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Let's come to order. Thanks, everybody, for coming. Thank you for those of you that are participating on the web. As always, if you have questions, comments, please send those to us at School of Finance Commission at TEA.Texas.gov.

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your participation. As always, if you've got solutions, those are more welcome than problems.

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We know about the problems, but it's the solutions we're having trouble getting public

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ideas. Somebody out there's got some ideas how to fix everything, so please look for receiving

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those.

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Members, we've got, I guess, first thing we need to do is call a roll.

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We have a stand-in for our clerk.

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As you know, Hunter Thompson sent around seven months of minutes, and then went on vacation.

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This seems kind of like an unbearable deal.

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So, but where could we all roll?

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Here.

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We're not that hard.

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Where is it?

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Ellen.

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Here.

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Here.

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Conley Johnson.

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Here.

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Killian.

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Here.

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King.

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Martin.

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Prima.

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Here.

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Taylor.

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Here.

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Here.

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Williams.

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Here.

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All right.

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A couple of matters to take up before we get to the main program of the day.

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Okay, first is 100, seven months of minutes, I'm in form, I noticed on one of them I asked

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some, I'm sure all of you read them in detail, and notice the April 19th meeting, there was

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a fill in the blank which I'm told, has been said this morning, do I ever got it yet?

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It was an issue about what time we quit, always very important, I assume, what's that?

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Oh, and the binders. Okay, we used circular that because I don't carry this binder around so entertain a motion to approve the minutes they are bare bones.

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We've not tried to summarize everybody's testimony since we have that record.

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Any discussion? All in favor? Any opposed? And minutes are adopted.

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The second thing we have before we get to our main event is not that he's not a main

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event himself.

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Yes.

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Oh, thank you.

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He's right there.

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Well, that's fine.

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Okay.

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If you run across anything, obviously we can correct him later.

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There's nothing but it's not like the law of the needs and the perjions that once written

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nobody can take it back.

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I'm sure about that.

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I'm sure about that.

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I'll reconsider my motion.

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Yes, it's easy to do.

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Well, at least you guys have passage you can get in the building without going, you

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know, around the world, down the elevator, but the second thing we have is the Commissioner

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Governor of Education, Mike Murath, TA's issues there and your report just a few days

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or weeks ago and so he wanted to give us a little update of or warning or encouragement

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or whatever that's involved in so Commissioner, good to have you, thank you for being here.

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Thank you members,

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Mike Murath, Commissioner, Texas Education Agency.

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You all should have the report.

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So you should have a binder, fairly glossy for those in the audience, there's some on the back table in case you want to try to do my best, vandal white.

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What we've done is tried to publish a state of public education annual reports.

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First time that the agency has published an annual report of this nature, statutorily required to publish a biennial report on performance.

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I'm not sure if any of you have ever reviewed that, it's about this thick, very detailed.

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But the purpose here was to truly try to highlight where we are at from a current performance

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perspective, what are the major strategic initiatives that are underway, and what got us to

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this point.

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So I thought I would highlight just a couple of pages in here.

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If you look at page four of the annual report, you'll notice a bar chart that shows current

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performance indicators on a whole bunch of metrics you all have

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I've seen this in prior hearings, so I'm not going to belabor the point of the specifics. I just want to try to highlight that this is as a resource tries to synthesize the entire picture of public education, which, as you know, is a very big picture. So the page four just gives an indication of where we are from, you know, early primary kindergarten readiness, third grade reading, eighth grade reading and math. College readiness coming out of high school. College

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enrollment and post-secondary completion, which would include trade credentials as well

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as associate's and bachelor's degrees.

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And then if I could turn your attention, we'll skip all of the body and me to this.

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It is great reading.

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I would encourage you to read every word.

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I've asked my wife to do that, so I know at least one person does.

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If you turn to page 19, this sort of creates a book end for the annual report as a picture.

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So the first thing that we looked at is what are the current outcomes of the system?

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And the second thing that we're going to look at is what are the major inputs in the

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system?

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And so this is really just total spending.

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Y'all took multiple hours of testimony actually trying to delve into what is total spending

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in public education.

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So we've tried to create a synthesized picture of all in spending both on a pupil basis and

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on an overall basis.

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this, you can see there's 60 billion in total spend that occurred during the 1617 academic

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year for the five and a half million souls in Texas public schools, and then you can

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see the per capita picture, broken down by major pie slices, so there's the federal piece

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that sits atop of it, and that's driven by federal formulas and federal appropriations.

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And then the blue and the gray bars are really a function of state policy making for all

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the revenue sources that the state authorizes for local school districts, as well as central

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supports, think riders for the reading academies, for example, our budget, regular infusions

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that need to be made in order to shore up teacher compensation for the retirees.

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And so, Gray is local funding, that's primarily your property tax, blue is state funding, that's

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It's going to be, you know, predominantly sales tax, obviously, but all forms of state

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general revenue.

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And then given the interest in recapture specifically, which is treated from a state budget

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perspective as state funding, but of course comes from the locals, that's been isolated

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out individually.

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What you'll see there is that since 2013, since fiscal year 2013, there's been a steady

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per rise in per pupil funding in state and local spending in Texas.

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When we think about the biennium that we are in, and you multiply out the per pupil spending

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increases that have been authorized by the legislature with the size of the Texas student

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population, you're talking about essentially a $1 billion increase in public ed spending

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between state and local sources each year of the current biennium, which is essentially

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one billion, and then the first extra billion, plus an extra billion over top of that.

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So the current biennium, the one that we're sitting in, will have $3 billion of extra spending

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for public education as authorized by the legislature versus the biennium before it.

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So, you know, you've heard me—

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I assume those are in place and adjusted, or something like that.

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There's, well, as the, as you all know, there's, in the way the General Appropriations Act

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and the State Law works, there is a built-in, inflationary factor, and it's the tier two

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yield that's tied to Austin ISD's property values. I think that's actually a source of

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conversation today. So there's a built-in inflation factor. But these are not necessarily

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benchmarking instant inflation. If you wanted an inflation-adjusted aligned number, we

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can provide that to you. I think that's been provided before. We just didn't include

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it in the annual report because, as you all well know, information in public education

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can be overwhelming so but you know I think you all have heard me say on on many occasions

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that you know I would never say that money doesn't matter because the only people that

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I know in public education who work for free are school board members and now y'all have

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been added to that list but you know I think the question that y'all are considering as

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as a commission and in fact the recommendations that are up on the docket today, you know talk speak to is there a different way of passing out the money that is more efficient and by that for the same apples, apples total dollar spend, would it result in outcomes improvements for kids.

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That's a different conversation than whether or not there should be significant additional infusions of money for public education.

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And, of course, the legislature, the last couple of bienniums, has authorized significant

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additional infusions of resources for public education.

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The question is, is how is that money passed out? And I just really want to commend the Expenditures Group Chairman Huberty for a very thoughtful review of are there different ways to consider allocating the resources that we have that would result in outcomes improvements in public education. So excited to see the presentation today. And just very thankful for y'all's thoughtful approach.

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at, you know, regardless of what the resource pile looks like, is there a more efficient

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way of passing it out that would result in, you know, back to page 4, result in higher

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numbers on this bar chart over time.

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So I just want to thank you for your work there and appreciate the very thoughtful approach

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at putting together a very comprehensive plan that is not just another band-aid on top of

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of the system but a very comprehensive change in the way

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the school finance system could work.

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Questions?

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Senator Battencourt.

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Thank you, Chair and Mr. Chairman Morath.

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You may have come at just kind of triggered me at the very

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end of your comment.

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You said you wanted to see obviously higher numbers

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on this bar chart at the end of the day.

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As the revenue guy, I've been watching kind of a public policy

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disagreements, start to fester into a possible situation where my phone won't turn off.

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There we go.

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Kind of.

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That's right.

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Very calming ringtone.

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All right.

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You're not disturbed on that one.

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I was trying to do that before we call on it where there is a dispute between the land

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office and the SPWE and I just want to kind of run over some of the facts that I see

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at this point. We've got the school land board sending this year for the first time $600

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million to the ASF fund. And the last year it sent approximately $300 million to ASF

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fund, but additional on going from memory, $450 million. This year, a $490 million. This

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year they decided not to send money to the SPOE at all. In fact, I'm looking at a letter

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from Commissioner Bush who that I just saw this very evening or evening

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this morning and basically he is saying that he's not going to reconsider his

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vote as a member of that landlord so the practical effect as I can tell from

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this is that even though they apparently by at the sunset hearing by mother

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another question by my other colleague, Senator Watson,

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they had at least $55 more million.

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They could, a $655 million, they could ascend in total.

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They're not sending the $55 and they're bypassing SBOE.

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Now, I think the practical effect of that is,

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is less money for maybe $190 million,

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$200 million, less for instructional materials,

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for all the districts, but do you want to comment from that?

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Yeah, so in the prior biennium, I don't have my notes in front of you, but I want to say

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that the total send from GLO over to SBOE was ballpark $750 million. I might have those

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numbers slightly off, but and then this biennium, the send is 600 million. So it's a decline

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in the net amount of money sent over. And then the way the money is sent over, it can go

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either to the available school fund, which immediately goes into the ASF and all the funding

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formulas that y'all are familiar with, or it can go over into the SBOE.

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As a practical matter, what has happened when they have sent money over to the SBOE is

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the SBOE is almost universally just sent almost all of that back to the ASF with one exception.

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The SBOE can put it into the ASF or put it into the instructional materials allotment.

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And so putting all of it in the ASF means none of that money will go into the instructional

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materials allotment.

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Now, districts can only use their instructional materials allotment on instructional materials.

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They can use their M&O spending also on instructional materials.

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So, to some extent, I think we can get a little hung up on the distribution method.

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I think the big issue is the total dollars that is being distributed and it's down.

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It's down ballpark $150 million for the upcoming biennium.

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right in for the members. I've got 190. I'm just looking at a chart that

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basically was 790 million. It's going to be down to 600. It's 24% reduction or

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190 million dollars. Now, so, you know, as the revenue guy, I, you know, do have to

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question this, and I concerned about it.

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Because, because regardless of there's obviously some type of public policy are meant, you know, underlaying it, I hope. But the net result is we're going to have less money. So I questioned this decision, you know, just right off, right at the get go of this. And I don't understand why the positions are so hard and that they're exchanging, you know, letters that one side is not going to reconsider their decision.

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And because I think everybody needs to reconsider what's best for all Texas school children.

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And because if we're going to actually take a net reduction, yet we still have billions

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of dollars of cash in one fund, we need to have a real public policy discussion and explanation

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for it.

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I don't know if there's other members want to comment on it, Mr. Chairman.

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Dr. Goh.

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Yeah, there's a couple of points I want to bring up.

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I don't want to litigate this whole thing right now.

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It's probably not the purpose of our discussion today.

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but it is definitely a multi-faceted problem that we have.

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The other point that's important to bring up is when the money goes directly to the ASF,

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that money is distributed to 41s and 42s in a different manner.

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Chapter 41s receive that money differently than Chapter 42s, and about 80% of students by

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my calculations receive money as the method of Chapter 42s will not receive an increase

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in their funding on that like Chapter 41s do.

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So there's some issues there that need to be discussed with that.

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The other issue is, there's $4 billion in cash, and I think all the legislature have talked about the economic stabilization fund and how much cash is sitting in there.

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So I think there's some different ways to look at that.

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But I'll give the Lane Commissioner credit in the fact that he is not doing anything that's not within his authority.

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I think this might be a discussion for the next legislature to discuss.

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And to that point, I would point out that Chairman Behoort's and myself are meeting with Chairman Bush this week to maybe talk through some of these issues and get to a better understanding.

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You know, I've seen both sides of the argument talk to both your chairperson and talk to the commissioner about it.

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One of the things that he recommended or that we discuss is that statutorily, they're limited to the 650 bot, right? That's what was put 600 actually.

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It's 600 right so they got the other 50 they could throw over there

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But so let's say 600 which was in early 2000s

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They're in their chief investment officers that based on the returns that they're at that, you know

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They they could comfortably, you know, it could be increased so that certainly is a statutory change

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It's it's it's it's my it's a

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Torio there's a statutory limit on the amount of money they can be sent from geolotes into the ASF

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There is no statutory limit on the amount of money they can be sent out of that

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Yes, we have.

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Right.

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So they wanted to send.

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It's 300 a year.

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They wanted to send another 190 million to ask me, we could.

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I'm sorry.

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But the question becomes, you know, we've got two different endowments, which is, I mean,

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it's philosophically.

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It's a huge debate.

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You've got about 30 billion year count.

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They've got about six.

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And, you know, it's, you know, based on the information I saw on watching the sunset hearing,

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you know, it's obviously philosophical differences on who's doing a better job on their investment policy, right?

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And I think that's what we're seeing right now, but the ultimate goal is I think for us that certainly for Senator Vettancourt, you know, we're 190 less.

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And you know, we're trying to, you know, based on this presentation, we're actually talking about putting more money into the system.

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That doesn't work when we have that kind of problem.

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So, one, I'm sorry, one minor clarification, my general counsel, the 300 million is actually a constitutional issue, not strictly statutory.

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The, the additional, the 300 million map to the ASF is in the Constitution.

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So we just constitutionally change it.

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Yeah.

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Commissioner, I think the commissioner has actually already identified some additional money.

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So you testified, was it last week, that there's going to be about 3.5 billion less in state aid, or I'm sorry,

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requirement for state aid because of the increasing property value so we do

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actually have some additional revenue. I testified last week into the way the current

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formulas were so and I think that that's definitely under discussion today as

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a and then and ensure the revenue group is a matter of tax policy as to whether you

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want this gray bar to get bigger relative to the blue bar or vice-versa. Craig

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I just wanted to call that to everyone's attention.

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And so that's Dr. Killian did call it to everybody's attention.

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I'll be happy to tell you that at least one member of the revenue group is looking

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actively at freezing Robinhood because I think we've had enough evidence of that policy

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at this point in time.

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So whether I'll cut this right with reading off Robinhood, freezing Robinhood, etc., but

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I believe that's something that we have to look at.

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If I go back to my short-term 190 million dollar problem for one more question.

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With it, I guess, you know, if you're, if you're meeting with Commissioner Bush, I think it would just be a boohoo of everybody to understand that if we've got a constitutional limit of $300 million a year, and we have the ability to send more money to the SBOE, we should, because it would take, as Chairman Newbury and Taylor know, a two-thirds vote, okay, to change that. And that may or may not have

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been in any legislative session. And importantly, at least on the revenue side, if I'm, you know,

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willing to recognize the obvious about a, you know, about a Robinhood, you know,

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weaned or freeze, I think that's important for the land office to realize and the land board

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itself, the three members that Commissioner Bush makes up, that every one of those dollars makes

259
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a difference. And if we get 55, that means where my Aggie Matt tells me I'm only 145 million

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in the whole, as opposed to 190 in the all, okay, well actually 135 million in all.

261
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So, I just hope that you would carry that message.

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That's okay.

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I would point out to the state board has set their rate of distribution already, but that

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can be changed all the way up until the legislature meets in the first week in January.

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So if the school and board does change their decision, we still have the ability to change

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the distribution rate.

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Any other questions for the commissioner?

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Yes, Mr. Williams.

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Commissioner, I just wanted to real quick,

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they just complement you for the transparency of what you've had there is.

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Senator Bettencourt and others have said, including myself that you can't know what you want to fix unless you measure it.

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And so I think the talking about outcomes in the early part in terms of where we stand,

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how much more we have to go to meet certain goals I think is a lot of Torian, so thank you for doing it.

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Thank you, sir.

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Chair.

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Thank you, Commissioner.

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So now we'll come to the main meeting of today's meeting, which is consider recommendation

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report from the expenditures working group.

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Let me make two comments before I turn it over to Chairman Huberty to present the working

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groups report.

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One is, as before, with the outcomes group, our plan is not to vote on this today.

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To me the most frustrating thing about this process coming into it as an outsider with not much experience is the difficulty in getting those who have proposals and many of them good programs of how to spend money have no idea where it should come from

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If you recall at the public hearing, I asked everybody where we want to hear your good ideas of what you think the school is going to do better, where we think we, school finance could be better, but please give us ideas on where the money is going to, who do we take it from to fight it?

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And we got none of those.

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And the same thing on our other main target for the commission, our other main task is to look at property taxes and property tax relief, the Robin Hood issues that Senator Betencourt's mentioned, and we had some very persuasive testimony about the difficulty that's causing for businesses, for low income folks who can't afford to live in Austin anymore because of property taxes, et cetera.

286
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And again, we ask them, so if we lower property tax, where do we make it up from and got no ideas?

287
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So the difficult deal is where, what we do with the funding.

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Now, in the bottom line of adding funds overall to the budget is not our call.

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Because we don't have the expertise and we don't have the people, we don't have in our hearings.

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We haven't had anybody come in who's lost their house or the neighborhood in Hurricane Harvey.

291
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We don't have any low-income folks come in whose children will suffer severe health problems

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if they don't, if Medicaid funding is cut, or they lose access to public housing or other things

293
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in the universities.

294
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Everybody else, all the other charges on the state budget, we haven't heard from one people

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And of course, one group, and of course, if you heard just advocates on public education,

296
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they're going to say increase that, but the question is, what does everybody else say about that,

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who has claims on the state budget treasury? So, to me, that's an issue, some to the commission,

298
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but to me, that's an issue where we can't make the final decision for that, because we just don't

299
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have the facts. We haven't heard from everybody that could potentially affect. But so the, just as a

300
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a general broad overview before I turn over to Chairman Hubert E.

301
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My personal goal, what I wanted to see, and I think we accomplished that in the expense years

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working group, is number one, to come up with a list of a menu of options. These are ways

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in actually very close parallel to the outcomes groups, working groups, suggestions. These are

304
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particular programs that have proven ability to move the bottom line. If you step back from the

305
00:25:32,080 --> 00:25:37,860
program, one can find every program in the state, every dollar expanded, that might be done better,

306
00:25:38,440 --> 00:25:43,580
that might, if we had a little more, do better outcomes for this or that, location or group of students.

307
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But the big picture problem is we have a huge number of economically disadvantaged and

308
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and English is a second language students who we are failing.

309
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They are, as we've heard, testimonies from lots of people,

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they're not getting out of schools able to read at grade level,

311
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or do the kind of work that are the kind of jobs

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that are the future of the Texas economy.

313
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And that's the big picture.

314
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And that's hundreds of thousands, if not millions of students.

315
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And we have to keep in mind that big picture.

316
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What can we do to close on the biggest,

317
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You've got a bunch of holes in the diet, they're all important, but some are more life threatening than others.

318
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And so, number one, we've tried to prioritize that, say, these are the things we think that it work,

319
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and do the most for the most students, the greatest benefit overall.

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And then second, to also suggest some ways where we can match up current funds that we're currently coming in

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and being allocated according to one system of parameters could more closely fit to achieving

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the goals we want to fit.

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And we'll go into some detail of those, but obviously we've had a lot of discussion

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that some of our funding formulas are based on figures that are 20, 30 years old or are

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being used as a substitute for what we really think the money should be spent on.

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And sometimes, if there's ways we could shift funds from one to the other, not saying against not our call to decide whether there's going to be no more money, the idea is if there were no more money, could we do what we're doing properly and better?

327
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And we've heard a lot of wonderful ideas from people who are making those things happen currently.

328
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Again, that's not just, say, make a decision on the bigger picture for the legislature,

329
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but to see where there are some ways to shift rent.

330
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As with all of those things, all of those programs, shifting money from one group to another.

331
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Whether it's in the expenditures program, from this program of allocation to that,

332
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there are going to be some that don't get as much money as they used to get.

333
00:28:00,600 --> 00:28:06,260
whether it's shifting money by raising sales taxes or lowering property taxes.

334
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All of those you've taken, somebody's not going to be happy because their tax bill,

335
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their school budget, whatever goes up or down.

336
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But the question I want us to keep in mind and I know all the members of the commission understand this.

337
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The big problem, that's the thing we could do the most on.

