By Shelley Kofler, KERA News
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-922998.mp3
Dallas, TX – Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott is blaming politics for the federal government's withholding $830 million education dollars earmarked for Texas. KERA's Shelley Kofler has more on the latest funding skirmish between the Perry administration and Washington, and the big impact it could have on schools.
The money was made available when Congress passed a jobs bill with funding for teachers, counselors and other educators. The millions earmarked for Texas would be enough to pay the salaries of an estimated 14,500 school employees.
But to collect the money Texas alone has to meet certain requirements added to legislation by Congressman Lloyd Doggett, a Democrat from Austin. Texas must agree to spend the money on its stated purpose, education. And Texas must promise not to cut certain state school spending for the next three years.
Whether Texas can legally make that promise is a point of contention.
Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott, appointed by Governor Perry, claims the requirement violates the Texas Constitution.
Scott: What they asked us to do, they asked the Governor to guarantee the legislative branch would fund a program at a particular level. Even the legislative branch under our constitution cannot bind a future legislature.
Congressman Doggett says that's not so, that Texas needs only file an application with assurances like those made for stimulus money.
Last month on the floor of the U.S. House Doggett said Governor Perry was the reason he was singling out Texas with the special requirements.
Doggett in August: It (Texas) was singled out by a governor who grabbed $3.2 billion dollars in federal aid to education to bailout a mismanaged state government. That's the bailout that occurred. It occurred last year in the state of Texas. We didn't send that federal aid for education to Texas to plug a mismanaged state budget. We sent it to help our school children.
Perry's office has blasted Doggett for election year politics. In an interview with KERA, Education Commissioner Scott sounded a lot like his boss, the Governor, as he accused federal officials of punishing Texas for not adopting federal standards.
Scott: I think there is some political element to this and I think Washington has placed a target on Texas. You know we said no to national curriculum standards. We said no to a national testing system. We said no thanks on the race to the top program. It's not right for us. It would cost us $3 billion extra dollars just to try to get $700 million. I think that there's a little retaliation going on.
Scott says he's also disagrees with another Texas-only provision that requires the money here be distributed under federal Title I guidelines instead of state guidelines. Using federal guidelines would most benefit urban districts with a large number of poor students while suburban and rural districts would receive less.
Nonetheless, Scott says he's still talking with federal education officials. He says they may be willing to set aside Texas's share of the money until after the legislature meets and irons out differences next year.