Opinion: Where Did the Money Go?

More than $5 billion in federal funds intended to help our students recover from the pandemic were diverted, and this diversion has mostly gone unnoticed. Those billions of dollars sent to the Texas Education Agency (TEA) were intended to help our students and teachers, and instead were absorbed into the state coffers to be spent on other things.

This is not the first time TEA has returned unspent funds so the legislature can reallocate them. At the end of the 2016-2017 biennium, TEA returned nearly $500 million in surplus and in the next cycle the agency returned more than $900 million. This practice shortchanges Texas children and cannot be allowed to continue.

TEA acknowledges COVID has made remediation programs necessary. Some students thrived in virtual classrooms, but many did not. Our students need extra support through tutoring or lower student-to-teacher ratios to make up for lost ground. To respond to this crisis, the federal government sent help in the form of $19.2 billion. But a significant chunk of those dollars was held back as "surplus," never going to the schools for which it was intended.

The main variable that influences state funding for a school district is its average daily attendance, and COVID has wreaked havoc with attendance. Some students have stayed home out of health concerns, while others have left the public schools altogether, choosing to attend private school, switch to home schooling, or even drop out entirely. To minimize the impact of declining attendance on school districts, TEA has agreed to a "hold harmless" policy over the past two years, pledging to fund districts at the same rates as more normal years. But the agency has not yet made that commitment for the current school year. If it chooses to fund districts at less than the full amount, a surplus could again be absorbed back into the general fund to be used for other purposes. In order to meet their budgets, schools may have to dig into their reserve funds or face teacher layoffs. The end result would be the state failing to live up to its responsibility to Texas schoolchildren and their families.

A more long-term problem relating to inadequate state education funding is the reliance on property taxes. We have no mechanism to balance the portion coming from the state against the portion coming from individual districts' property taxes. Under the school funding formula, the state makes up the difference between what the district raises through taxes and the full amount to which the district is entitled. As property values have increased, school districts have been collecting more in property taxes. Consequently, the state contribution has decreased. Thus the amount required to meet state obligations can be less than the amount that the Legislature appropriates for that purpose. In that case, TEA declares a surplus and the money gets sent back into the general revenue fund.

These are not intractable problems. Potential solutions include:

1) Require TEA to distribute any "surplus" to school districts or return it to property taxpayers.

2) Require the state to share equally in school funding, limiting the portion from local property taxpayers to no more than 50%.

3) Simplify funding formulas and minimize reliance on average daily attendance.

We can do this!

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Representative Vikki Goodwin represents Texas House District 47 in western and far south Travis County. She is a small business owner and a real estate broker. After graduating from the University of Texas with a BBA – and the LBJ School of Public Affairs with a master’s degree – Vikki remained in Austin and raised her children. Through her volunteer work, Vikki was inspired to advocate for public schools in the Texas Legislature and has done so consistently as a member of the Texas State House.

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