338
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But if we could look at the big problem of the students who are not getting out of the system with any kind of hope of being successful in the future economy of the state, anything we can do on that is something we ought to prioritize.

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Any other comments before I turn it over to?

340
00:28:44,620 --> 00:28:45,520
Yes, Dr. Ellis.

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I would like to point out, really ask a question, and I agree that it's not our final call to decide what the revenue piece is going to be when the state legislature meets.

342
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We've discussed a lot of things, but we have three tasks to do.

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And one of those tasks is to set an appropriate level of local maintenance and

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INS for a public school finance system.

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So even though we don't have the final call, or the final say of what the appropriate level

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of funding should be, it is our task, it's one of our three tasks to set a vision of what

347
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we feel it should be.

348
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So my question is, we have literally about three months left before reporters do a key

349
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piece of that's going to be what the revenue group comes back with.

350
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Do we have a timeline from when we're going to hear from that group?

351
00:29:26,400 --> 00:29:28,800
Yes, it will be done by December 31st.

352
00:29:29,960 --> 00:29:33,260
And we all try to ask when the coach turns into a pumpkin again.

353
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And I understand that.

354
00:29:36,020 --> 00:29:40,340
The obvious problem is my personal perspective.

355
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It's easy to hear from what we've heard from the ad because of different problems.

356
00:29:43,780 --> 00:29:46,800
It's easy to see which ones as Todd Williams groups have done.

357
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Which ones would move the name of the month?

358
00:29:49,560 --> 00:29:50,960
That's pretty straightforward.

359
00:29:50,960 --> 00:29:55,360
If kids can't read by the third grade, they're going to fall farther and farther behind.

360
00:29:56,480 --> 00:29:59,960
There are lots of people, you know, the kids that...

361
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:21,420
It goes up from Central America or wherever in seventh grade and can't read and can't do math and doesn't know English. Don't they need resources? Should they be left behind? No, I shouldn't be left behind. But that's not the biggest problem we have, and we're not going to be able to fix every — this is a public, free system.

362
00:30:21,420 --> 00:30:30,220
But we're not going to be able to fix everything in a free system just because they're catching

363
00:30:30,220 --> 00:30:38,040
every child up and making sending every child to Princeton is going to cost more than we

364
00:30:38,040 --> 00:30:38,760
have money in the state.

365
00:30:39,260 --> 00:30:44,180
So I think the plan is, I know Senator Benton-Courts is working on this, but the plan is to have

366
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a report from them, but I would just warn the commission of members, we're going to have

367
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to have probably a half dozen meetings in November and December to put it all together.

368
00:30:53,540 --> 00:30:54,360
Sorry about that.

369
00:30:55,520 --> 00:31:00,120
My personal preference is maybe some of you all can explain this to me.

370
00:31:00,420 --> 00:31:06,940
All of the Christmas stuff around holidays and parties and it's all in the first 10 days

371
00:31:06,940 --> 00:31:07,540
of December.

372
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And then it's like Christmas is over from the 10th to the 25th, nothing happens because people

373
00:31:13,340 --> 00:31:17,880
going to vacation or whatever but you know we're probably going to have some not

374
00:31:17,880 --> 00:31:21,060
Christmas Eve hopefully Christmas on the Tuesday this year but we're going to

375
00:31:21,060 --> 00:31:26,160
be having some December meetings and that's where the real rubber is going to

376
00:31:26,160 --> 00:31:31,060
meet the road where we're going to have to make some adjustments between what we've

377
00:31:31,060 --> 00:31:36,900
got and what we want to do so that's best I can tell you and of course it's

378
00:31:36,900 --> 00:31:41,360
also true between now and the first week of November some of our people are

379
00:31:41,900 --> 00:31:47,940
trying to preserve their careers, their own ballot, some of the staff people, I mean there's

380
00:31:47,940 --> 00:31:54,900
an election ongoing. And you know, we've got to take that into account. But we are going

381
00:31:54,900 --> 00:32:00,860
to end up more back in meetings than I thought we were going to have originally. But it's just

382
00:32:00,860 --> 00:32:10,080
a matter of also the fact that the revenues picture changes all the time. And so whether

383
00:32:10,080 --> 00:32:14,360
that it's going to be extra money in the economy,

384
00:32:14,640 --> 00:32:16,000
whether taxes are going to go up,

385
00:32:16,100 --> 00:32:19,480
whether we're going to get internet sales taxes

386
00:32:19,480 --> 00:32:21,020
because of the wayfare decision,

387
00:32:21,260 --> 00:32:22,460
all of that's kind of up in here.

388
00:32:23,180 --> 00:32:25,000
I'm not sure that's a satisfactory answer.

389
00:32:25,400 --> 00:32:28,940
No, I just hope that we can get the revenue piece back

390
00:32:28,940 --> 00:32:30,700
and I don't know Senator Benton Court

391
00:32:30,700 --> 00:32:31,740
what our time frame is,

392
00:32:31,820 --> 00:32:33,700
but there's a lot of work to do after that point.

393
00:32:34,140 --> 00:32:35,340
And I understand we have elections,

394
00:32:35,480 --> 00:32:37,860
but we also have a pretty big task in hand

395
00:32:37,860 --> 00:32:38,760
that we've got to do also.

396
00:32:39,700 --> 00:32:40,320
Mr. Chairman.

397
00:32:41,060 --> 00:32:43,380
Let's do Senator Weston and Ms. Conley Johnson.

398
00:32:43,620 --> 00:32:47,920
In terms of the December schedule, it would be great to kind of start thinking about what that's going to look like.

399
00:32:48,320 --> 00:32:51,740
So we can plan for what those dates are.

400
00:32:52,000 --> 00:33:02,160
Yeah, I will pressure Hunter Wally's own vacations since he has nothing to do to start eating those dates.

401
00:33:02,440 --> 00:33:02,960
I'm sure he's listening.

402
00:33:03,420 --> 00:33:03,640
Right.

403
00:33:04,200 --> 00:33:04,340
Okay.

404
00:33:07,500 --> 00:33:13,840
I just want to echo what Dr. Killian brought up the fact that we were sort of looking at

405
00:33:13,840 --> 00:33:18,100
this as sort of endeavor to sort of establish sort of the right split between state and local

406
00:33:18,100 --> 00:33:23,620
share, smooth out some of the overburdened that local property taxpayers were experiencing.

407
00:33:23,960 --> 00:33:28,360
But at the same time, addressing some of the adequacy issues that school districts with

408
00:33:28,360 --> 00:33:33,200
sort of outdatedness of the current school funding formulas, while we've made progress on

409
00:33:33,200 --> 00:33:37,340
On the equity side, we continue to get Ds and Fs in terms of rating in terms of state

410
00:33:37,340 --> 00:33:39,380
funding for public education.

411
00:33:39,720 --> 00:33:46,160
And so that goes is point squarely on how much revenue is in the pot to distribute.

412
00:33:46,620 --> 00:33:51,420
And while we've made, we've got some good recommendations on the table to sort of determine how we want

413
00:33:51,420 --> 00:33:57,660
to allocate those monies, we do need to have a strong conversation on the revenue side.

414
00:33:57,660 --> 00:34:01,260
I have advanced some potential options to

415
00:34:02,440 --> 00:34:05,600
sit in court about where we could possibly start

416
00:34:05,600 --> 00:34:08,540
as options for us to start looking at.

417
00:34:09,040 --> 00:34:11,520
And I'm glad to hear you say that there's a possibility

418
00:34:11,520 --> 00:34:14,340
of looking at diversification across the board

419
00:34:14,340 --> 00:34:16,900
in terms of potential revenue sources.

420
00:34:17,360 --> 00:34:19,640
But to the extent that we can have the transparent

421
00:34:19,640 --> 00:34:21,760
and open discussions about options,

422
00:34:23,500 --> 00:34:26,840
I'm confident that the public and their groups

423
00:34:26,840 --> 00:34:51,360
that could present opportunities and options that this commission could consider in terms of creating availability to explore potential revenue sources for us to build on and to encourage and strengthen what's here from outcomes and expenditure working group to deepen our goal towards establishing adequacy in the funding formula.

424
00:34:51,360 --> 00:34:57,420
So, to the extent that we can get some meetings on the deck and some opportunities to present

425
00:34:57,420 --> 00:34:59,960
to the public, both the-

426
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:19,080
The options that I've presented to Senator Benton-Court, I'm pretty confident that there are other groups that have potential revenue options that we can consider as well. So I strongly encourage us to be transparent about those next meetings. Anything else for I turn it over, Chairman. It's all yours. Thank you.

427
00:35:20,600 --> 00:35:26,240
In front of you is the package that we've prepared, talks about the expenditure work of

428
00:35:26,240 --> 00:35:26,660
recommendation.

429
00:35:26,960 --> 00:35:30,240
First of all, let me just kind of go through what we're going to talk about a little

430
00:35:30,240 --> 00:35:30,400
bit.

431
00:35:30,480 --> 00:35:33,640
I'll tell you about obviously the members are, but we're going to talk about recommendations,

432
00:35:33,880 --> 00:35:38,000
reallocations and savings, recommendations that would change the existing allotments and

433
00:35:38,000 --> 00:35:41,480
recommendations would be new allotments and programs and then we have some additional recommendations.

434
00:35:42,320 --> 00:35:48,300
Just want to thank the work group that consisted of Justice Prister, Dr. Ellis, Senator Taylor

435
00:35:48,300 --> 00:35:54,940
and Senator West, and of course myself, it was a good thorough discussion.

436
00:35:55,540 --> 00:36:02,360
We'd met for more than more than 50 hours, you know, talking about these different things

437
00:36:02,360 --> 00:36:04,800
through a variety of public meetings in our work group sessions.

438
00:36:05,640 --> 00:36:12,120
We had 24 witnesses over nine meetings that we've had since this started, and we're prepared

439
00:36:12,120 --> 00:36:15,420
to present 22 recommendations to the full commission.

440
00:36:16,280 --> 00:36:20,080
our goals really were strategically to reallocate funding from outdated

441
00:36:20,080 --> 00:36:24,820
allotments to new priorities, streamline the existing formulas and drive more

442
00:36:24,820 --> 00:36:31,520
funding to high-need students. So those were ultimately our goals. So if you'll

443
00:36:31,520 --> 00:36:36,400
go to page six of your presentation, we'll start with our first recommendation.

444
00:36:37,200 --> 00:36:41,060
And be happy to pause and answer questions about the thought processes we went

445
00:36:41,060 --> 00:36:44,700
forward and then hopefully any work group members could insert their their

446
00:36:44,700 --> 00:36:45,580
views of this as well.

447
00:36:45,720 --> 00:36:51,240
And again, we did take a vote on this, so we had many different ideas, but we did go

448
00:36:51,240 --> 00:36:52,900
through this process and go through this.

449
00:36:53,480 --> 00:36:57,720
So let me talk about the first one, reallocating the CEI funds.

450
00:36:58,380 --> 00:37:02,000
And let me give you the background, the rationale, and what we believe the savings would be.

451
00:37:02,140 --> 00:37:05,600
And again, it's not savings to the state, it's just reallocating these resources.

452
00:37:06,480 --> 00:37:12,660
The CEI was created in 1984, last updated in 1991, provides an adjustment for the cost

453
00:37:12,660 --> 00:37:18,920
of educating students in the district's particular region, the state ranging from 1.02 to 1.20.

454
00:37:19,800 --> 00:37:24,880
The rationale for eliminating and reallocating these funds is that the adjustments are no

455
00:37:24,880 --> 00:37:27,960
longer based on just regional costs that were adopted almost 30 years ago.

456
00:37:28,100 --> 00:37:32,100
I think everybody would be safe to say that when it was adopted 30 years ago, the costs

457
00:37:32,100 --> 00:37:34,920
of living in Austin, Texas was much different than it is today.

458
00:37:35,620 --> 00:37:39,820
Same goes with, you know, humble Texas or any of these other places that are having these

459
00:37:42,220 --> 00:37:49,320
So what we're talking about is now existing statutory process that was intended to update the adjustments have not been utilized.

460
00:37:49,680 --> 00:37:53,400
It's required by LVB to do this and do these updates that have not been updated.

461
00:37:54,060 --> 00:37:59,200
And our view of this is that this would be money that could be reallocated into the high needs students that we're talking about.

462
00:37:59,720 --> 00:38:03,720
We've estimated the amount of money to be $2.9 billion.

463
00:38:03,720 --> 00:38:09,420
dollars. What I want to be very clear about is that we looked at this as a work group and

464
00:38:09,420 --> 00:38:14,740
we created a stream of revenue on this side and then we looked at some of the recommendations

465
00:38:14,740 --> 00:38:19,280
that would then repurpose those resources. Some additional money that would go into

466
00:38:19,280 --> 00:38:24,560
it but ultimately the goal is that the additional funds would then flow into the basic

467
00:38:24,560 --> 00:38:28,970
lot is what we were talking about trying to solve some of those problems. And I think we

468
00:38:28,970 --> 00:38:32,270
I don't know that if we fix the basic allotment, all ships rise.

469
00:38:32,770 --> 00:38:36,830
It helps recapture districts, it helps 42s, it helps your cheer to funding, it helps

470
00:38:36,830 --> 00:38:39,390
everything as we continue to move forward.

471
00:38:39,910 --> 00:38:41,030
So that is our first recommendation.

472
00:38:41,610 --> 00:38:41,890
Questions?

473
00:38:43,010 --> 00:38:43,430
Dr. Ellis?

474
00:38:43,970 --> 00:38:48,410
Yeah, this is not specific to just this one recommendation, but I think it's very important

475
00:38:48,410 --> 00:38:52,890
to note that all of these fit together as an entirety.

476
00:38:53,530 --> 00:39:00,970
You could take anyone by itself and discuss it on its marriage, but for the whole package to work these all fit together.

477
00:39:01,590 --> 00:39:06,010
And when you do these as a whole and you bring up the basic allotment, I think that's a key point for a member.

478
00:39:06,090 --> 00:39:08,590
We're not looking at these individually, but it's a whole package script.

479
00:39:10,530 --> 00:39:15,790
So I just wanted to say, Chairman, thank you for recognizing that basic allotment being the best way to lift us all up.

480
00:39:15,790 --> 00:39:22,350
because that was my biggest question over all these, if we were going to go ahead and put stuff into the basic allotment, I think that takes care of our inflationary needs.

481
00:39:22,570 --> 00:39:22,830
Thank you.

482
00:39:24,410 --> 00:39:28,990
The thing that impressed me, I think it's actually a home commission, not just the working group.

483
00:39:29,810 --> 00:39:36,530
If you look just to put two things about looking, we're going to find you on what it calls to have education to educate in this community.

484
00:39:37,170 --> 00:39:45,150
And one of our witnesses pointed out, it's expensive to attract teachers and to live.

485
00:39:45,590 --> 00:39:54,590
in Vale, Colorado, or Aspen, Colorado, I mean it's just expensive, it's expensive place to live, but that's not the place we really need to be spending the money on.

486
00:39:55,290 --> 00:39:59,850
So the idea is not, it's also expensive to live in Austin, in our big cities, Austin, downtown.

487
00:40:00,760 --> 00:40:29,680
The idea is not to switch money, because those are places where the highest need kids are. But the question is, is the best way to target money that way on how much it calls to educate people there versus where the needs are? And it's our opinion that was where the needs are. The second thing is, it's, this is, I won't spend that much time on my pet peeve about too many districts, but there are too many districts in Texas.

488
00:40:29,680 --> 00:40:31,140
is nobody would ever do it this way.

489
00:40:31,800 --> 00:40:34,060
And the problem is, if one of the factors is,

490
00:40:34,300 --> 00:40:36,320
what are salaries of other teachers in the range?

491
00:40:36,520 --> 00:40:39,840
What you basically do is you tend to equalize salaries

492
00:40:39,840 --> 00:40:40,840
in all the school districts.

493
00:40:41,160 --> 00:40:44,180
And what has happened, not this is not a Texas-specific thing

494
00:40:44,180 --> 00:40:46,000
complaint, this is a national problem.

495
00:40:46,640 --> 00:40:49,140
If the salaries are all basically the same

496
00:40:49,560 --> 00:40:52,300
and your choices between teaching at the suburban school

497
00:40:52,300 --> 00:40:56,980
where it's nice facilities and the kids are well prepared

498
00:40:56,980 --> 00:41:03,860
and are easy to teach person and so you have a drain of some of your best teachers to the best schools.

499
00:41:04,980 --> 00:41:14,100
It's just natural and part of the Dallas model is what we need to do is be giving teachers a different salary

500
00:41:14,100 --> 00:41:18,400
to come into the tiny school because the teachers are what's going to make the difference.

501
00:41:18,560 --> 00:41:25,880
So we need to have it be enough of a difference to where we attract them and to some degree then the CEI operates against that.

502
00:41:26,760 --> 00:41:29,340
Any other questions or miscarriage items?

503
00:41:31,060 --> 00:41:31,980
So thank you.

504
00:41:32,180 --> 00:41:36,800
I certainly understand all the rationale for eliminating the CI and rolling it into

505
00:41:36,800 --> 00:41:37,600
the basic allotment.

506
00:41:38,160 --> 00:41:44,300
I can certainly, you know, I definitely recognize the fact that why the decision was made.

507
00:41:45,180 --> 00:41:52,440
I do want to offer that at some point down the road, if we do take up on a deep cost study

508
00:41:52,440 --> 00:41:59,100
about the sort of the regional differences in the cost of providing education to account

509
00:41:59,100 --> 00:42:05,780
for variability because obviously if there is a differential in cost, I certainly wouldn't

510
00:42:05,780 --> 00:42:12,440
want districts like Austin or Dallas to not be able to hire teachers or not or to operate

511
00:42:12,440 --> 00:42:16,860
with the assumption that teachers can't live in the communities they serve.

512
00:42:16,860 --> 00:42:33,800
And so I worry about sort of down the road, the effects that this could possibly have and so to the extent that we have some sufficient cost studies over time, we might want to consider accounting for variability later.

513
00:42:34,160 --> 00:42:39,180
But I certainly understand why the expenditure committee is making this recommendation at this time.

514
00:42:41,000 --> 00:42:42,760
Questions, comments? Senator Webb.

515
00:42:45,850 --> 00:42:46,210
My,

516
00:42:48,220 --> 00:42:50,660
I won't say reticent, because I was reticent at all.

517
00:42:50,760 --> 00:42:54,360
I wanted to make certain that we took this and reallocated these funds.

518
00:42:55,040 --> 00:42:57,680
If we're not going to use the CEI, if we're not going to fund the CEI,

519
00:42:58,100 --> 00:43:01,240
if every session we come back and sit and complain about the CEI,

520
00:43:01,880 --> 00:43:04,820
and we're not doing anything with it, we might as well get rid of it

521
00:43:04,820 --> 00:43:06,600
and put it into the base of the lot.

522
00:43:06,680 --> 00:43:09,460
Which I think pretty much all of us can agree to.

523
00:43:09,460 --> 00:43:15,120
And again, that's going to be, as you see, recurring theme for the recommendations that we have.

524
00:43:15,440 --> 00:43:23,260
There are variations in costs, but it's not the political will to acknowledge those and fund those that state taxes.

525
00:43:26,050 --> 00:43:26,190
Right.

526
00:43:26,790 --> 00:43:29,210
We were thinking very much alike there, Senator.

527
00:43:29,410 --> 00:43:30,390
Thank you for that.

528
00:43:31,070 --> 00:43:36,850
So let's move on to the second recommendation and reallocate chapter 41, Hold Harmless Funds.

529
00:43:36,850 --> 00:43:41,350
It's created in 1993, provide Holton Hardenless funding for three years after recapture winter

530
00:43:41,350 --> 00:43:41,730
to effect.

531
00:43:42,190 --> 00:43:47,690
It was extended twice and then was made permanent in 1999, currently impacts only 40 districts.

