State funding cuts to cost Tarrant schools $260 million

By Dave Montgomery and Eva-Marie Ayala

dmontgomery@star-telegram.com, eayala@star-telegram.com

AUSTIN -- School districts in Tarrant County would lose $260 million over the next two years under a new school finance plan, according to a district-by-district breakdown released Saturday by legislative leaders.

The Fort Worth district would take the hardest hit in Tarrant County, losing nearly $40 million over the next two years. Arlington and Keller would each lose about $28.9 million.

Lawmakers are scheduled to vote on the education package today -- one day before the session adjourns. The outcome is hard to predict because a backlash from school officials back home could jeopardize passage. The finance package is essential to carrying out a $4 billion reduction in education funding over the next four years.

The exact amount of cuts that each of the state's 1,030 districts will have to absorb under the plan was circulated to Senate and House members Saturday, giving lawmakers their first opportunity to gauge the impact on schools in their districts.

A compromise $172.3 billion budget to run state government over the next two years calls for a reduction of $4 billion in state funding to school districts, but lawmakers also need to change the school finance law to distribute the funds.

While the cuts are deep, they are not as drastic as initial estimates earlier this year, when the state was facing nearly $10 billion in reductions to education. Local officials said they can breathe a bit easier but hard decisions are still on the way as they finalize their budgets this summer.

"Compared to what we were looking at in January, that's a lot better," said Hank Johnson, Fort Worth's chief financial officer.

His district was anticipating about $80 million in cuts initially. Fort Worth officials cut various programs and plan to lay off about 160 people as a result of the expected state cuts.

Arlington district officials plan to cut 340 to 630 jobs to help absorb some of the state's funding cuts. This month a citizens advisory committee recommended calling an election to ask district voters to increase the tax rate to raise about $15 million for schools.

Tarrant County lawmakers split along party lines in reacting to the plan.

"This is a significant improvement from where we started," said Rep. Kelly Hancock, R-North Richland Hills. "I think the local districts will be very pleased at where we've come since the beginning."

Officials 'panicked'

But Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, said local school officials are "all panicked over the meager investment this budget makes in our public schools."

"Cutting $4 billion in state funding for public education is wrong and will result in thousands of educator job losses, overcrowded classrooms and put an end to state-funded prekindergarten programs," Davis said.

Legislative leaders approved the finance package late Friday after days of negotiations between the two chambers.

The plan, which strikes a middle ground from competing proposals by the House and Senate, would reduce funding by $2 billion each year of the 2012-13 biennium.

But the analysis circulated to lawmakers softened the cuts to districts in 2012 by including $830 million in federal funds that the state received recently to train and rehire teachers.

The federal "Edujobs" money, which Congress approved as part of President Barack Obama's Education Jobs Fund, had been held up in a dispute between Texas Republican leaders and Texas Democrats in Congress.

Republicans eventually secured the money by repealing the Doggett Amendment, a 2010 provision that had blocked Texas from receiving it.

Three leading Democrats in the House, in a letter to House Speaker Joe Straus, said the Edujobs money is already on its way to individual districts from the Texas Education Agency and should not be calculated as part of the school finance package.

The lawmakers -- Reps. Garnet Coleman of Houston, Sylvester Turner of Houston and Pete Gallego of Alpine -- called on the Legislative Budget Board to provide a revised analysis without the Edujobs money "to more accurately reflect the impact" on local districts.

School districts will receive straight across-the-board cuts in 2012. The second-year reductions are tied to a more complex restructuring of the school finance system designed to eliminate long-term inequities between districts.

The legislative plan includes establishing a joint committee to address school finance before the next session of the Legislature.

Structural problems

School officials across the state have said Texas must fix the $10 billion structural deficit that was created in 2006 when a new business tax failed to raise the money schools lost when local property taxes were cut at that time.

Legislators also devised a target revenue system that set each district at a different per-pupil funding level, which many districts oppose. The school finance plan released Friday aims to repeal that system by 2018.

"They have got to fix the structural problem of the current system and the equity issues," said Cindy Powell, Arlington's associate superintendent of finance. "If they don't ... then they're going to keep battling this year after year and session after session."

Northwest Superintendent Karen Rue said property-wealthy districts appear to be losing more money the second year than others.

While Rue said she understands, more needs to be done to bring equity to schools across the state to avoid such drastic differences, she said. Northwest is expected to lose $22.5 million over the next two years.

"Legislators allowed the state to have enough reductions from public education to do what they needed to do for balancing the state budget and not totally cripple schools in the process," Rue said. "I think they did the best they could, but it's going to hurt. No doubt."

Rep. Vicki Truitt, R-Keller, said late Saturday that she is still trying to reach all the school districts in her legislative district to see how they feel about the current proposal.

She said local districts fare better under this proposal than under the first funding plan proposed, but they would have come out better under a separate plan by Rep. Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands.

"This is a compromise between the House and Senate," she said. "It's better than the original proposal."

Rep. Mark Shelton, R-Fort Worth, said reductions for schools in his area range from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent, which, he said, "is much better than other districts around the state."

Staff writer Anna M. Tinsley contributed to this report.

Dave Montgomery is the Star-Telegram's Austin bureau chief. 512-476-4294

Eva-Marie Ayala, 817-390-7700

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