak had expired.

"This is unprecedented because what's going on is unprecedented," said Dunnam. "This process is about openness and bipartisanship," he said as the bill was being laid out. He said for that to happen, there has to be an "open dialogue" and a "live microphone."

"If we're just going to allow people to talk and not answer questions and not have an exchange of ideas, then we should stick to the House rules."

That followed Grusendorf's statements regarding the bill when it was first introduced on the floor. The Arlington Republican repeated what he has said on a variety of occasions regarding public school finance. "If this was an easy chore, an easy problem to solve, it would have been solved 15 years ago."

Noting the state has gone "through rounds and rounds and rounds" of litigation relating to its school finance system, Grusendorf said it is time the state become more "pro-active before the courts deal with it."

Grusendorf described property taxes in Texas as being "too high" and said school districts are "capped and trapped" as they attempt to raise revenues to fund the state's schools. He said the major problem with the school finance system is an "over-reliance on property taxes to fund education."

"This is a difficult issue," he said. "There is no easy answer, just tough choices." He said the lack of consensus among the state's leadership on a school finance plan has made the House's job "even more difficult."

Grusendorf described efforts toward crafting a school finance program in committee as bipartisan, but added there are "still many bumps in the road." He said the House must move the process forward and send a bill to the Senate today "to continue this process."

The chair of the House Select Committee on Public School Finance called HB 1 a "first step toward a permanent solution" to the school finance crisis, "not another stop-gap, not another band-aid."

He said the funding formulas in the bill are based on student results and that the bill lowers property tax rates to $1.05 per $100 valuation - and with HJR 1 will continue to reduce property taxes in the future. He said the bill also: reinstates the $1,000 teacher health insurance pass-through; includes the governor's incentives programs and other incentives drawn up after working with local education leaders; provides for Existing Debt Allotment (EDA) roll-forward; provides new money for education; suggests "automatic inflation" relief for school districts; provides more money for special needs students such as bilingual programs and programs for at-risk students; and provides a minimum of a 2 percent increase in state funds for every school district in the state.

"It's time to move this process forward," said Grusendorf.

Debate will continue on the House floor today.