532
00:43:48,530 --> 00:43:53,350
The rationale was because this was created as a temporary provision 25 years ago and was

533
00:43:53,350 --> 00:43:57,090
intended to help districts avoid drastic budget cuts and years immediately following the

534
00:43:57,090 --> 00:43:59,350
establishment of the recapture system.

535
00:43:59,970 --> 00:44:06,170
I know that not only myself, but when Chairman Hockberg was in the legislature, he's tried

536
00:44:06,170 --> 00:44:11,050
to eliminate it. I tried to eliminate it. Again, it pets 40 districts. It's $30 million.

537
00:44:11,750 --> 00:44:16,630
We believe that those funds could be redistributed appropriately and used for additional programs.

538
00:44:18,110 --> 00:44:18,870
Questions, comments?

539
00:44:24,300 --> 00:44:28,880
Recommendation number three. Reallocate to chapter 41, early agreement credit funds.

540
00:44:29,220 --> 00:44:34,200
This was created in 1995. It provides a credit against recapture amounts for districts that

541
00:44:34,200 --> 00:44:39,480
submit an agreement to purchase a tenant credit by September 1st. The rationale is this

542
00:44:39,480 --> 00:44:43,820
This is not a discount for early payments of recapture amounts, so there is no benefit

543
00:44:43,820 --> 00:44:44,380
to the state.

544
00:44:44,700 --> 00:44:45,380
I want to be clear on this.

545
00:44:46,060 --> 00:44:50,260
The school districts do not send us their money as a discount so that we get the cash

546
00:44:50,260 --> 00:44:50,440
flow.

547
00:44:50,560 --> 00:44:53,200
They're just telling us that they're going to send us the money.

548
00:44:55,180 --> 00:44:59,540
Currently 100% of the districts choose to purchase the tenant credits in order to reduce

549
00:44:59,540 --> 00:44:59,760
industry.

550
00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:06,420
It was well-level, and almost all these districts submit their agreements by September 1st, the annual savings is $50 million.

551
00:45:08,480 --> 00:45:17,640
You know, if you think about it from a business perspective, we give net 10 days, meaning you pay your bill and 10 days, not, you know, 180 days later. And that's ultimately what this do.

552
00:45:19,140 --> 00:45:19,620
Questions?

553
00:45:21,920 --> 00:45:29,500
Well, yeah, I said, you know, if you give people the discount that doesn't cost them anything, everybody will take it. That's what's happened.

554
00:45:34,840 --> 00:45:39,260
Well, again, these are monies that are going to be reappropriated into other programs.

555
00:45:39,580 --> 00:45:44,540
So certain districts are getting certain benefits and we're looking at all these.

556
00:45:45,720 --> 00:45:49,300
Recommendation number four, reallocate the gifted and talented allotment funds.

557
00:45:49,660 --> 00:45:54,560
Background on this was created in 1984 and last updated in 1991.

558
00:45:55,520 --> 00:45:58,600
Funding is limited to 5% of a district's ADA.

559
00:45:58,600 --> 00:46:03,320
And the rationale was, because virtually all districts currently received the maximum

560
00:46:03,320 --> 00:46:06,340
funding allowed under this allotment, so the 5% of the ADA.

561
00:46:06,800 --> 00:46:11,300
So the same result could be accomplished by distributing these funds through the basic

562
00:46:11,300 --> 00:46:11,740
allotment.

563
00:46:12,520 --> 00:46:17,520
Statutory requirements regarding educational programs for gifted and talented students will remain

564
00:46:17,520 --> 00:46:17,900
an effect.

565
00:46:18,540 --> 00:46:23,100
So we're not telling people that they still have to have the gifted and talented programs.

566
00:46:23,280 --> 00:46:26,840
What we're saying is that we're going to take these dollars and put them into the program

567
00:46:26,840 --> 00:46:32,860
and eliminate the strings so that school districts have the ability to properly allocate their funding.

568
00:46:33,260 --> 00:46:36,740
We're not, you know, we'll be able to pay attention to where this is.

569
00:46:36,860 --> 00:46:40,500
But again, this is just a long time thing that's been happening.

570
00:46:40,660 --> 00:46:43,480
I know we've seen some questions that have come in.

571
00:46:43,600 --> 00:46:46,080
I know Mr. Williams, you sent me one, and I've read them.

572
00:46:46,480 --> 00:46:48,440
Annual savings is $165 million.

573
00:46:49,620 --> 00:46:50,280
Mr. Chairman.

574
00:46:50,640 --> 00:46:51,280
Yes, I know that.

575
00:46:51,460 --> 00:46:54,280
So let's just make certain that the media gets this right.

576
00:46:54,280 --> 00:47:01,780
okay? We're not doing away with get to intelligent programs in the state of

577
00:47:01,780 --> 00:47:06,960
Texas. We're recommending that the funding for those particular programs go

578
00:47:06,960 --> 00:47:11,080
into the basic allotment and allow school districts do the same thing. We're

579
00:47:11,080 --> 00:47:15,040
not changing the statutory requirements or anything associated with the program.

580
00:47:15,440 --> 00:47:21,680
So let's make certain we get that right. So I just have one comment I

581
00:47:21,680 --> 00:47:25,920
I understand what you're trying to do there, but so here's what I see, 10 years

582
00:47:25,920 --> 00:47:29,420
from now I'm going to come to you and testify and say that you have a bunch of

583
00:47:29,420 --> 00:47:33,060
GT unfunded mandates because it's thrown into the basic a lot and then which is

584
00:47:33,060 --> 00:47:38,700
supposed to be for the basic educational program. So someone's going to in the

585
00:47:38,700 --> 00:47:42,860
future say that you're asking us to do all these things for GT yet there's not a

586
00:47:42,860 --> 00:47:49,240
set aside for GT. And my argument to you would be is that it's amazing when you look

587
00:47:49,240 --> 00:47:52,140
Look at the number of students that are identified as gifted and talented.

588
00:47:52,280 --> 00:47:53,800
That's just about five percent.

589
00:47:55,980 --> 00:48:01,440
So what that says to me is the students that really should qualify because then maybe the

590
00:48:01,440 --> 00:48:04,580
number is 9 percent or it's 8 percent or it's 7 percent or 10 percent.

591
00:48:04,820 --> 00:48:07,400
It's 7.7.7.7.8.

592
00:48:07,520 --> 00:48:07,760
Thank you.

593
00:48:07,860 --> 00:48:14,420
But we're only identifying at 5 percent which says that we're under identifying by 2.5 percent

594
00:48:14,420 --> 00:48:15,280
to 2.8 percent.

595
00:48:15,280 --> 00:48:20,060
which that says to me that the school, even though we have statutorily required the

596
00:48:20,060 --> 00:48:26,280
school districts to provide these programs they're not. So I guess Larry Senator Taylor,

597
00:48:26,440 --> 00:48:30,060
I think you say it best, right, we've equally spread already.

598
00:48:30,300 --> 00:48:35,380
So what I would say about that is if you put into the basic allotment again, that fund is supposed

599
00:48:35,380 --> 00:48:42,000
to be for providing a basic education in the state of Texas. So GT's over and above that,

600
00:48:42,000 --> 00:48:46,100
We're supposed to do something extra so if you don't include more money in there

601
00:48:46,100 --> 00:48:52,440
Then we can't address the extra two percent. Well, I would I would argue that I would argue that as we get later in the

602
00:48:52,440 --> 00:48:58,180
Presentation we start talking about tier two funding and specifically related to that was one of the recommendations as we look at

603
00:48:58,180 --> 00:49:02,760
What that that current funding is and you know right now it's you know tied to

604
00:49:03,380 --> 00:49:04,260
Austin ISD

605
00:49:04,940 --> 00:49:07,300
We need to holistically look at all those things

606
00:49:08,000 --> 00:49:11,680
And I think that if you put it into my view, if you put it into the basic

607
00:49:11,680 --> 00:49:14,460
lot, then again, it's going to rise all the ships. It's going to help

608
00:49:14,460 --> 00:49:20,300
recapture. It helps everybody along the way. And candidly, it's, you know, just

609
00:49:20,740 --> 00:49:23,700
data that we're putting into the team system. We're collecting data and, you know,

610
00:49:23,800 --> 00:49:27,760
just for the purposes of collecting it. And, you know, let school districts be

611
00:49:27,760 --> 00:49:31,780
independent. That's really what the goal is here. I believe. But I understand Dr.

612
00:49:31,900 --> 00:49:36,180
Kelly and I just want to start that. Yeah, and also point out as a former school board member

613
00:49:36,180 --> 00:49:40,140
We're also that, you know, just because districts are receiving funding for 5% doesn't mean

614
00:49:40,140 --> 00:49:41,040
that's all that they're serving.

615
00:49:41,580 --> 00:49:44,540
My district on the serve a bigger number than 5%.

616
00:49:44,540 --> 00:49:47,740
So I don't want to get the idea that the districts are only doing the bare minimum when

617
00:49:47,740 --> 00:49:48,240
they're doing more.

618
00:49:48,640 --> 00:49:53,060
But my question is, maybe some agency staff can answer, what are the exact statutory requirements

619
00:49:53,060 --> 00:49:59,180
for serving, gifted and talented students, is that very well outlined, delineated, is that

620
00:49:59,180 --> 00:49:59,980
I don't know, I don't know.

621
00:50:00,020 --> 00:50:00,880
A gray area?

622
00:50:06,350 --> 00:50:08,250
Who wants to stand in front of that train?

623
00:50:15,490 --> 00:50:18,630
Von Byer, General Counsel, Text Education Agency.

624
00:50:19,050 --> 00:50:34,830
We will look at the chief school finance officer. Text Education Agency. So the, yeah, so in chapter 29 of the education code, you have a sub-chapter that goes through the requirements for gifted and talented, I believe, I'm just trying to find the reference.

625
00:50:42,280 --> 00:50:47,880
Is that however nice Mr. Chairman that somebody actually still reads a book in the 21st century?

626
00:50:49,920 --> 00:50:57,580
Yeah so in 40 you have the allotment in chapter 42 and then you have the program requirements.

627
00:50:58,380 --> 00:51:00,520
I believe in chapter 29.

628
00:51:10,100 --> 00:51:11,900
There you go, sub chapter D.

629
00:51:11,900 --> 00:51:18,100
education programs for gifted and talented. So the way that reads is I believe the

630
00:51:18,100 --> 00:51:25,480
state board establishes criteria and in each school district required to

631
00:51:25,480 --> 00:51:28,220
identify process for identifying the kids.

632
00:51:30,380 --> 00:51:33,460
And the TA also puts out administrative

633
00:51:33,460 --> 00:51:41,760
code and TAC so we have rules that further expand on that. But recollection was

634
00:51:41,760 --> 00:51:48,140
because you don't audit to find out if school districts actually spend X dollars on gifted

635
00:51:48,140 --> 00:51:48,580
talent.

636
00:51:51,140 --> 00:51:57,400
So I do have staff that are, that as part of their compliance work, they do look at

637
00:51:57,400 --> 00:52:00,380
the, what's called special, special allowment monitoring.

638
00:52:00,600 --> 00:52:06,480
So for each of the special programs in chapter 42, they are looking at a, on the three-year

639
00:52:06,480 --> 00:52:10,440
average, what districts are currently spending each, in each of those programs to make sure

640
00:52:10,440 --> 00:52:12,320
that they're hitting the minimum percentages.

641
00:52:12,620 --> 00:52:15,540
So the percentages that are established either in statute

642
00:52:15,540 --> 00:52:18,660
or by rule, I do have standard rules.

643
00:52:18,880 --> 00:52:19,940
What does that consist of?

644
00:52:20,020 --> 00:52:21,780
You just ask them how much are you spending on gift

645
00:52:21,780 --> 00:52:22,380
and talent in?

646
00:52:22,740 --> 00:52:25,340
So we pull the financial as reported

647
00:52:25,340 --> 00:52:27,200
through our financial assessment teams.

648
00:52:27,860 --> 00:52:29,460
So it's whatever they report to us.

649
00:52:29,660 --> 00:52:31,960
So whatever they tell you on gift and talent in,

650
00:52:32,160 --> 00:52:34,080
yes, that's what we assume they're doing.

651
00:52:34,920 --> 00:52:37,620
And is it true that most districts do or do not?

652
00:52:37,840 --> 00:52:39,220
There was some testimony that a lot

653
00:52:39,220 --> 00:52:44,760
districts spend substantially more than the allotment on gift and talent at AP

654
00:52:44,760 --> 00:52:49,120
courses that kind of thing. Is that the case or not? That's my recollection when I

655
00:52:49,120 --> 00:52:52,960
looked at this back back in May that that spending was a little tired. I know it's

656
00:52:52,960 --> 00:52:57,960
also reflected to somebody said you can give salaries and stipends to teachers but

657
00:52:57,960 --> 00:53:03,580
only if they teach only gift and talent students. I would need to go back I don't have all the rules

658
00:53:03,580 --> 00:53:32,720
I may be wrong, but somebody says I wrote it down, but I understand the concern parents that want to see their kids served, whether economically disadvantaged or not, want to seem challenged, and there's a lot of, we did her, here's some testimony from folks that if, if there's, if it, if it's a generic class, some of the students that are not being challenged,

659
00:53:32,720 --> 00:53:37,380
will not perform, because they not being required to perform.

660
00:53:38,060 --> 00:53:44,000
Is there, and I understand the concern about unfunded mandates, you know, if we say, look, you've got to do, isn't that the other?

661
00:53:45,860 --> 00:54:01,040
So the question is, is there a way, if it's put in the basic allotment, we can make those students aren't cheated for a lack of a better word, where we take money from them and spend money on somebody else through requirements or, but again,

662
00:54:01,040 --> 00:54:11,040
And I'm personally not convinced that school districts would have or schools or principals

663
00:54:11,040 --> 00:54:18,020
would have any incentive to shortchange their best students since one of the big metrics

664
00:54:18,870 --> 00:54:25,460
they're tested on and they get an A through an F is how many students are at or above

665
00:54:25,460 --> 00:54:31,520
of grade level, and they have no reason to drive off students who will help drag those

666
00:54:31,520 --> 00:54:32,100
courses up.

667
00:54:32,840 --> 00:54:40,640
None at all to have those parents beat dissatisfied, but I guess my question is, is there a way

668
00:54:40,640 --> 00:54:46,820
to assure, and we've all gotten a bunch of emails in the last few days, don't take away gifted

669
00:54:46,820 --> 00:54:51,720
and tempted a lot, but I understand not wanting to see the programs that benefit their students

670
00:54:51,720 --> 00:54:54,040
cut back, is there a way that can be assured?

671
00:54:54,040 --> 00:54:58,900
if the monies are basically shifted from one pocket to another that the pocket

672
00:54:58,900 --> 00:54:59,960
won't for some

673
00:55:00,000 --> 00:55:28,860
In some region, exclude gifted entitlement. Chairman, you could wait it, you could wait it in the funding system. So, um, instead of having outside allotment, you just have them just like every other, uh, kid, you'd have an extra wait because there's additional costs. That's what the fear is. If you throw it into the allotment, then, then it's just in the allotment. If the allotment doesn't move for a couple years, then in essence, we've cut out the GT allotment. And we don't have funding to actually do the courses.

674
00:55:28,860 --> 00:55:36,200
And it's not just AP, it's also the GT courses and the certification and all the additional requirements that we have at the elementary levels.

675
00:55:36,900 --> 00:55:55,760
So that's the question for COVID, is there any specific benefit costs on this issue that we can look at to see.

676
00:55:56,500 --> 00:56:02,480
If we look at, is there going to be an expense reduction, because we're not having the lit?

677
00:56:04,440 --> 00:56:12,000
There's some positive angle of taking out the dedicated 5% or are we getting a net additional

678
00:56:12,000 --> 00:56:17,100
administrative cost reduction, because obviously if you look at a cost benefit program in this

679
00:56:17,100 --> 00:56:23,360
area, this is the high-talented crew regardless of what school you're in.

680
00:56:23,360 --> 00:56:29,940
So I'm trying to see what we're getting for eliminating the class because I

681
00:56:29,940 --> 00:56:34,160
do agree with Dr. Killian eventually over time you will end up with having a

682
00:56:35,220 --> 00:56:39,220
effectively the perception of an unfunded mandate if the statute stay on the

683
00:56:39,220 --> 00:56:44,360
books and there's no dedicated funding stream. So are we gaining administrative or

684
00:56:44,360 --> 00:56:49,980
we gaining more flexibility? You know I'd like to hear from Melissa maybe on whether

685
00:56:49,980 --> 00:56:52,640
They're not that, if there's a teacher view of this,

686
00:56:53,200 --> 00:56:55,700
because if they were getting salaries and stipends,

687
00:56:55,820 --> 00:56:57,460
are they not now going to get them?

688
00:56:58,220 --> 00:57:01,680
I'm just curious about the cost benefit program, Chairman.

689
00:57:02,960 --> 00:57:06,220
Well, I'll be happy to give the philosophy again.

690
00:57:06,680 --> 00:57:08,600
And I think Senator West said it best

691
00:57:08,600 --> 00:57:12,660
is that the testimony that we've heard when we're talking

692
00:57:12,660 --> 00:57:14,940
about these, and again, we're going to get your recommendations

693
00:57:14,940 --> 00:57:17,220
about where we're moving money, too.

694
00:57:17,220 --> 00:57:22,240
So, I want us to be very clear on that, outcomes, things of that nature that we're focused on.

695
00:57:23,720 --> 00:57:32,040
You know, over my career and I know many of you, I've taken some pretty tough political positions that I believe are important

696
00:57:32,040 --> 00:57:35,100
and I believe this is something if we're going to change the system.

697
00:57:35,560 --> 00:57:42,240
We can't just change, well we have this group of people that want this dedicated for this, so we can't touch that.

698
00:57:42,720 --> 00:57:46,500
But the goal is to take it and put it in the basic allotment to rise the ships.

699
00:57:46,660 --> 00:57:48,900
Now if we want to talk about a wait, we could do it.

700
00:57:49,000 --> 00:57:52,180
It's probably a point one, two wait or somewhere in that range of it.

701
00:57:52,560 --> 00:57:55,760
But again, we've capped it at 5%.

702
00:57:57,850 --> 00:58:00,290
So everybody's getting the same amount of money.

703
00:58:00,470 --> 00:58:01,390
That's what we're talking about.

704
00:58:01,510 --> 00:58:06,230
And then it becomes up to the legislature to make sure that it's adjusting the basic allotment

705
00:58:06,230 --> 00:58:11,150
as we continue to go forward and look at those things and study those programs as we go forward.

706
00:58:11,750 --> 00:58:16,570
I think that, you know, as we continue, we can get some more research for the next meeting.

707
00:58:16,750 --> 00:58:18,690
As we can talk about it, we decide we want to make this vote.

708
00:58:19,070 --> 00:58:24,070
But ultimately, I think, you know, the men and women that are going to have to vote on this

709
00:58:24,070 --> 00:58:29,290
are going to adhere from all of the people within these programs and we'll have to make some decisions

710
00:58:29,290 --> 00:58:30,870
if they think this is the right thing to do.

711
00:58:31,450 --> 00:58:37,370
But I want to be clear is that if you pull that out, it's $165 million less than, you know,

712
00:58:37,370 --> 00:58:39,290
of them would be going into the system,

713
00:58:39,890 --> 00:58:42,390
into the basic alignment, which helps everybody.

714
00:58:42,630 --> 00:58:44,190
But again, we're going to get into the other things

715
00:58:44,190 --> 00:58:45,610
that we're talking about, recommendations,

716
00:58:46,250 --> 00:58:48,130
like compend weights and things of that nature

717
00:58:48,130 --> 00:58:49,490
and breathing program.

718
00:58:49,690 --> 00:58:51,110
Mr. Williams has a question on his way.

719
00:58:51,610 --> 00:58:52,270
Let's go ahead.

720
00:58:53,510 --> 00:58:56,210
I think the only thing I guess I would like to look at

721
00:58:56,210 --> 00:59:00,810
before next meeting is just gift it in talented identification

722
00:59:01,830 --> 00:59:05,550
by income, by race, by district, trying to understand,

723
00:59:05,550 --> 00:59:10,010
And because I think what I'm hearing from the emails I'm getting is the risk that

724
00:59:10,010 --> 00:59:13,670
they're we're going to start under identifying kids because it's going to cost money and

725
00:59:13,670 --> 00:59:14,830
we're going to try to look for savings.

726
00:59:15,530 --> 00:59:21,090
And I just tend to believe in the mantra that the talent is distributed equally and opportunity

727
00:59:21,090 --> 00:59:21,590
is not.

728
00:59:22,030 --> 00:59:25,290
And I think we've got to make sure that if we're going to do this and I understand all the

729
00:59:25,290 --> 00:59:29,270
reasons for why we want to do it, that this is really tracked over time.

730
00:59:29,270 --> 00:59:34,810
Because if we start seeing this 7.8% go down over time, particularly for certain populations,

731
00:59:34,810 --> 00:59:38,070
I think what you're fearful of is going to actually happen.

732
00:59:38,290 --> 00:59:38,530
That's right.

733
00:59:39,530 --> 00:59:48,410
I think also one final thing, I think if we actually do the incentives, I think that helps counterbalance that because you're trying to hit goals and that's going to create some additional revenue for the district.

734
00:59:49,470 --> 00:59:51,350
I concur with Mr. Williams.

735
00:59:51,710 --> 00:59:59,870
There's got to be a way to bring work with the agency to make certain that the identification, we can't observe for anything somehow, I guess the PM system or whatever.

736
01:00:00,000 --> 01:00:06,780
We should still be able to do the same thing and make certain that we don't have those unfunded mandates.

737
01:00:10,180 --> 01:00:10,880
You're right, okay.

738
01:00:11,540 --> 01:00:16,440
But we don't use the standard mandate in the future, as we're listening to what it is.

739
01:00:19,600 --> 01:00:21,100
Any other comments or questions?

740
01:00:22,460 --> 01:00:27,460
Chairman, if I could finish the question, that was really originally asked.

741
01:00:29,520 --> 01:00:35,740
Member Ellis, the State Board of Education actually adopts a state plan for the education

742
01:00:35,740 --> 01:00:37,140
gifted and talented students.

743
01:00:37,620 --> 01:00:42,220
I don't have that off my memory, but that's something we could get him provide to the committee.

744
01:00:43,600 --> 01:00:43,920
Thank you.

745
01:00:44,760 --> 01:00:45,120
Thank you.

746
01:00:47,320 --> 01:00:49,340
Liam, I'm going to have you stay there for one minute.

747
01:00:49,340 --> 01:00:53,280
I'm going to cover the first one then once we will talk about property values in a second.

748
01:00:53,940 --> 01:00:56,960
So recommendation number five, reallocate the high school allotment funds.

749
01:00:57,180 --> 01:01:01,400
The background in this was created in 2006 and amended in 2009.

750
01:01:01,920 --> 01:01:06,880
It provides $275 for every student in ADA in grades 9 through 12.

751
01:01:07,860 --> 01:01:12,940
rationale was these funds were originally intended for programs to decrease dropouts and increase

752
01:01:12,940 --> 01:01:13,760
college readiness.

753
01:01:13,760 --> 01:01:20,920
However, because this a lot and is distributed on ADA, these funds are not necessarily flowing to the students that need them the most.

754
01:01:21,440 --> 01:01:28,180
We believe this goal is better accomplished through other lovments such as compensatory education or career in technology.

755
01:01:28,760 --> 01:01:31,200
The annual savings from this is $400 million a year.

756
01:01:33,910 --> 01:01:38,930
Again, this would be monies that would go through weights or basic allotment, again helping everybody.

757
01:01:38,930 --> 01:01:49,090
helping everybody, and I know that I had conversations with members like Chairman Otto when he was here, when they voted in that, and I know Senator Taylor, you were there as well.

758
01:01:50,210 --> 01:02:03,570
When it was done, it was when the changes were done relative to the school finance system in the formulas, and in 2009 it was when the additional funding came in, the federal dollars that came in, and that was some of the allocation that was done at that particular time.

759
01:02:05,990 --> 01:02:07,470
Just a quick question.

760
01:02:07,710 --> 01:02:14,310
Does this have the allotments that get reinvested back into the B.A. or some other way?

761
01:02:14,710 --> 01:02:21,010
Are the spending requirements still going to remain for tracking purposes, especially

762
01:02:21,010 --> 01:02:27,470
for the high school allotment because this one has sort of specialized sort of spending

763
01:02:27,470 --> 01:02:32,450
requirements and depending upon who you ask, you get different answers in terms of what

764
01:02:32,450 --> 01:02:33,290
that the requirements are?

765
01:02:33,670 --> 01:02:40,790
The goal really is in order to accomplish our 60 by 30 plan is to create the career and

766
01:02:40,790 --> 01:02:43,890
college readiness program, which this has nothing to do with.

767
01:02:44,850 --> 01:02:48,270
It was just a check the box in what we determined.

768
01:02:48,470 --> 01:02:52,290
And so as we get into the additional right, the new recommendations,

769
01:02:52,690 --> 01:02:55,590
I think you'll see, especially when we deal with defense story education,

770
01:02:56,090 --> 01:02:57,490
putting money where it's needed most.

771
01:02:58,090 --> 01:02:58,750
The overall outcomes.

772
01:02:59,090 --> 01:02:59,990
Absolutely, yes.

773
01:03:01,270 --> 01:03:02,510
If I can, Mr. Chairman.

774
01:03:03,130 --> 01:03:07,790
You know, Wisconsin makes a good point, though, because when we're doing this, we need to

775
01:03:07,790 --> 01:03:14,010
keep track of administrative reduction, okay, fair and muted, especially, because that's

776
01:03:14,010 --> 01:03:17,810
really the other comment about the GT scenario, becoming about the high school alignment.

777
01:03:18,390 --> 01:03:23,290
There's got to be some inherent costs there that were picking up on by getting rid of that,

778
01:03:23,310 --> 01:03:29,410
which is good to know, but because they are, you know, the one thing that I've seen from

779
01:03:29,410 --> 01:03:35,990
all these hearings is the tremendous regulation burden that public schools operate under and that's

780
01:03:35,990 --> 01:03:37,750
got to have a corresponding cost.

781
01:03:43,420 --> 01:03:46,160
I don't want to belabor the GT thing but it's just another thought

782
01:03:46,160 --> 01:03:53,920
to you know we were under this 8.5% cap basically on sped that was out there. I just don't want to see

783
01:03:53,920 --> 01:03:58,920
us get into a position two where now we've got we're under identifying GT kids so just saying that

784
01:03:58,920 --> 01:04:03,060
But I understand about high school law of it.

785
01:04:04,540 --> 01:04:05,100
Okay.

786
01:04:06,100 --> 01:04:06,900
Another question?

787
01:04:07,760 --> 01:04:09,740
Okay. Recommendation number six.

788
01:04:10,400 --> 01:04:13,660
Move from prior year property values to current year property values.

789
01:04:13,940 --> 01:04:16,940
Background in this is prior year property values are currently used in

790
01:04:16,940 --> 01:04:20,300
wealth per student calculations within the school finance system.

791
01:04:20,800 --> 01:04:25,460
This creates a lag within the system so it does not properly reflect local text revenues.

792
01:04:26,220 --> 01:04:35,340
The rationale was the current near values would be more indicative of the rising property value growth across the state and provide a more accurate picture of the needs of Texas schools.

793
01:04:35,820 --> 01:04:42,240
District cash flows would not be affected, fiscal 20 savings is $1.8 billion and I have Leo here in front of us.

794
01:04:42,380 --> 01:04:45,560
Talk a little bit about because we did hear testimony on this.

795
01:04:47,600 --> 01:04:55,160
This impacts recapture districts and impacts everybody as we look at this if you could just talk about it.

796
01:04:55,220 --> 01:04:58,100
It's kind of a one-time pickup for us as we think about it that way, right?

797
01:04:58,400 --> 01:04:58,660
Yes, sir.

798
01:04:58,660 --> 01:04:59,980
So right now when

799
01:05:00,000 --> 01:05:29,760
And the school finance system recaptured to one, two, or two, all uses prior to your property values. So the implications of that is if you're a district where you have declining property values, or if your value growth has slowed when compared to the year before, then there's a cap and funding is created to where the state thinks you have a certain level of local tax collections and the district doesn't. And then, conversely, if you're in a district where the property values are growing at a rapid pace, the amount of your growth,

800
01:05:29,760 --> 01:05:34,960
that extra tax collections the state system does not recognize and so essentially you have

801
01:05:34,960 --> 01:05:41,220
districts being funded under or over with the formula would otherwise dictate. So moving

802
01:05:41,220 --> 01:05:46,140
to current your values we put everyone tree all school districts in the same manner and so

803
01:05:46,140 --> 01:05:53,840
you would mitigate the year-to-year reductions if you had a certain tax payer protest or mineral

804
01:05:54,440 --> 01:06:04,660
and gas, you know, so it would smooth that up and down and the districts that are in situations of declining values would not have to wait a year for the state system to catch up.

805
01:06:05,240 --> 01:06:12,600
And then in addition, it does provide about $1.8 billion in immediate savings to the state that can then be distributed for other purposes.

806
01:06:12,600 --> 01:06:20,260
And on average, you're using a growth of what, I believe it was 6% is what you were forecast.

807
01:06:20,760 --> 01:06:27,040
And so we're not growing at 6%, you know, there's a there's a miss in our in our analogy or formulas.

808
01:06:27,880 --> 01:06:28,200
That's right.

809
01:06:30,210 --> 01:06:31,010
Back to Alice.

810
01:06:31,810 --> 01:06:33,610
Leo, this question's come up when we discussed it.

811
01:06:33,670 --> 01:06:43,130
But can you touch for so whenever, once you're listening to this, the fact of whether this is a more of an increase for one year or moving forward as years progress and how that's looked at?

812
01:06:43,610 --> 01:06:46,970
So it depends on how you were to look at it.

813
01:06:47,130 --> 01:06:55,750
So if you look at, if you have a proposed bill that proposes, you know, move to current values, and you're looking at all the out years.

814
01:06:56,110 --> 01:07:01,230
Well, each of the out years, you could compare each of those out years to what they year would have looked like during the current law.

815
01:07:01,990 --> 01:07:12,790
So in that respect, you would see from a district perspective, let's say that that was in a fast growth situation, they would see a recurring cut.

816
01:07:12,790 --> 01:07:19,890
However, if you look at it from year over year, it's the one year changeover and then when the state reinvests that money to the basic allotment

817
01:07:19,890 --> 01:07:30,170
And then each year after that, you know, everyone's on the same cycle. So you wouldn't have this sort of year over year cut as I've heard some people discuss.

818
01:07:31,230 --> 01:07:34,130
What would it do for the districts that are high in recapture?

819
01:07:34,250 --> 01:07:39,450
Would this kind of fast forward maybe two years under one when you're looking at that when so if you have

820
01:07:39,450 --> 01:07:48,930
What essentially this does is for simplicity using the state average, so we're using 6.7% value growth across the state, excuse me.

821
01:07:49,510 --> 01:07:53,910
And then so what would happen is in the first year you'd have double the value growth in that first year.

822
01:07:54,510 --> 01:07:56,750
And so your wealth per student would increase.

823
01:07:57,610 --> 01:08:01,370
And then, conversely, the local share requirement for tier one would also increase.

824
01:08:01,890 --> 01:08:03,810
And that's what generates the immediate savings.

825
01:08:03,810 --> 01:08:07,810
However, when you take that and put that back into other programs, including the base

826
01:08:07,810 --> 01:08:13,670
golem and you mitigate those, you mitigate the increases in recapture as well as the loss of state aid.

827
01:08:17,210 --> 01:08:18,910
Sorry, I'm going to be talking a lot.

828
01:08:21,070 --> 01:08:26,910
So in terms of this for a fast growth district, this is pretty heavy hit for us.

829
01:08:27,370 --> 01:08:33,230
It's about a $22.7 million loss in a year, judging just on today's template.

830
01:08:33,230 --> 01:08:43,150
So I think there's going to have to be something in the formula or something in there to mitigate that loss because we kind of live on that one year lag in fast growth.

831
01:08:45,010 --> 01:08:51,330
So it's going to be an issue, especially if there's not if the basic allotment doesn't get bumped up significant life for those fast growth risk.

832
01:08:51,450 --> 01:08:55,710
Right. And that of course is why we're waiting for the vote on all of this until we have all pictures.

833
01:08:55,710 --> 01:09:02,310
Yeah. This is a persuasive argument if you're in the fast growth, fast growth district

834
01:09:02,310 --> 01:09:07,470
because there's growing number of students, growing, you know, the city's growing, you've

835
01:09:07,470 --> 01:09:14,110
got more property taxes, and you need to build more schools. But that's, of course, you

836
01:09:14,110 --> 01:09:17,990
might live in Vale where it's a fast growth property value, but there's not more students.

837
01:09:19,110 --> 01:09:27,470
And so, using this as a surrogate for you're having to build more schools, gives the

838
01:09:27,470 --> 01:09:31,230
lag sends money to some schools that actually aren't building schools.

839
01:09:31,890 --> 01:09:37,870
And so, the idea of the whole picture is, if what we're concerned about is getting money

840
01:09:37,870 --> 01:09:41,270
to people that need to build more schools, we ought to look at getting money to people that

841
01:09:41,270 --> 01:09:45,550
need to build more schools, and not a surrogate that spreads it around to other places.

842
01:09:45,550 --> 01:09:50,470
I get that, but it also, for instance, about half of our district was built before the

843
01:09:50,470 --> 01:09:51,170
year 2000.

844
01:09:51,470 --> 01:09:52,450
I hadn't seen that long ago.

845
01:09:52,550 --> 01:09:53,490
That was 20 years ago.

846
01:09:53,770 --> 01:09:54,650
Those kids have graduated.

847
01:09:55,110 --> 01:09:59,810
We were born in 2000, so we also have those kinds of costs for our facility.

848
01:10:00,000 --> 01:10:29,680
It does pay for those, because it does. All of a sudden, a lot of other places. If the idea is to, we need to help districts that have aging facilities or need new facilities, we ought to target money to people that have aging facilities and new facilities, not just let the figures lag for a while, because that's a surrogate that's... I just feel compelled to just share some of this stuff because there are going to be consequences and there are going to be winners and losers in this.

849
01:10:29,680 --> 01:10:33,380
And that's why people should stay to them, because we're getting to them with those

850
01:10:33,380 --> 01:10:33,620
later.

851
01:10:34,000 --> 01:10:34,360
Mr. Williams.

852
01:10:35,120 --> 01:10:39,560
I guess the thing that jumps out of me at this is that one, it's more accurate, because

853
01:10:39,560 --> 01:10:40,920
we're not dealing with lagging numbers.

854
01:10:41,660 --> 01:10:47,740
And secondly, it feels like it's probably, it has an equity component to it, because if

855
01:10:47,740 --> 01:10:52,080
you've got areas that have fast-growing values, those tend to be more school districts,

856
01:10:52,080 --> 01:10:57,300
I would think, versus areas that have declining values, probably are not as affluent.

857
01:10:57,300 --> 01:11:01,040
And so it seems to me this is probably also moving money again.

858
01:11:01,700 --> 01:11:06,060
100% here what you're saying because we need to look at the whole picture versus just this one component.

859
01:11:06,620 --> 01:11:09,960
But it just strikes me for those two reasons that's something that we should think about supporting.

860
01:11:10,560 --> 01:11:16,520
Well, here's the other piece too is we have to do state aid calculations, estimates and all that.

861
01:11:16,740 --> 01:11:20,400
So right now our picture is pretty fuzzy in terms of property values.

862
01:11:20,700 --> 01:11:23,080
We don't know those things. We get estimates.

863
01:11:23,520 --> 01:11:28,820
And if you're on July 1st, fiscal year start, that's going to be a pretty big issue for

864
01:11:28,820 --> 01:11:31,080
us if we're dealing with this kind of stuff.

865
01:11:31,440 --> 01:11:38,120
So it makes the picture of trying to project your state aid a little bit more fuzzy because

866
01:11:38,120 --> 01:11:42,320
now the state numbers a little fuzzier local property taxes are already fuzzy.

867
01:11:42,440 --> 01:11:47,280
So if I may respond to that, one approach that you can do is typically there's a ratio between

868
01:11:47,800 --> 01:11:51,380
state certified values and your local property values, which you get by July 25th.

869
01:11:51,380 --> 01:11:59,540
You could use this sort of ratios to when you get the certified values in July to project what the state certified values

870
01:11:59,540 --> 01:12:01,020
We're going to be in the system so that could help

871
01:12:01,020 --> 01:12:04,200
Yeah, I'm going to get that concern if I could Mr. Chairman

872
01:12:05,220 --> 01:12:13,060
It's just on this on this discussion right here. I think it's important for everybody to understand that the way the tax calendar works

873
01:12:13,060 --> 01:12:14,460
Okay, is that

874
01:12:15,560 --> 01:12:21,240
That effectively the preliminary values that people are getting are in the June, July

875
01:12:21,380 --> 01:12:27,680
time frame, and those can be very preliminary, okay, especially given the complexity of the

876
01:12:27,680 --> 01:12:30,420
tax roles and how long it's taking to certify values.

877
01:12:30,960 --> 01:12:35,500
So I think by moving it into the current year, you've mitigated a lot of the problems

878
01:12:35,500 --> 01:12:39,160
you've had with the prior year, but you do have some problems that stay with you.

879
01:12:39,820 --> 01:12:45,620
And one of the problems you've got is that I'm not sure how a July 1st, you know, year's

880
01:12:45,620 --> 01:12:47,040
going to work with this.

881
01:12:47,040 --> 01:12:53,060
In fact, I would strongly recommend that part of the public policy discussion is to get people

882
01:12:53,060 --> 01:12:58,580
off of that July 1st because there's just simply not going to have accurate data to move

883
01:12:58,580 --> 01:13:08,220
into the school year, because even though we moved up the role setting, the initial notice

884
01:13:08,220 --> 01:13:13,840
values of property, there's a pretty big estimate that's going out on these preliminary

885
01:13:14,600 --> 01:13:22,740
and it's really only until, you know, some cases August or later that there's a final role that actually makes sense.

886
01:13:23,180 --> 01:13:26,660
And I hope you agree, Dr. Killian on this.

887
01:13:27,440 --> 01:13:42,700
So while moving this up is a good idea, but it's not a complete panacea because there are some problems with the way that the school districts do their fiscal year that really probably need to be standardized with the tax calendar year at this point.

888
01:13:42,700 --> 01:13:45,540
That would just be a follow-on recommendation to them.

889
01:13:45,760 --> 01:13:47,460
If you could fix the federal issues, too,

890
01:13:47,500 --> 01:13:49,740
that we have since the first of July 1st.

891
01:13:49,740 --> 01:13:51,840
Well, I've got two colleagues that probably

892
01:13:51,840 --> 01:13:54,360
are going to be up there as battlefield promotion.

893
01:13:54,380 --> 01:13:57,440
I'll pass it along because they're on both sides of the aisle.

894
01:13:58,660 --> 01:14:02,020
But of course, this is always the problem.

895
01:14:02,140 --> 01:14:03,880
You're setting a budget for the next two years.

896
01:14:04,440 --> 01:14:06,560
Who knows what could happen in the next two years.

897
01:14:06,680 --> 01:14:10,240
I don't know how you guys, ladies and gentlemen,

898
01:14:10,460 --> 01:14:12,500
and the legislature predict what the future's

899
01:14:12,500 --> 01:14:17,480
going to be, I mean, you know, this is what we do in setting budgets, just the same as

900
01:14:17,480 --> 01:14:21,160
what we do individually setting budgets and sometimes we have to adjust those things.

901
01:14:21,160 --> 01:14:25,360
Don't turn out, like we thought they were going to be turned out two or three years ago.

902
01:14:25,600 --> 01:14:31,300
But I hear you, and that's something we need to keep in mind, Ms. Comrade Johnson.

903
01:14:32,640 --> 01:14:37,640
Yeah, so I just want to echo what Dr. Kellyan has offered, I mean, and all the recommendations

904
01:14:37,640 --> 01:14:44,120
This is the one that is probably the most concerning to me in terms of the practicality

905
01:14:44,120 --> 01:14:44,400
of it.

906
01:14:44,580 --> 01:14:49,880
Obviously, technically you can make the adjustment, but just in terms of what we, it adds the

907
01:14:49,880 --> 01:14:54,960
other biggest element of uncertainty in terms of planning both at the state and local level.

908
01:14:55,460 --> 01:14:59,380
We don't necessarily know where we're going to rest in terms of student enrollment, and

909
01:14:59,380 --> 01:14:59,980
and then have our...

910
01:15:00,000 --> 01:15:26,960
We're adding the uncertain element of the property tax values. I know they're in Travis County with all the processes around the appeals and property tax. As property tax grow increases over time, we have much more increases in property tax appeals that have to be resolved and rectified throughout the year. So there's at least five to six percent of the property tax base that hasn't been fully resolved.

911
01:15:26,960 --> 01:15:42,100
And the guessing around over my fears under appropriation in terms of needs and programming that isn't implemented during the school year as a result of moving to the current year values.

912
01:15:42,380 --> 01:15:56,320
I understand the perception around the perceived benefit in the lag, but I think that that is time that school districts needs to prepare for the pay in the subsequent year.

913
01:15:56,320 --> 01:16:01,280
In Austin, we would have to pay out another $50 million and basically recapture.

914
01:16:01,980 --> 01:16:05,900
So the previous year, whether you have the perceived benefit, the next year, you're actually

915
01:16:05,900 --> 01:16:06,820
paying out more.

916
01:16:07,080 --> 01:16:12,500
And so you're preparing and pooling your monies and cutting program in order to make that

917
01:16:12,500 --> 01:16:15,620
subsequent recapture liability payment.

918
01:16:16,060 --> 01:16:20,720
So it's not necessarily a benefit that anyone is sort of banking on or expending.

919
01:16:20,720 --> 01:16:26,400
It's really giving you time to move out your payment liability in the subsequent year.

920
01:16:27,240 --> 01:16:34,840
So this one is, I think, something substantial for districts that have to sort of pay who are

921
01:16:34,840 --> 01:16:38,520
experiencing property tax increases above the state average.

922
01:16:39,180 --> 01:16:46,560
And I mean, I would express that we should reconsider this option just because it has two elements

923
01:16:46,560 --> 01:16:51,320
of uncertainty that I think it's going to be difficult to plan around at both the state and

924
01:16:51,320 --> 01:16:57,000
local level. But if we did something to help you on recapture, would it be as big a problem?

925
01:16:58,400 --> 01:17:03,820
Well, I mean, I know all of these different components add up to sort of a total story,

926
01:17:04,560 --> 01:17:11,580
but without understanding the story, it's hard to guess. But definitely, with this one, it's very

927
01:17:11,580 --> 01:17:14,980
very difficult time because it's such a big number.

928
01:17:15,720 --> 01:17:21,280
But we've all heard of the Austin problem, declining student

929
01:17:21,280 --> 01:17:23,760
enrollment, increasing property taxes.

930
01:17:24,380 --> 01:17:27,940
We've heard from the people, the Habitat Humanity,

931
01:17:28,580 --> 01:17:32,340
was to make one of the most persuasive testimony we've heard.

932
01:17:32,920 --> 01:17:36,540
People that we're trying to build houses for in Austin can't afford to live in.

933
01:17:36,880 --> 01:17:37,780
I got that.

934
01:17:38,540 --> 01:17:42,020
That's why we have to look at all of this as a picture at once.

935
01:17:43,700 --> 01:17:46,800
I do tend to agree with the recommendation.

936
01:17:47,560 --> 01:17:52,960
If the deal is, you know, how much money does the school district have available,

937
01:17:53,420 --> 01:17:56,520
we all don't look at how much the school district has available, not perfect,

938
01:17:56,800 --> 01:17:59,560
but it's better than how much did the school district have available,

939
01:17:59,560 --> 01:18:01,720
if they were only where they were a year and a half ago.

940
01:18:03,160 --> 01:18:07,900
But, that does create other administrative problems, can create other problems for recapture,

941
01:18:08,340 --> 01:18:12,700
and we have to look at those two, and we can't decide this, just why we're not voting

942
01:18:12,700 --> 01:18:14,960
on it today without knowing what's going to happen with that.

943
01:18:15,220 --> 01:18:15,940
I agree with that.

944
01:18:18,380 --> 01:18:19,040
Senator Taylor?

945
01:18:19,320 --> 01:18:21,840
The kind of you say, it's worth reminding the commission.

946
01:18:22,480 --> 01:18:26,420
You know, we're trying to come up with a new system that's fair in concept.

947
01:18:27,000 --> 01:18:27,760
We can come up with that.

948
01:18:28,220 --> 01:18:32,720
So, it's difficult if you go through and criticize each individual part of it, if you

949
01:18:32,720 --> 01:18:34,840
not look at the whole picture, because we're trying to go over it.

950
01:18:35,080 --> 01:18:39,560
And there may be a transition to get us to that, and I think we're all aware of that,

951
01:18:39,660 --> 01:18:40,600
because it's going to be changes.

952
01:18:40,660 --> 01:18:43,800
There's some district of the advocacy effect by some parts of it.

953
01:18:44,300 --> 01:18:47,620
So, if we can look at, we're trying to create a new system, everyone agrees there's a fair

954
01:18:47,620 --> 01:18:52,120
way to, and I think, Mr. Wade, you did a good job explaining why this is a fair way to

955
01:18:52,120 --> 01:18:52,460
do it.

956
01:18:52,760 --> 01:18:53,440
It's more equitable.

957
01:18:54,260 --> 01:18:59,160
and there are going to be some temporary hardships, but you know that's part of our transition.

958
01:18:59,500 --> 01:19:04,540
But let's keep in mind, we're trying to redo this system, make it simpler, more fair,

959
01:19:05,560 --> 01:19:08,960
and then realize we're going to do some kind of transition to get us there.

960
01:19:09,040 --> 01:19:16,440
But let's not, because there is someone going to be adversely affected by every one of these individuals.

961
01:19:16,920 --> 01:19:20,740
But if you look at the whole total and an hour putting the money back into the system

962
01:19:20,740 --> 01:19:22,320
and where the need is the highest.

963
01:19:22,580 --> 01:19:25,400
I think it's good to find it's gonna be a much better way

964
01:19:25,400 --> 01:19:25,740
of doing it.

965
01:19:25,780 --> 01:19:26,940
I just wanted to counterline the commission.

966
01:19:26,940 --> 01:19:29,900
That's what we're trying to do is redo the whole thing.

967
01:19:30,280 --> 01:19:33,220
So let's don't go out and create to individual item of this

968
01:19:33,220 --> 01:19:34,080
because it doesn't work.

969
01:19:34,840 --> 01:19:37,080
And that's why you can't pass it overall

970
01:19:37,080 --> 01:19:38,680
unless you come up with a fair plan

971
01:19:39,080 --> 01:19:41,540
and then you agree we're gonna do a transition to that.

972
01:19:43,840 --> 01:19:46,380
That segues into the good, oh, I'm sorry.

973
01:19:46,680 --> 01:19:49,740
Senator Williams, put that additional money back

974
01:19:49,740 --> 01:19:51,520
back into the system, that's an additional money.

975
01:19:54,360 --> 01:19:59,140
Let's move into the more fun part of what's going to, where the money's going to go.

976
01:20:00,000 --> 01:20:10,560
As Paul Harvey says, the rest of the story, right? And I want to remind everybody, and this is important, as we go forward, because I hear what you're saying.

977
01:20:12,600 --> 01:20:28,780
But as a commissioner of this finance commission, you're here representing every child in the state of Texas, not just your school district. And the recommendations that we've made are impacting the districts I represent, positively and negatively.

978
01:20:28,780 --> 01:20:33,320
And so, you know, Dr. Killian, I understand that, you know, 22 million are representable

979
01:20:33,320 --> 01:20:33,740
ISD.

980
01:20:34,000 --> 01:20:40,360
You know, I mean, these are tough decisions, but when we talk about these programs that

981
01:20:40,360 --> 01:20:43,760
we're talking about, you're going to sit there and say, ah, you know, and I know people

982
01:20:43,760 --> 01:20:47,680
try to figure out runs and everybody's out there trying to figure out wherever it's going

983
01:20:47,680 --> 01:20:48,040
to land.

984
01:20:48,180 --> 01:20:52,280
But, you know, we're talking about putting new money into the system and fixing some of these

985
01:20:52,280 --> 01:20:53,380
outdated formulas.

986
01:20:53,380 --> 01:21:02,580
And again, I think this was a recommendation specifically related to just, it's old, let's fix the whole thing and we're going to do it.

987
01:21:02,680 --> 01:21:08,300
But we're representing 5.4 million children, not 100,000 in one particular district here.

988
01:21:08,560 --> 01:21:09,460
So please keep that in mind.

989
01:21:10,660 --> 01:21:13,000
Okay, so let's talk about the positive thing.

990
01:21:13,180 --> 01:21:19,220
So we've found 5.4 billion dollars roughly in those programs, and now we're going to start spending it.

991
01:21:19,220 --> 01:21:24,660
So recommendation number seven, the base compensatory education funding on a campus

992
01:21:24,660 --> 01:21:31,020
and a specific spectrum, increasing to 0.225 to 0.275.

993
01:21:31,720 --> 01:21:36,160
The background of this was created in 1984, provides a 0.2 way for economically disadvantaged

994
01:21:36,160 --> 01:21:40,640
students determined by eligibility for federal free and reduced lunch programs.

995
01:21:41,300 --> 01:21:45,400
The purpose of the fund is to eliminate disparities between these and other students in assessment

996
01:21:45,400 --> 01:21:46,960
performance and graduation rates.

997
01:21:46,960 --> 01:21:51,780
Our rationale was this, research has shown that the higher the concentration of

998
01:21:51,780 --> 01:21:55,260
poverty is within a district, the greater its impact is on student performance.

999
01:21:55,780 --> 01:21:59,920
A spectrum approach would direct more funds directly to districts that have

1000
01:21:59,920 --> 01:22:04,940
campuses with high concentrations of poverty. The commission should also consider the

1001
01:22:04,940 --> 01:22:08,760
use of alternative measures of poverty for this alignment, not just free and

1002
01:22:08,760 --> 01:22:15,180
reduced lunch. The annual cost by using the weights of 0.225 to 0.275 is estimated

1003
01:22:15,180 --> 01:22:17,460
between $1.1 and $1.2 billion.

1004
01:22:19,600 --> 01:22:20,360
Senator Wess.

1005
01:22:20,600 --> 01:22:27,700
And the expectation is, is that the districts will make certain that the monies are directed

1006
01:22:27,700 --> 01:22:32,940
to the campuses with the highest concentration using, I think, zip codes as the basis.

1007
01:22:33,800 --> 01:22:34,600
That is correct.

1008
01:22:34,940 --> 01:22:38,340
So it's not, this isn't on a district-by-district basis.

1009
01:22:38,340 --> 01:22:43,440
This is a campus-by-campus basis so that we send the money where it's needed.

1010
01:22:43,440 --> 01:23:05,980
I think it goes to different districts based on poverty levels, but we expect the districts that when they make the termination of allocations that they utilize these additional monies, they don't supplant, but they supplement the funding for these particular campuses to in order to achieve goals that we're talking about that being this decrease, decrease the disparities in the assessment performance and graduation rates.

1011
01:23:10,900 --> 01:23:16,380
I just want to, first of all, I appreciate how thoughtful it is and something that we've

1012
01:23:16,380 --> 01:23:17,960
talked about quite a bit.

1013
01:23:19,760 --> 01:23:26,380
Just to be clear, we're saying that compared to right now, the baseline would be the

1014
01:23:26,380 --> 01:23:26,700
same.

1015
01:23:27,180 --> 01:23:34,700
So, for the CompEdWate, it would remain the same for everyone and then for the campuses

1016
01:23:34,700 --> 01:23:38,900
not the districts. I'm sure there's a district considered for the campuses that, let's say,

1017
01:23:39,020 --> 01:23:45,340
have a higher concentration of generational poverty, that baseline rises because they would get more.

1018
01:23:45,600 --> 01:23:54,680
So it's not as if if we're ranking the severity of poverty that a school now would actually lose

1019
01:23:54,680 --> 01:23:59,880
funding, they would get what they're getting, but then schools that have significantly more

1020
01:23:59,880 --> 01:24:04,740
challenges because of what's happening around them would get an increase, right?

1021
01:24:05,320 --> 01:24:06,400
I just want to spell that out.

1022
01:24:06,720 --> 01:24:06,860
All right.

1023
01:24:07,480 --> 01:24:08,280
Now, I appreciate them.

1024
01:24:08,440 --> 01:24:15,980
I represent one district in particular where, as a district, as a district, it's certainly a poor district.

1025
01:24:16,380 --> 01:24:25,160
But if you go campus to campus, some campuses are, I would say, blue collar working poor and those kids need a tremendous amount of help.

1026
01:24:25,160 --> 01:24:32,040
And then there's another campus that is across the street from one of the oldest housing projects in the country and those

1027
01:24:32,040 --> 01:24:36,060
Challenges are different enough to warrant more investments. I appreciate that.

1028
01:24:37,340 --> 01:24:44,620
Okay, can I ask a clarifying question on that? The highest 12th district with no poverty, would they still be a 0.2 or a 0.225?

1029
01:24:45,280 --> 01:24:49,960
Depending on their, depending on their allocation of students, well they have no poverty.

1030
01:24:49,960 --> 01:24:50,500
They get nothing.

1031
01:24:50,680 --> 01:24:52,040
They get nothing, right?

1032
01:24:52,200 --> 01:24:53,240
So they have one, once two.

1033
01:24:53,960 --> 01:24:55,800
Well, they get 0.2 way down that one step.

1034
01:24:55,860 --> 01:24:58,060
Okay, so it's not, the minimum's not 0.225.

1035
01:24:59,100 --> 01:24:59,980
The way we...

1036
01:25:00,000 --> 01:25:29,260
We model that the minimum is 0.25, but it was the way we did it. The way we did it is the way we understood it. The way no one loses is it goes up. And everyone gains. Every student has. Every student has. Right. And that was my point. The base number, you know, recognize the needs. I think also the work point on we discussed this. This is our largest demographic in the state of Texas, our students. Exactly. And it's also the best economic or educational attainment indicator that we have.

1037
01:25:29,260 --> 01:25:34,840
low income kids don't just talk and do as well but that's also our largest

1038
01:25:34,840 --> 01:25:38,660
in our fastest growing demographic so we've got to do better with this

1039
01:25:38,660 --> 01:25:41,760
demographic and this is a shows a focus on that part.

1040
01:25:41,840 --> 01:25:46,360
And it's really important we will be black graining so this might

1041
01:25:46,360 --> 01:25:50,720
add to the districts. We've got to make certain that these dollars go to those

1042
01:25:50,720 --> 01:25:56,800
campuses that frankly generates this additional resource for the district to use

1043
01:25:56,800 --> 01:25:58,140
for the purposes that we've seen.

1044
01:25:58,460 --> 01:26:01,980
And I didn't mean to mislead, representional,

1045
01:26:02,260 --> 01:26:06,400
but when I said the .28 states, what I was saying is that no,

1046
01:26:06,600 --> 01:26:09,220
the additional 1.1 is on top of what's already being funded.

1047
01:26:09,840 --> 01:26:12,280
That's the, I guess I didn't explain it the right way,

1048
01:26:12,400 --> 01:26:15,060
but it basically goes the .28 states,

1049
01:26:15,060 --> 01:26:17,060
so there's no money being lost at all.

1050
01:26:17,400 --> 01:26:20,120
And then it's going up to the .25, .275,

1051
01:26:20,320 --> 01:26:22,440
based on the need of that procurement cameras.

1052
01:26:24,260 --> 01:26:32,640
I was just wondering, have you discussed, like, have you looked at the numbers of all the

1053
01:26:32,640 --> 01:26:40,000
districts that are at the property level, how much total cost would be in statewide?

1054
01:26:40,420 --> 01:26:42,220
I'm sorry, can you, can you be stable in that?

1055
01:26:42,220 --> 01:26:47,380
The total of the, it seems to me that there's more and more school districts throughout the

1056
01:26:47,380 --> 01:26:53,100
the state of Texas, even in principal ISD, which is considered not property poor, they

1057
01:26:53,100 --> 01:27:00,180
have campuses, several campuses that are at the poverty level, so you've already put

1058
01:27:00,180 --> 01:27:01,600
those numbers.

1059
01:27:01,860 --> 01:27:07,260
There's about 4 billion being spent on compet on an annualized basis today, so that's

1060
01:27:07,260 --> 01:27:07,640
not about right.

1061
01:27:08,080 --> 01:27:13,540
So I'm looking at 1890, 18's numbers, 4 billion and 9 actually went down just a little bit

1062
01:27:13,540 --> 01:27:20,880
and in 19 was the forecast and then so we're talking based on the model that we're talking

1063
01:27:20,880 --> 01:27:28,920
about if the spending would go from in 19 3.95 billion to 5.127 billion dollars on

1064
01:27:28,920 --> 01:27:30,000
top of what we're already spending.

1065
01:27:30,480 --> 01:27:36,100
Yes, so we did do this on the campus basis, so it's more target and more target there.

1066
01:27:36,820 --> 01:27:42,500
And have you found that there are more property poor districts

1067
01:27:42,500 --> 01:27:47,520
throughout the state, I mean throughout the Texas, then maybe in the past.

1068
01:27:48,240 --> 01:27:52,580
We didn't conduct that particular analysis, so we could certainly do that if.

1069
01:27:52,940 --> 01:27:54,080
I was just curious.

1070
01:27:55,120 --> 01:27:57,680
Dr. Ellis in the end of Senator Benaport, I'm your name.

1071
01:27:58,640 --> 01:27:59,960
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

1072
01:28:00,180 --> 01:28:01,900
I want to follow up with representatives, comments.

1073
01:28:02,180 --> 01:28:05,720
I think she's touching on something that I was wanted to make sure

1074
01:28:05,720 --> 01:28:12,260
chairman of the liberty that we thought through on this. When we go and use a zip code model

1075
01:28:12,260 --> 01:28:17,860
and then go down to a campus model, there's going to be changes over time. I mean, just

1076
01:28:17,860 --> 01:28:23,060
the astonishing changes I see when I drive through the east end of Austin between the last

1077
01:28:24,660 --> 01:28:31,320
years, 95 years, about five months, because the state bird is no longer just the mocking

1078
01:28:31,320 --> 01:28:38,220
murdered is the construction crane. I think that whatever we do is we have to, we have

1079
01:28:38,220 --> 01:28:46,920
to make sure that we have flexibility to move this money, maybe on a yearly basis because

1080
01:28:46,920 --> 01:28:53,640
no, because it's very important that we don't do what we, I believe, what we did with the

1081
01:28:53,640 --> 01:28:57,920
weights and measures, even though I was a kid back in the 90s when this, when they were

1082
01:28:57,920 --> 01:29:00,640
said, of course, Senator West was almost voting here.

1083
01:29:03,940 --> 01:29:06,440
But I don't want to fix them.

1084
01:29:06,520 --> 01:29:11,100
Right. You're coming right about. Yeah, that's right. Okay. I just don't want to fix

1085
01:29:11,100 --> 01:29:17,020
them and then be arguing about them 20 years from now because this needs to be a flexible

1086
01:29:18,060 --> 01:29:26,020
response because the tremendous changes we're seeing right now are going to continue for

1087
01:29:26,020 --> 01:29:33,000
release several years, and should continue, you know, because Texas being the job destination

1088
01:29:33,000 --> 01:29:36,320
for the country, let's hope that continues from the next couple decades.

1089
01:29:37,160 --> 01:29:38,940
If I could, Chairman, you've written that.

1090
01:29:39,020 --> 01:29:45,000
Yes, I think that the ultimate goal, when we talk with TA about this, is that we would

1091
01:29:45,000 --> 01:29:53,020
sexually fix it, but by rule, and legislate intent as to how we would go back and do that.

1092
01:29:53,020 --> 01:29:55,380
And I know that the Commissioner and I've had some discussions.

1093
01:29:55,380 --> 01:29:59,960
I don't know if you want to apply on that at all, but that's kind of what we were in.

1094
01:30:00,000 --> 01:30:29,920
So for clarification for what we did just for the purposes of getting the cost, we did use the number of students classified as economically disadvantaged at each campus from teams. That's not to say that you couldn't use a different measure, but for what we did for the term that we used the existing data that was available to us. And if I could just follow up with that because that data is going to change. I think maybe some flexibility and not a fixed

1095
01:30:29,920 --> 01:30:34,880
number in a statute may be the right option. There may need to be a bandwidth here because

1096
01:30:34,880 --> 01:30:42,180
you don't want to have a system that ends up where functionally we've ended up now 20

1097
01:30:42,180 --> 01:30:48,120
years later after these weights and measures have been identified. So I would just strongly

1098
01:30:48,120 --> 01:30:54,460
suggest that there be as much flexibility bandwidth and some discretion by the commissioner on this

1099
01:30:54,460 --> 01:30:56,660
because things are going to change and change rapidly.

1100
01:30:57,520 --> 01:30:58,860
Mr. Trump's going to burn all of them.

1101
01:31:00,120 --> 01:31:04,360
So I think the answer to that, and just to sort of have

1102
01:31:04,360 --> 01:31:07,000
people calm a little bit, is in large part,

1103
01:31:07,300 --> 01:31:13,300
this resembles a lot of what SCISD is doing in leaving zip

1104
01:31:13,300 --> 01:31:14,080
codes behind.

1105
01:31:14,900 --> 01:31:17,280
I live in one of the poorest neighborhoods of San Antonio.

1106
01:31:17,540 --> 01:31:21,220
I share a zip code with one of the richest neighborhoods

1107
01:31:21,220 --> 01:31:21,880
of San Antonio.

1108
01:31:21,880 --> 01:31:25,020
and so were you to judge me by zip code who knows

1109
01:31:25,020 --> 01:31:26,080
where my daughter would end up.

1110
01:31:27,280 --> 01:31:29,940
But what SCSD does is they do it by census block,

1111
01:31:30,480 --> 01:31:33,140
and they do that so they can focus on campuses

1112
01:31:33,140 --> 01:31:37,340
and not wash or average out the real need.

1113
01:31:37,500 --> 01:31:39,580
And so I think as we continue on this,

1114
01:31:39,760 --> 01:31:44,680
and again, I'm really excited about this element of it,

1115
01:31:45,640 --> 01:31:47,260
is that we decide a part.

1116
01:31:47,440 --> 01:31:49,720
And I think part of it does have to be statutory

1117
01:31:49,720 --> 01:31:50,920
and not just rulemaking.

1118
01:31:50,920 --> 01:31:55,760
we've seen where that's gotten us for a better end or worse sometimes, that the measure

1119
01:31:55,760 --> 01:31:56,320
is important.

1120
01:31:56,540 --> 01:32:01,600
How we measure those campuses and identify those campuses, that's important.

1121
01:32:01,760 --> 01:32:08,480
So, as much as the spirit of it is something that we focus on, I think that figuring out

1122
01:32:08,480 --> 01:32:11,340
how we get there is also equally important, otherwise it doesn't work.

1123
01:32:12,020 --> 01:32:15,420
And I think that's partially what the last bullet point is around, right?

1124
01:32:15,420 --> 01:32:16,600
That's exactly what it's going to happen again.

1125
01:32:16,600 --> 01:32:25,020
last bullet point. And I think that that last bullet point is very important because it gives us

1126
01:32:25,020 --> 01:32:30,120
an opportunity from a legislative standpoint to come up with some additional definitions other

1127
01:32:30,120 --> 01:32:34,840
than free and reduced lunch. Because I haven't been to his district lately. To me and the rest,

1128
01:32:35,000 --> 01:32:39,960
I would guarantee there's a construction crane between the two sides of his district. Just right now,

1129
01:32:39,960 --> 01:32:52,840
I'll buy lunch. Okay, but I'm saying that there's that. No, I'm saying exactly what you're saying. We have to look at gentrification and all that other stuff in the impact of that. And that's it's that's a zip code and maybe it may

1130
01:32:52,840 --> 01:32:56,480
will be since block that we would be the measurement.

1131
01:32:56,880 --> 01:32:56,980
Yes.

1132
01:32:57,740 --> 01:32:58,180
We're open.

1133
01:32:59,740 --> 01:33:00,480
Anything else?

1134
01:33:01,240 --> 01:33:01,540
This part.

1135
01:33:02,660 --> 01:33:10,020
I just want to add, I'm pleased to see that the weights are better, but from a teacher's perspective,

1136
01:33:10,700 --> 01:33:18,980
I'm glad that we're looking at it campus by campus, but I also want to make sure that this makes it into the classrooms and not just more administrators.

1137
01:33:18,980 --> 01:33:25,480
So, I just still need to kind of input that and how do we ensure that this actually goes

1138
01:33:25,480 --> 01:33:29,360
toward teachers and not just higher administrative income?

1139
01:33:30,760 --> 01:33:33,000
We're coming to some of that. I've got some ideas.

1140
01:33:34,200 --> 01:33:36,100
Very good point, sir. Anything else?

1141
01:33:38,020 --> 01:33:42,280
Sorry. Recommendation number eight, base transportation funding on a mileage basis.

1142
01:33:42,940 --> 01:33:45,900
And right now the current cost is about 80 cents a mile.

1143
01:33:45,900 --> 01:33:50,880
The last, the background on this, but last time it was updated was in 1984, at which point

1144
01:33:50,880 --> 01:33:55,300
the allotment covered roughly 70, 80% of a district's transportation costs.

1145
01:33:56,140 --> 01:34:01,780
The current allotment is based on a linear density formula, which you have to have all kinds

1146
01:34:01,780 --> 01:34:06,360
of abacuses and everything else to figure out, I'm guessing so.

1147
01:34:06,900 --> 01:34:08,240
The rationale is current.

1148
01:34:08,360 --> 01:34:12,040
The current system uses rates that have not been updated in over 30 years.

1149
01:34:12,040 --> 01:34:17,300
The allotment now only covers 25% of a district's transportation costs.

1150
01:34:17,700 --> 01:34:22,880
The current system also allows routes that are not to be at advantageous to the district's

1151
01:34:22,880 --> 01:34:25,460
linear density calculation to be excluded.

1152
01:34:26,320 --> 01:34:29,780
So we're not picking up kids because it's not advantageous to them.

1153
01:34:30,630 --> 01:34:33,020
We believe a mileage approach is much more straightforward.

1154
01:34:33,740 --> 01:34:37,820
However, the mileage rate should be set and established in the appropriations bill.

1155
01:34:37,820 --> 01:34:44,820
And once again, what our suggestion to our recommendation of the legislature is to get rid of the linear density formula,

1156
01:34:44,840 --> 01:34:48,420
to go to a mileage formula and identify what the cost is now.

1157
01:34:48,960 --> 01:34:55,920
One of the concerns obviously is that if Doug does a good job of managing his transportation business

1158
01:34:56,560 --> 01:34:59,640
and somebody does not, we don't want to reward inefficiencies,

1159
01:34:59,640 --> 01:34:59,940
is what

1160
01:35:00,000 --> 01:35:26,140
We would like to do is figure out, you know, a percentage of those costs and do it by appropriations. And so I know that the transportation industry or the transportation association that here that does all this, that they have one, will certainly be somebody we should visit with, but we believe it should be an appropriations request. And we're not suggesting 80 cents as a, you know, we're saying that's the floor, but we believe there's an additional number that should be incentivized with that.

1161
01:35:28,970 --> 01:35:31,810
I know we discussed it in a recommendation. I don't see it written here.

1162
01:35:31,810 --> 01:35:35,310
maybe I'm missing it. Would this also be, or Chapter 4144?

1163
01:35:35,530 --> 01:35:35,630
I'm working on it.

1164
01:35:35,630 --> 01:35:36,390
That's a nice combination.

1165
01:35:36,770 --> 01:35:36,990
I'm sorry.

1166
01:35:37,130 --> 01:35:38,290
You might want to go ahead and put that.

1167
01:35:38,290 --> 01:35:39,770
Well, let me, let me put these back-to-back.

1168
01:35:40,170 --> 01:35:44,110
So the recommendation number nine is to provide transportation funding to Chapter 41 districts.

1169
01:35:44,350 --> 01:35:48,750
Currently chapter, background, and this is currently Chapter 41 districts do not receive direct

1170
01:35:48,750 --> 01:35:50,650
state support for transportation costs.

1171
01:35:51,210 --> 01:35:55,210
Our rationale on this is the state should not create a distance center for Chapter 41 districts

1172
01:35:55,210 --> 01:35:59,470
to provide transportation services for their students, and this will result in annual costs

1173
01:35:59,470 --> 01:36:00,190
of $60 million.

1174
01:36:00,190 --> 01:36:06,990
So if you're a 41 district right now and you're not getting transportation funding, we believe that it's a cost and you shouldn't be sending

1175
01:36:06,990 --> 01:36:12,710
recapture dollars back to us for your transportation costs associated with that and we believe that that would be helpful.

1176
01:36:13,650 --> 01:36:14,890
So those are the recommendations.

1177
01:36:14,890 --> 01:36:17,270
Again, the 80 set mileage is the floor.

1178
01:36:17,790 --> 01:36:21,030
Again, we believe it should be an appropriation discussion.

1179
01:36:21,810 --> 01:36:28,270
And the reason we're suggesting it's an appropriation discussion because I know many of us have heard that

1180
01:36:28,270 --> 01:36:30,430
You know, transportation funding hasn't changed since 1984.

1181
01:36:31,110 --> 01:36:34,030
We want to stop having that discussion and we'd like to actually.

1182
01:36:34,630 --> 01:36:37,030
Yeah, yeah, that's right, that's right.

1183
01:36:38,270 --> 01:36:44,430
Senator Bettson, you know, I wanted to go back to the excellent comment that I'm

1184
01:36:44,430 --> 01:36:48,490
smart and just made, okay, because it kind of relates to this term of humority,

1185
01:36:48,730 --> 01:36:54,110
because you said you didn't want to provide, you know, a situation where we're

1186
01:36:54,110 --> 01:36:57,390
de-incentivized them to manage their transportation business.

1187
01:36:58,390 --> 01:37:01,570
And in the last discussion on recommendation seven,

1188
01:37:02,430 --> 01:37:05,530
about her comment, about bringing money into the classroom,

1189
01:37:05,790 --> 01:37:07,810
and then also about yours, about not wanting

1190
01:37:07,810 --> 01:37:09,690
to have a distance set up for it,

1191
01:37:09,970 --> 01:37:12,770
that we have not used the word incentive yet

1192
01:37:13,270 --> 01:37:14,690
in our discussions today.

1193
01:37:14,910 --> 01:37:15,450
We're about to.

1194
01:37:15,710 --> 01:37:16,170
OK, good.

1195
01:37:16,350 --> 01:37:19,770
Well, I'm glad Brad, Brad, to lead you to the promised land

1196
01:37:19,770 --> 01:37:20,870
you've already gone to.

1197
01:37:20,870 --> 01:37:27,770
But I think maybe in both recommendation 7 and 8, we need to be looking at incentivizing

1198
01:37:27,770 --> 01:37:38,410
good behavior, as opposed to just relying on everyone to be at their best behavior.

1199
01:37:38,990 --> 01:37:43,810
I don't think you've got Crosby ISD, but you've seen the articles.

1200
01:37:44,230 --> 01:37:45,230
I have a portion on it.

1201
01:37:45,230 --> 01:37:56,510
You know, and it's sad to see that the school board has absolutely no idea where they are on their annual report, the past annual board, the current budget or, you know, where the money is at all.

1202
01:37:56,770 --> 01:38:07,590
So I just think that Miss Martin's comment about making sure the money gets to the classroom is an important part of the incentive that we should look at it here on transportation.

1203
01:38:07,590 --> 01:38:16,690
And I agree, absolutely, with chapter 41, I've never understood why we're giving them a clearly a disincentive, okay, to do a basic function.

1204
01:38:17,570 --> 01:38:20,710
Well, if you think about it, the incentive is on the 41's to do that.

1205
01:38:20,950 --> 01:38:26,550
And the other incentive piece on the transportation funding is that we're moving from the linear density pattern,

1206
01:38:26,730 --> 01:38:32,070
which we had some experience in dealing with this last session, specifically related to funding and transportation.

1207
01:38:33,450 --> 01:38:36,890
and it's just wacky the way that it's calculated.

1208
01:38:37,290 --> 01:38:39,070
And it takes a lot, it's administrative costs.

1209
01:38:39,550 --> 01:38:40,810
This is a very simplistic deal.

1210
01:38:41,030 --> 01:38:42,670
This is, you know, we know what it costs per mile.

1211
01:38:42,950 --> 01:38:45,350
It's very simple to be able to do that.

1212
01:38:45,550 --> 01:38:47,290
But we'll have to pick, you know, we'll have to pick the number.

1213
01:38:47,410 --> 01:38:48,930
And again, I don't want people to say,

1214
01:38:48,930 --> 01:38:50,430
well, we're not going to put any more money in there.

1215
01:38:51,230 --> 01:38:53,730
We need to pick the number we think is the right number,

1216
01:38:53,870 --> 01:38:54,990
but do that through appropriations.

1217
01:38:56,730 --> 01:38:57,010
Okay.

1218
01:38:57,670 --> 01:38:58,430
I had a question, though.

1219
01:38:58,430 --> 01:39:02,850
So we need to make sure, too, that there's some kind of inflationary number there, too.

1220
01:39:03,190 --> 01:39:05,850
Gas goes up and down, or diesel.

1221
01:39:07,170 --> 01:39:10,230
We talked about that actually during our recommendations, whether you put it in and

1222
01:39:10,230 --> 01:39:12,790
put a CPI on it, or where does it stand?

1223
01:39:14,910 --> 01:39:17,730
You can see, you know, of course, it's their consumer price index.

1224
01:39:17,730 --> 01:39:21,190
Is there anything more unpredictable in the last ten years of the price of it?

1225
01:39:21,250 --> 01:39:21,350
Yeah.

1226
01:39:21,850 --> 01:39:22,370
That's right.

1227
01:39:22,770 --> 01:39:23,050
That's right.

1228
01:39:23,050 --> 01:39:28,770
It's just, but if I could, this makes it much clearer and easier for Leicester to understand

1229
01:39:28,770 --> 01:39:32,250
what they're funding and the other way of doing it, you could put more money if you had

1230
01:39:32,250 --> 01:39:33,330
no idea how it was really working.

1231
01:39:33,850 --> 01:39:34,570
This is very clear.

1232
01:39:34,750 --> 01:39:41,530
If we know gas is up per gallon and we're currently paying whether it's 25% or 50%, we can

1233
01:39:41,530 --> 01:39:43,790
say if we want to help all set that, here's how much it is.

1234
01:39:43,910 --> 01:39:44,750
It's a very clear number.

1235
01:39:44,890 --> 01:39:50,250
Leicester can knowingly vote on, which is unlike a lot of education votes we've taken over

1236
01:39:50,250 --> 01:39:51,050
years of education.

1237
01:39:51,410 --> 01:39:56,210
You don't really understand this, why hang out these runs, try to break it all down, but this is some of the

1238
01:39:56,210 --> 01:39:59,910
Let's say you could step up and say, here's some of them want to help fun and they can very clearly

1239
01:40:02,560 --> 01:40:22,180
So actually, if you do fund the transportation a lot better, you are putting money back in the classroom. Because right now considering the fact that we are funding this since I was in high school, we're reallocating money from other places. And if you give us more money for transportation, that brings up more money locally to take care of the classroom.

1240
01:40:23,020 --> 01:40:23,600
Okay,

1241
01:40:27,280 --> 01:40:33,180
recommendations number ten, recreate small in the mid-sized district adjustments as a stand-alone allotment.

1242
01:40:33,860 --> 01:40:43,600
The background of this is a small district adjustment was created in 1974 and amended in 2017 to face full adjustments for districts under 300 square miles in size.

1243
01:40:44,280 --> 01:40:51,100
The mid-sized district adjustment was created in 1997 and amended in 2009 to allow chapter 41 districts to receive it.

1244
01:40:51,100 --> 01:40:58,320
The rationale on the loan on this is that the standalone loan will have an increased transparency and helps the streamline the formulas.

1245
01:40:59,120 --> 01:41:04,020
The annual cost is estimated between, we've got it pegged down pretty close here, between 0 and 400 million.

1246
01:41:04,980 --> 01:41:07,800
That looks like an LVB estimate.

1247
01:41:07,980 --> 01:41:08,900
Yeah, we're pretty close.

1248
01:41:09,160 --> 01:41:09,880
We're pretty close.

1249
01:41:11,780 --> 01:41:19,400
Again, I think that our view of this is that, you know, and I know Justice Bristler's view on small districts,

1250
01:41:19,400 --> 01:41:22,020
that we've decided to remain small for a reason.

1251
01:41:22,300 --> 01:41:24,140
We want to create a little bit more transparency

1252
01:41:24,140 --> 01:41:25,000
through that process.

1253
01:41:25,880 --> 01:41:29,320
The mid-sized districts are, again, not being penalized.

1254
01:41:29,420 --> 01:41:31,300
In fact, try to create incentives

1255
01:41:32,120 --> 01:41:34,180
for more efficiencies within the system.

1256
01:41:34,640 --> 01:41:35,360
That's our guide.

1257
01:41:36,140 --> 01:41:40,000
And I'm for this, because there's small districts

1258
01:41:40,000 --> 01:41:41,740
that can't help it, and then there's small districts

1259
01:41:41,740 --> 01:41:42,620
that could help it.

1260
01:41:43,260 --> 01:41:45,180
They're right next door to another district,

1261
01:41:45,380 --> 01:41:48,480
and they could, without closing any schools,

1262
01:41:48,480 --> 01:41:54,020
eliminate administrative calls, but it's the Commissioner shares me it's not a

1263
01:41:54,020 --> 01:42:00,060
huge number but at least transparency. People ought to know how much we're

1264
01:42:00,060 --> 01:42:04,940
spending to keep a thousand over a thousand school districts in business. If

1265
01:42:04,940 --> 01:42:10,280
that's the way the people of Texas want it, nobody else in the country, probably

1266
01:42:10,280 --> 01:42:15,100
the world does it that way. That's fine. We like small things, we like a lot of

1267
01:42:15,100 --> 01:42:18,280
counties. We've got more counties than any other state has. That's the way you

1268
01:42:18,280 --> 01:42:22,860
If you want to do it, that's fine, but we ought to at least know what it calls to you to do it, thank you very much.

1269
01:42:25,140 --> 01:42:31,840
Just as an estimate, we calculated this with TEA, but we call it SDA, and

1270
01:42:31,840 --> 01:42:38,620
the SDA is at a billion dollars, so if we went up and spent the 400, we're already spent about six today.

1271
01:42:39,300 --> 01:42:47,960
But it'll clearly depend on the final, what the basic Latin comes, whatever the legislature decides to do with the PA, because it's all, it's all changes based upon a word that's that.

1272
01:42:48,840 --> 01:42:57,360
Yeah, I just want to point out the intention, at least when we discussed it before, this is not an intention to punish or to hurt the small schools or the mid-size.

1273
01:42:57,840 --> 01:43:03,520
The idea, there's a quirk in the calculations where there becomes a double multiplier and we heard from multiple witnesses,

1274
01:43:04,340 --> 01:43:11,180
available for one that came in and talked about how that process gets convoluted and this is more to simplify not to harm those districts.

1275
01:43:11,180 --> 01:43:19,920
But again, if there's incentives that are created, we're prepared to spend an additional $400 million here, if we think it's the right, if it works out that way.

1276
01:43:21,220 --> 01:43:22,040
If I could.

1277
01:43:23,380 --> 01:43:35,080
Mr. Chairman, there was an interesting case of, because we're in the property tax committee, we've been tracking the TREs and where the TREs passed and failed.

1278
01:43:35,080 --> 01:43:42,900
And I'm 99% sure this was in Medina County, which is in the Senate District 19 now.

1279
01:43:43,960 --> 01:43:52,680
And there was a system that was ranked below average, sent out a TRE and it failed.

1280
01:43:53,920 --> 01:44:00,460
And so I guess I was wondering if this, in this area, because would we be trying to incentivize,

1281
01:44:00,460 --> 01:44:06,640
I know it's a sacrilegious word, but for an aggregation school districts, emerging

1282
01:44:06,640 --> 01:44:07,520
school districts.

1283
01:44:08,380 --> 01:44:11,680
I mean, especially when you look at Medina as a small county, I believe they had nine,

1284
01:44:12,200 --> 01:44:18,700
and it was interesting to see that the TRE failed in one, but there was a B-rank school system

1285
01:44:18,700 --> 01:44:24,000
right next to it, but they had a blow-passing grade, so I'm just curious if you're open to

1286
01:44:24,000 --> 01:44:24,660
that concept.

1287
01:44:24,660 --> 01:44:28,160
Well, I'm open to that concept.

1288
01:44:28,400 --> 01:44:29,340
Well, everybody else is.

1289
01:44:29,360 --> 01:44:31,780
Well, I'm waiting for certain year already, say something on this.

1290
01:44:32,040 --> 01:44:38,940
I think that it'd be helpful to know, you know, this isn't a lot, but then in some cases

1291
01:44:38,940 --> 01:44:42,560
it's subsidizing districts that don't need to be that small, in other cases it's not.

1292
01:44:43,160 --> 01:44:48,700
So it's hard to write a rule that divides the two of those, but to start the conversation

1293
01:44:48,700 --> 01:44:53,640
It should be worthwhile to know, ladies and gentlemen, this is what we're subsidizing,

1294
01:44:53,880 --> 01:44:59,620
is that what you want to do because, remember, the big picture of the game.

1295
01:45:00,000 --> 01:45:29,400
Step back, the big picture is the huge number of students that are graduating that can barely read and write. That's the focus. And if you want to shift, but understand there's not, if you want to shift money from that to keep districts small, you ought to know that that's what you're doing. And we ought to be frank about that. And ask ourselves, and all of the voters, is that what we really want to do. And so that's a conversation I'm willing to have down the road, but it helped to know what we're doing.

1296
01:45:29,400 --> 01:45:35,340
Mr. Chairman in terms of having that conversation too, and we've been down this road before too

1297
01:45:35,340 --> 01:45:38,820
in terms of kind of consolidating school districts, and we know where we ended up there.

1298
01:45:38,860 --> 01:45:38,940
Right.

1299
01:45:39,300 --> 01:45:39,420
Yeah.

1300
01:45:39,700 --> 01:45:46,200
But towards that end, the big picture is, is making certain that we close the gap and make certain

1301
01:45:46,200 --> 01:45:53,320
that these free and reduced lines, as we define it now, those kids get the benefit of everything

1302
01:45:53,320 --> 01:45:53,800
we end.

1303
01:45:54,220 --> 01:45:57,760
And so when we look at those smaller districts, we need to look at them.

1304
01:45:57,760 --> 01:46:02,000
We pretty much get T-8 gives the analysis of how many of those smaller districts have

1305
01:46:02,000 --> 01:46:05,600
those types of problems that we're talking about, or whether or not they're serving

1306
01:46:05,600 --> 01:46:08,560
their students in the manner in which we think they should be serving.

1307
01:46:09,660 --> 01:46:11,740
If I could just add one quick comment.

1308
01:46:13,740 --> 01:46:19,000
I guess the public policy point here is that we have over a thousand school districts.

1309
01:46:19,560 --> 01:46:24,360
And what caught my eye in this particular zone was that there was a school district that

1310
01:46:24,360 --> 01:46:30,140
received a district wide grade that was not not passing. Went out with a big bond issue.

1311
01:46:30,740 --> 01:46:38,900
Well, a TRE, excuse me in this case, and it failed. So the district voters, the taxpayers said no.

1312
01:46:39,420 --> 01:46:45,940
But when you looked at geography, they were surrounded by districts that were B's, C's, and A's.

1313
01:46:45,940 --> 01:46:55,480
And so the logic of the conclusion is that the district voters do not agree with the

1314
01:46:56,620 --> 01:47:01,120
result of, I mean, the agree with the intent of having a large tax increase.

1315
01:47:01,740 --> 01:47:08,980
And so I just bring this up because I used every adjective I could Senator West except

1316
01:47:08,980 --> 01:47:11,460
at the word of consolidation to come up with.

1317
01:47:11,700 --> 01:47:12,620
There are diverse models.

1318
01:47:12,980 --> 01:47:15,260
Yeah, right, right, versus you got it, Councilor.

1319
01:47:16,440 --> 01:47:19,140
But it's important if we're gonna look at

1320
01:47:19,840 --> 01:47:21,800
these type of adjustments that I think

1321
01:47:22,300 --> 01:47:25,020
over the long term that we offer,

1322
01:47:26,360 --> 01:47:29,300
you know, offer something to incentivize

1323
01:47:29,300 --> 01:47:33,140
a district like that to go ahead and merge with one close by.

1324
01:47:33,860 --> 01:47:37,640
I look at my own area, North Forest, ISD,

1325
01:47:37,640 --> 01:47:43,640
being absorbed by HIST. And Representative Heuberty knows because that's just

1326
01:47:43,640 --> 01:47:49,240
literally right south of his state rev district. That was the district that

1327
01:47:49,240 --> 01:47:53,040
was a failed school district. It should have actually been rated in double F on

1328
01:47:53,040 --> 01:47:57,800
a scale. It was one of the most underperforming school districts. We, you know, you

1329
01:47:57,800 --> 01:48:04,560
can imagine. And as a tax collector, when the TA assigned them to me we raised

1330
01:48:04,560 --> 01:48:10,520
they're yielded by 20 points in one year because their yields were so poor on getting money

1331
01:48:10,520 --> 01:48:15,600
into the district. Too late that however too much water in the bridge and so they were

1332
01:48:15,600 --> 01:48:22,780
absorbed but that was done by because it had to be done as opposed to what we should be

1333
01:48:22,780 --> 01:48:28,300
looking as a ways to helping people that want to do it. The school district you know system

1334
01:48:28,300 --> 01:48:31,540
that we have now especially with the letter grades or district you're going to make it

1335
01:48:31,540 --> 01:48:37,020
obvious, but I hope that we consider that as part of instead of Dr.

1336
01:48:39,030 --> 01:48:39,090
Kelly.

1337
01:48:40,070 --> 01:48:46,370
I would just caution as when we start creating these outside allotments, you know, it becomes

1338
01:48:46,370 --> 01:48:47,530
the same kind of thing with GT.

1339
01:48:48,910 --> 01:48:50,750
We were just talking about that earlier.

1340
01:48:51,090 --> 01:48:55,730
So, and then my other concern is, could we not put this just in the basic allotment?

1341
01:48:56,170 --> 01:48:58,110
So, I'm back on the basic allotment then.

1342
01:49:00,340 --> 01:49:06,700
Well, I think that the answer to that question is that you can, you can create it as a separate,

1343
01:49:06,800 --> 01:49:10,420
it would just increase their alignment, specifically related to that.

1344
01:49:11,620 --> 01:49:15,800
You know, I think the question really we have to answer ourselves or ask ourselves is,

1345
01:49:15,920 --> 01:49:20,000
what incentives are we created for school districts to be more efficient to consolidate?

1346
01:49:21,400 --> 01:49:22,580
You know, those are the kind of things.

1347
01:49:22,780 --> 01:49:26,360
You know, the one thing that always infuriates me is that not infuriates.

1348
01:49:26,360 --> 01:49:30,300
But, you know, school districts, you know, should not be collecting their own taxes.

1349
01:49:30,780 --> 01:49:34,680
How many school districts across the state of Texas have their tax, you know, a little tax office?

1350
01:49:34,860 --> 01:49:38,340
Because they said, well, we've been doing it that way for 30 years and people just know we're paid their taxes.

1351
01:49:38,940 --> 01:49:43,100
I'm pretty sure you could get the taxes paid through Paris County or whatever their accounting that's out there.

1352
01:49:43,160 --> 01:49:44,920
The taxes are collector sends a bill anyways.

1353
01:49:46,060 --> 01:49:51,260
So, so, you know, those are the things that, that, you know, we've got to create incentives in the program

1354
01:49:51,260 --> 01:49:54,160
because there is, there is inefficiencies within the system today.

1355
01:49:54,160 --> 01:49:59,920
And unless we challenge that and create some mechanism to do that, you know, I'm before that but I think

1356
01:50:00,000 --> 01:50:25,480
We have to know, you know, how these districts are set. And again, we changed, remember, we changed the 300 mile rule last year. That was a big deal for those districts that have no choice, that we're getting penalized for some reason. So we're actually not taking any, we're not, we want to make sure I'm delivering this message to my friends at Huffman River Pleasant. I'm not taking any money away. In fact, we're trying to create incentive to reward you to be more efficient. That's what we're trying to accomplish here.

1357
01:50:26,560 --> 01:50:31,760
Well I would just say to you know the West Texas argument always comes up with

1358
01:50:31,760 --> 01:50:35,780
this with the 300 square miles but you might look at just the sparse the

1359
01:50:35,780 --> 01:50:40,000
adjustment being a sliding scale. The larger you are maybe the larger

1360
01:50:40,000 --> 01:50:45,280
thing. I'm sure that every every small and mid-sized person that's out there

1361
01:50:45,280 --> 01:50:48,460
that has you know government affairs people will be in our office telling us what

1362
01:50:48,460 --> 01:50:53,820
we're doing here shortly. Well if I could ask because you're absolutely right

1363
01:50:53,820 --> 01:51:00,260
because we had a presentation from Travis County from the

1364
01:51:00,260 --> 01:51:07,620
Prasal District here that had been working in conjunction with almost 120 out

1365
01:51:07,620 --> 01:51:12,580
of the 133 taxing units here in Travis County and what they were doing was

1366
01:51:12,580 --> 01:51:17,520
creating a portal so that taxpayers and folks could see what was

1367
01:51:17,520 --> 01:51:21,220
happening for their monies that were being spent as well as for public

1368
01:51:21,220 --> 01:51:26,200
hearings. And I think there's no factor submission. The fact that we should let the school districts,

1369
01:51:26,200 --> 01:51:32,280
you know, at this point of time, continue to have separate tax offices because that money is a

1370
01:51:32,280 --> 01:51:38,260
direct savings that can go in the 21st century. And I'm using a Travis County model, which I know

1371
01:51:38,260 --> 01:51:43,580
is could be shocking to the audience that a conservative Republican would use a Travis County model,

1372
01:51:43,580 --> 01:51:50,480
model, but it's one that works. And so I think, you know, we've got at least one person

1373
01:51:50,480 --> 01:51:56,560
in each legislative body, well, in the file that bill. But, but Rifton here is actually

1374
01:51:56,560 --> 01:51:58,460
right on on this. Okay.

1375
01:51:58,780 --> 01:52:05,160
I've got one. All right. So one more about efficiency. So with a small and min-size school

1376
01:52:05,160 --> 01:52:11,540
adjustment, one of the places where that benefits is the charge schools, because it raises that

1377
01:52:11,540 --> 01:52:15,740
average for all the districts in the state. And then you get situations like

1378
01:52:15,740 --> 01:52:19,100
going on right now, we just have a new charter school on our district. Our kids

1379
01:52:19,100 --> 01:52:22,280
walk across the street to that new charter school and all of a sudden they're

1380
01:52:22,280 --> 01:52:26,080
worth $1,000 five dollars more. That needs to be rectified. That's

1381
01:52:26,080 --> 01:52:30,160
inefficient. So have nothing against charters, but they should be on a level

1382
01:52:30,160 --> 01:52:33,720
plank. Well, I can just agree with you there because I've heard that argument

1383
01:52:33,720 --> 01:52:37,040
time and time again. You have, I don't know how big your school, how big your school

1384
01:52:37,880 --> 01:52:48,640
You have 25,000 students. They have one school with maybe 500 kids in it. And the incentive that was created many years ago, specifically for that. I'm not, I'm just giving the facts.

1385
01:52:49,640 --> 01:53:00,100
They have overhead that you get to absorb through 25,000 children versus the 500 students. So I know we'll have this discussion in debate, and I know Representative Brinnell, thank you for not jumping out of your seat.

1386
01:53:04,700 --> 01:53:11,420
But I understand, I understand that point, but again, we want our schools to do well.

1387
01:53:11,520 --> 01:53:15,980
I like what Senator West has to say, which is that, you know, why are they building a school directly across

1388
01:53:15,980 --> 01:53:21,920
street from your school? Who's making that decision? Why are they doing that? Put them where they belong versus building them directly across

1389
01:53:21,920 --> 01:53:25,520
the street. Those are the kind of, those are the decisions that we should be focused on.

1390
01:53:25,520 --> 01:53:34,760
from my response to that is the school they have down the street in the same district or in the same county is an F so we don't have any F's.

1391
01:53:36,380 --> 01:53:41,200
Well then you know the TEA will deal with that so as we go forward.

1392
01:53:41,740 --> 01:53:50,260
Okay. Yes sir recommendation number 11 increased the new instructional facility alignment NIFA appropriation to $100 million per year.

1393
01:53:50,260 --> 01:53:55,740
The background on this was created in 1999, it was $250 per ADA.

1394
01:53:56,480 --> 01:54:04,260
We updated this in 2017 to be $1,000 per ADA, but we put no additional funding provided.

1395
01:54:04,860 --> 01:54:09,240
And as a result of the amount of appropriation requests that were out there, the average

1396
01:54:09,240 --> 01:54:12,800
awarded was $235 per ADA for fiscal 18.

1397
01:54:13,080 --> 01:54:18,300
So while we tried to correct it to put $1,000 in, we actually gave less money to districts

1398
01:54:18,300 --> 01:54:20,220
because they all were applying for it.

1399
01:54:20,720 --> 01:54:23,340
So this provides funding for operational expenses associated

1400
01:54:23,340 --> 01:54:25,260
with the opening of a new instructional campus.

1401
01:54:26,020 --> 01:54:27,560
Our rationale is the legislature

1402
01:54:27,560 --> 01:54:28,660
increased the award amounts

1403
01:54:28,660 --> 01:54:31,040
but did not appropriate sufficient funds

1404
01:54:31,040 --> 01:54:33,100
to satisfy this intent.

1405
01:54:33,700 --> 01:54:35,760
And the annual cost is $76.3 million.

1406
01:54:36,320 --> 01:54:39,460
Incidentally, this recommendation based upon

1407
01:54:39,460 --> 01:54:41,080
where we see the student growth going

1408
01:54:41,880 --> 01:54:43,580
would might even be a little bit short.

1409
01:54:43,740 --> 01:54:46,660
We believe that it should be identified and studied

1410
01:54:46,660 --> 01:54:51,260
and the appropriation request should be to fully fund the NIFO accounts.

1411
01:54:52,100 --> 01:54:55,900
So to go back to some earlier comments on some of the things

1412
01:54:55,900 --> 01:54:59,960
in the first section of items that we took away where we're hurting families.

1413
01:55:00,000 --> 01:55:06,620
Asgro school district, this is a, this is a direct benefit to a fast growth school district. Questions?

1414
01:55:09,480 --> 01:55:29,300
Very quickly. Chairman, we worked on a, on a niff of bill. Last session in the, yes, one of the elements we added to it aside from helping fast growth districts like yours, was that for older urban districts that were repurposing buildings, were repurposing campuses, turning what used to be.

1415
01:55:29,300 --> 01:55:33,980
the cafeteria into a computer lab that NIFA would also be available for those kinds of

1416
01:55:33,980 --> 01:55:38,780
endeavors. And what I've heard from different districts is that there's been a wrinkle

1417
01:55:38,780 --> 01:55:44,320
in the way that that rules been interpreted and I would just ask that as we, as we, if

1418
01:55:44,320 --> 01:55:49,380
we are to expand NIFA that we iron that out, yes, because we want to make sure that yes

1419
01:55:49,380 --> 01:55:55,020
we help fast growth districts, but also the innovation that we're expecting to see in

1420
01:55:55,020 --> 01:55:58,960
the efficiency we're expecting to see from older urban districts. We want to make sure

1421
01:55:58,960 --> 01:56:02,020
that we give the tools to turn the corner as well.

1422
01:56:03,840 --> 01:56:04,440
Mr. Chairman.

1423
01:56:06,040 --> 01:56:06,520
Yes, I'm sorry.

1424
01:56:06,800 --> 01:56:07,580
Just in the side.

1425
01:56:07,860 --> 01:56:08,880
What weren't going on?

1426
01:56:08,960 --> 01:56:09,980
I hadn't heard about this.

1427
01:56:10,060 --> 01:56:14,560
I think there are some districts in the audience

1428
01:56:14,560 --> 01:56:16,980
that will talk to you when we get a break about that

1429
01:56:16,980 --> 01:56:17,860
wrinkle, particularly.

1430
01:56:18,220 --> 01:56:19,160
I have a lot of agency.

1431
01:56:20,440 --> 01:56:23,040
So, just to kind of give the broad strokes,

1432
01:56:23,680 --> 01:56:29,000
we purposely adjusted NIFA so that not only did it help create

1433
01:56:29,000 --> 01:56:29,680
new campuses.

1434
01:56:30,240 --> 01:56:35,140
The new campuses are turning old buildings and old rooms into something very, very new,

1435
01:56:35,940 --> 01:56:36,860
using it for instructions.

1436
01:56:37,120 --> 01:56:39,400
But you said there's a work of law to understand that, but what's the work?

1437
01:56:39,580 --> 01:56:45,000
So in the administration of NIFA, there seems to be some disagreement as to what constitutes

1438
01:56:45,760 --> 01:56:51,180
even though we try to define it, what constitutes a new instructional facility, in which case

1439
01:56:51,180 --> 01:56:54,340
they thought there would be an eligible for that money, and some of the remains told that

1440
01:56:54,340 --> 01:56:54,600
they're not.

1441
01:56:54,600 --> 01:56:58,680
I understand that, who has the problem, is that an agency problem or what?

1442
01:56:59,100 --> 01:57:01,080
Well, I think that's what we need to sort out, that's my point.

1443
01:57:01,440 --> 01:57:05,880
I think it's specifically a rule interpretation of the NIFA bill.

1444
01:57:06,380 --> 01:57:12,100
And so it's a distant center of into primarily, I would say, urban campuses that are repurposing districts.

1445
01:57:13,260 --> 01:57:17,900
Whereas the funding was meant to provide resources and opportunities for them.

1446
01:57:18,100 --> 01:57:22,940
And I think there was some probable interpretation of that, it doesn't.

1447
01:57:22,940 --> 01:57:24,980
Okay, well, let's see. Okay. Alright, hold on.

1448
01:57:25,140 --> 01:57:27,420
TEA. Who was misinterpreting it?

1449
01:57:28,140 --> 01:57:30,060
TEA? It's a rule by TEA.

1450
01:57:30,160 --> 01:57:32,140
Okay, so why can't we get that taken care of?

1451
01:57:32,260 --> 01:57:34,320
As opposed to having to wait until the legislature's session?

1452
01:57:35,780 --> 01:57:36,280
Uh-huh.

1453
01:57:37,160 --> 01:57:40,360
Both. Yes. I'm saying now and in the future. That's what I'm saying.

1454
01:57:40,620 --> 01:57:42,000
Well, I'd be more than happy to help you with that.

1455
01:57:42,140 --> 01:57:43,320
I like that. Okay. Thank you.

1456
01:57:43,540 --> 01:57:45,880
And I mean, TEA is here. Bond.

1457
01:57:47,000 --> 01:57:48,960
Okay. We're going to break for launch.

1458
01:57:54,160 --> 01:57:58,500
And this is much appreciated because we were supposed to get $1.1 million in NIFA money

1459
01:57:58,500 --> 01:58:00,860
and we ended up with $400,000 because it changed the way.

1460
01:58:02,960 --> 01:58:08,680
And if I could, once again looking at this in the context of the whole picture, this

1461
01:58:08,680 --> 01:58:12,900
is a much clearer way to help our fast growth schools than using the property values.

1462
01:58:13,900 --> 01:58:18,060
So this is just, once again, take the whole picture into account and this is a much clearer

1463
01:58:18,060 --> 01:58:19,460
a way where people understand what we're doing.

1464
01:58:22,690 --> 01:58:28,210
Okay, and the last recommendation of a 12 in this particular section is to expand

1465
01:58:28,210 --> 01:58:32,130
career and technology allotment to include courses in sixth through eighth grade.

1466
01:58:33,150 --> 01:58:37,330
The background on this was created in 1984 and updated in 2003,

1467
01:58:37,810 --> 01:58:40,550
currently only applies to courses in ninth through 12th grades.

1468
01:58:41,610 --> 01:58:45,830
Our reviewer, rationale is since the state is investing in PTEC and other career and

1469
01:58:45,830 --> 01:58:49,510
technical programs, it makes sense to incentivize courses that can prepare students

1470
01:58:49,510 --> 01:58:50,650
to enter those programs.

1471
01:58:51,450 --> 01:58:56,110
We estimated $20 million, it could be more, it could be less depending on how many students

1472
01:58:56,110 --> 01:58:57,470
and how many districts participate.

1473
01:58:57,970 --> 01:59:01,170
There are some school districts that actually have programs right now.

1474
01:59:01,590 --> 01:59:02,610
There are some that do not.

1475
01:59:02,850 --> 01:59:06,990
We believe that there would be other districts that would start participating if they were able

1476
01:59:06,990 --> 01:59:08,570
to get funding specifically for that.

1477
01:59:08,750 --> 01:59:13,490
And we believe that based upon all of the changes that we've made, again relative to PTAQ,

1478
01:59:13,630 --> 01:59:19,090
what was done with HB5, career paths, things of that nature and career, and again, the focus

1479
01:59:19,090 --> 01:59:24,490
some of the career and college readiness standards. This was important investment in our children.

1480
01:59:25,450 --> 01:59:26,150
Senator Beckett.

1481
01:59:26,710 --> 01:59:31,430
Senator here we can you translate this into Aggie speak I'm trying to see this as a way

1482
01:59:31,950 --> 01:59:36,010
that we're I guess we're just bringing shop back to eighth grade. Is that what you're doing?

1483
01:59:36,150 --> 01:59:38,330
Not necessarily. Now we're we're talking about.

1484
01:59:38,590 --> 01:59:38,930
That's teasing.

1485
01:59:41,230 --> 01:59:47,210
Well you said you were you started with you started with you're an Aggie so I think I had to explain it to you.

1486
01:59:47,210 --> 01:59:48,350
Now remember,

1487
01:59:51,250 --> 01:59:54,910
when you start out joking, you're supposed to lower the audience's expectations

1488
01:59:54,910 --> 01:59:58,750
and then bring back to a higher level.

1489
01:59:59,010 --> 01:59:59,970
I was taking a little...

1490
02:00:00,020 --> 02:00:25,240
Tough, tough crowd today, boy. Can we see these people, Chairman Grister, at this point? Yeah, I think it's about time for a break. We're making good progress. But we've got, we've got enough left that I don't want to do short shrift on them. So let's take a, we don't have lunch brought in. So you're going to need to go up to the ground. So let's do a 30 minute break. Let's reconvene at 1240.

1491
02:00:32,980 --> 02:00:43,220
We've got to, I don't want to, I don't want to rush through to, I would, I would prefer to take a 30 minute break unless I'm out, but I'm willing to do whatever the committee wants to do.

1492
02:00:43,220 --> 02:00:45,080
You might want to give me a 50, if you're good.

1493
02:00:45,180 --> 02:00:45,360
No.

1494
02:00:46,080 --> 02:00:48,560
I have to leave until it's 1-4.

1495
02:00:49,180 --> 02:00:49,420
OK.

1496
02:00:49,980 --> 02:00:50,980
Let's do a 30 minute break.

1497
02:00:51,620 --> 02:00:51,980
Sorry.

1498
02:00:52,480 --> 02:00:53,020
Senator Will.

1499
02:00:54,120 --> 02:00:55,100
Maybe I'll be good.

1500
02:00:55,320 --> 02:01:00,500
Will get it done before 2-7.

1501
02:41:32,720 --> 02:41:59,940
Okay, so while we talked about the reallocations in the first section, and then changes to existing programs that we have in place, these are now what we consider new programs of additional resources that we're going to put in. So recommendation number 13 is to create new, new dual language allotment. The background, this is currently, we have a single bilingual education weight of

1502
02:41:59,940 --> 02:42:03,520
point one that includes students in dual language programs.

1503
02:42:04,020 --> 02:42:07,760
The total annual cost of bilingual education weight is $570 million.

1504
02:42:08,840 --> 02:42:13,520
Our rationale is that dual language programs have been shown to have better academic outcomes

1505
02:42:13,520 --> 02:42:18,160
and other bilingual education programs, but districts need additional support to implement

1506
02:42:18,160 --> 02:42:18,420
them.

1507
02:42:18,880 --> 02:42:22,320
This is a recommendation that was also suggested by the outcomes working group.

1508
02:42:22,840 --> 02:42:27,660
Annual cost is anywhere from 15 to 50 million dollars and we're suggesting using a weight

1509
02:42:27,660 --> 02:42:29,140
of .15.

1510
02:42:29,140 --> 02:42:35,600
I don't know if Mr. Williams wants to visit on this a little bit because this was a recommendation from his outcomes group.

1511
02:42:36,140 --> 02:42:43,460
No, highly supportive of it, just to be clear, is the 0.15, the reason you have a range is that you don't know how many will move from bilingual to dual language.

1512
02:42:43,580 --> 02:42:43,920
That's correct.

1513
02:42:44,160 --> 02:42:46,060
Okay. I recommend it.

1514
02:42:49,050 --> 02:42:49,670
I'm sorry, Ms. Mark.

1515
02:42:50,550 --> 02:42:51,230
I have a question.

1516
02:42:51,390 --> 02:42:56,450
So the dual language program doesn't always just serve e-lil students, it can serve all students.

1517
02:42:56,710 --> 02:43:00,870
So if any student gets into that program then they're going to get that weighted funding as well.

1518
02:43:00,870 --> 02:43:01,770
That's correct. Okay.

1519
02:43:05,680 --> 02:43:20,460
So I have a couple of questions. The first is, is it, is it, is it a dollar amount we're talking about large enough?

1520
02:43:22,260 --> 02:43:30,440
In other words, it strikes me as being small, but I guess that's because we're trying to predict an adoption rate.

1521
02:43:31,620 --> 02:43:37,200
And then the other thing is the chairman at the beginning of our conversation today

1522
02:43:37,200 --> 02:43:42,580
said, you know, there are at least three big things we have to deal with, right?

1523
02:43:42,720 --> 02:43:47,660
Some things are more life threatening than others, and so while I recognize, and one

1524
02:43:47,660 --> 02:43:52,700
of the components of dual language, does that mean then that for schools are doing things

1525
02:43:52,700 --> 02:43:58,640
that are, let's say, effective but not as effective as dual language, that this is the only

1526
02:43:58,640 --> 02:44:02,120
the option that they have in terms of an improvement from the previous system.

1527
02:44:03,420 --> 02:44:08,340
Well, I think the goal is, and I'm doing some math right now, so just give me a quick second here.

1528
02:44:08,560 --> 02:44:19,940
But if I look at it in 2018, by lingua, we spent about $506 million, $195.30, switching the model over.

1529
02:44:20,420 --> 02:44:25,340
If we just let the base alone, we would forecast an increase to $563 million.

1530
02:44:25,340 --> 02:44:35,960
But what we're talking about now is ultimately, I think we land somewhere around $586 million of money.

1531
02:44:36,120 --> 02:44:38,180
That's inclusive of bilingual and the dual language.

1532
02:44:38,440 --> 02:44:43,280
It's just going to be based on adoption rate and it's going to be based on how much do they implement it.

1533
02:44:43,460 --> 02:44:46,700
We just don't know. It's going to be weighted so that ultimately go there.

1534
02:44:46,840 --> 02:44:48,400
But maybe Mr. Williams has a different opinion.

1535
02:44:48,400 --> 02:44:54,400
And guess what I'm saying is that bilingual is 0.1 and you're suggesting a way to 0.15.

1536
02:44:55,160 --> 02:44:59,960
If every single kid who was bilingual moved to do a language, that 570...

1537
02:45:00,000 --> 02:45:17,280
It would go up by, I think, roughly $285. That's an extra 0.05 in the way. So this is assuming, I guess, one in five kids who are bilingual go to do it. Right. The question

1538
02:45:17,280 --> 02:45:28,980
mask in has to do with what, with how realistic that is. In other words, dual languages is not an easy thing to pull off because of the availability of

1539
02:45:28,980 --> 02:45:31,940
teachers who can do it, the certification rates, and so forth.

1540
02:45:32,080 --> 02:45:34,760
And so you've got to, you've got to, relatively, right now,

1541
02:45:34,900 --> 02:45:39,040
or you have a relatively small universe of teachers

1542
02:45:39,040 --> 02:45:46,200
that can do it, campuses that have the, not the students

1543
02:45:46,740 --> 02:45:48,380
to do it, because you need both, right?

1544
02:45:48,480 --> 02:45:49,640
You need both groups of students.

1545
02:45:50,200 --> 02:45:55,200
And so if my question is not in criticism of this

1546
02:45:55,200 --> 02:45:58,020
because I think that all the data has shown

1547
02:45:58,020 --> 02:46:04,260
that this works. The question is for all the other ELL students who we've already said

1548
02:46:04,260 --> 02:46:07,660
are one of the populations that's growing the most and need the most that aren't going

1549
02:46:07,660 --> 02:46:13,260
to be able to leap to dual language this year or in the next five years, is this the

1550
02:46:13,260 --> 02:46:17,600
only thing that relates to that student group in the new system? That's my question.

1551
02:46:18,780 --> 02:46:22,200
And there's a mean, there's a, in the meantime part that I'm asking.

1552
02:46:22,200 --> 02:46:29,480
I think when we did the analysis, the percentage of ELL children who were also considered low

1553
02:46:29,480 --> 02:46:35,460
income was like 95 percent, heavy, heavy overlap between those two populations.

1554
02:46:36,040 --> 02:46:41,920
So they're given what we're doing with combat, obviously they're benefiting from that as well.

1555
02:46:42,320 --> 02:46:47,060
I understand, but you could make the same argument for any student that has an additional

1556
02:46:48,020 --> 02:46:53,520
identity, right? I don't know that we'd make that argument for, let's say, I don't

1557
02:46:53,520 --> 02:46:57,860
there's a dyslexia weight that's being cracked. Well, a lot of dyslexia kids are also poor,

1558
02:46:58,000 --> 02:47:02,700
so they're getting that money. I think that there's an additional challenge. And so my

1559
02:47:02,700 --> 02:47:08,740
question is, I understand the dual language piece, and I support it. 100%. I'm just saying

1560
02:47:08,740 --> 02:47:13,920
there's a whole lot of other kids who are yellow, whose schools and communities aren't going

1561
02:47:13,920 --> 02:47:17,680
to be able to make the leap to do a language as quickly for a variety of reasons that are

1562
02:47:17,680 --> 02:47:22,660
outside of their control and for that reason to have anything else for them. That is my

1563
02:47:22,660 --> 02:47:22,940
question.

1564
02:47:23,280 --> 02:47:28,400
Well, and I would say once again look at the whole picture, we had these incentives. They're

1565
02:47:28,400 --> 02:47:33,460
getting extra money for getting particular of those students. We'll give way to those

1566
02:47:33,460 --> 02:47:38,440
students even more of the incentive programs. If they succeed in doing that, they actually

1567
02:47:38,440 --> 02:47:42,720
get more 100 and incentivize it to put more resources in those areas.

1568
02:47:43,060 --> 02:47:47,180
Yeah, I don't, so let me try and answer the question.

1569
02:47:47,320 --> 02:47:47,860
Oh, that's good.

1570
02:47:48,020 --> 02:47:48,520
Yeah, no.

1571
02:47:48,800 --> 02:47:49,340
I get it.

1572
02:47:49,460 --> 02:47:53,340
So here's what I would say is that the think about it from the perspective that the current

1573
02:47:53,340 --> 02:47:55,980
weights point one, we're going to point one five for dual language.

1574
02:47:57,220 --> 02:48:04,360
In two more recommendations now, we're going to talk about the K, what we call K, pre K

1575
02:48:04,360 --> 02:48:10,600
through 3rd grade. Every child is written 3rd grade, including incentivizing the English

1576
02:48:10,600 --> 02:48:16,540
language learners. So, yes, there is additional funding associated with that. Here's my

1577
02:48:16,540 --> 02:48:20,340
response to, I think, what you're asking, which is, I get that you're saying, well, it's

1578
02:48:20,340 --> 02:48:25,460
going to take while for maybe a certain school district to get up to their program to get

1579
02:48:25,460 --> 02:48:29,040
that additional funding and get started. We'll then start today.

1580
02:48:31,550 --> 02:48:32,130
What does that mean?

1581
02:48:32,130 --> 02:48:36,690
And what it means is that we're just not going to, again, we want outcomes.

1582
02:48:37,710 --> 02:48:43,610
We want specific, you know, I believe we should have specific recommendations for spending money.

1583
02:48:43,790 --> 02:48:45,550
They're specifically tied to outcomes.

1584
02:48:46,410 --> 02:48:53,570
And so if this goes into effect, if we were to do this, then that school district should take advantage of that by implementing that program.

1585
02:48:54,430 --> 02:48:56,850
I understand. I'm not criticizing the recommendation.

1586
02:48:57,050 --> 02:48:57,950
I like the recommendation.

1587
02:48:58,130 --> 02:49:00,370
Okay. It might be rare for us to agree so much.

1588
02:49:00,370 --> 02:49:08,650
I like it. The point I'm actually is, the point I'm trying to make is on the ground

1589
02:49:09,490 --> 02:49:14,630
because of the availability of teachers, which has nothing to do with the desire or the

1590
02:49:14,630 --> 02:49:20,810
aggressiveness of a district because of the, because of what is required in statute to

1591
02:49:21,370 --> 02:49:25,650
create and implement a dual-related program, even the most willing districts are going

1592
02:49:25,650 --> 02:49:32,290
have a hard time doing that. And so I'm saying for those, for the students who are in those

1593
02:49:32,290 --> 02:49:38,570
districts, in the meantime, while they ramp up, is this all we have for them? And what you're

1594
02:49:38,570 --> 02:49:45,250
saying is there's also a 3k to 3 piece that there's other pieces. You know, there's, you know,

1595
02:49:45,410 --> 02:49:49,650
again, we talked about, you know, there's niff of funding that they're new schools, they're getting

1596
02:49:49,650 --> 02:49:52,750
money for that, they're getting money for CTE, they're getting, I mean, there's all kinds of

1597
02:49:52,750 --> 02:49:56,550
different yet all the the piles together the answers yes. Right and so what I'm

1598
02:49:56,550 --> 02:49:59,970
going to say is that while I appreciate that I don't want

1599
02:50:00,000 --> 02:50:20,840
This to be the student group that says what you're getting all this other money, that should be good for your particular challenge. I don't know if we'd go to another zero. You're getting all this other stuff. And so because what we're trying to do is as ELO kids who for reasons outing for a long time, for the pure fact get teachers to go and access the program is to get enough kids in the right ratios to do dual language. And so what do we do?

1600
02:50:20,840 --> 02:50:24,640
This bond, this is the stuff, flip a switch and do a language error.

1601
02:50:24,760 --> 02:50:25,040
Part of that.

1602
02:50:25,700 --> 02:50:27,900
We can't just pass it trying to get to that point.

1603
02:50:28,260 --> 02:50:29,300
It's going to be a point.

1604
02:50:30,000 --> 02:50:34,240
Any change like this that has an incentive market associated with it,

1605
02:50:34,340 --> 02:50:36,320
and there's going to be a pipeline to fill that market.

1606
02:50:36,800 --> 02:50:39,540
And I don't think that Chairman Huberty, Chairman Taylor,

1607
02:50:39,840 --> 02:50:42,240
you know, have any, your comment is incorrect.

1608
02:50:42,420 --> 02:50:44,040
It's going to take a while to fill the pipeline.

1609
02:50:44,740 --> 02:50:48,280
You know, there's certainly the, this is mirroring with the demographics

1610
02:50:48,280 --> 02:50:49,800
and the state are changing anyway.

1611
02:50:49,800 --> 02:50:54,220
So, you know, I'm optimistic that the market can handle it.

1612
02:50:56,690 --> 02:50:56,990
Sorry.

1613
02:50:57,690 --> 02:50:59,910
So, thank you very much for doing this.

1614
02:51:00,170 --> 02:51:00,790
This is great.

1615
02:51:01,510 --> 02:51:03,190
We do do a dual language in our district.

1616
02:51:03,930 --> 02:51:05,510
The only concern I have is,

1617
02:51:05,690 --> 02:51:08,570
I think, Representative Bernal's right, dual language,

1618
02:51:08,730 --> 02:51:10,750
compared to other bilingual purpose, twice,

1619
02:51:11,110 --> 02:51:13,050
the amount of money because what you're effectively doing

1620
02:51:13,050 --> 02:51:15,790
is filling a class with half-kids that are learning English,

1621
02:51:15,990 --> 02:51:17,010
half-kids that are learning Spanish,

1622
02:51:17,370 --> 02:51:20,790
and that means that you have to have more teachers.

1623
02:51:25,410 --> 02:51:30,950
I just want to make sure that Ms. Martin's clarification doesn't go on her Leo T.E.A.

1624
02:51:31,430 --> 02:51:35,410
But the non-ales would be eligible to get this category of funding.

1625
02:51:35,630 --> 02:51:39,510
I just want to make sure that we're understanding that correctly, the non-ales.

1626
02:51:40,470 --> 02:51:40,810
Ms. Martin.

1627
02:51:41,630 --> 02:51:42,670
She passed.

1628
02:51:43,390 --> 02:51:43,970
I did.

1629
02:51:44,350 --> 02:51:44,630
Thank you.

1630
02:51:44,790 --> 02:51:48,570
I also have a question about what grade level the dual language will stop at.

1631
02:51:48,570 --> 02:51:51,730
But is it only for primary or can extend into secondary?

1632
02:51:54,470 --> 02:51:56,350
You know, I think it'd be to be determined.

1633
02:51:56,990 --> 02:52:03,250
But I think it should be expansive, you know, any child that we think we can help, we should be able to help.

1634
02:52:03,470 --> 02:52:09,710
But this is, again, I think our recommendation is kind of that what's called at 20,000 foot right now.

1635
02:52:10,250 --> 02:52:16,630
The details will be out there and bring experts in to help us, you know, legislatively craft it and work with TEA.

1636
02:52:16,810 --> 02:52:18,110
I think ultimately we'll be able to do that.

1637
02:52:18,110 --> 02:52:23,630
I do think, I guess I would say that trying to find out what would be the most cost-effective

1638
02:52:23,630 --> 02:52:28,010
way to get more teachers to go into this field would be helpful.

1639
02:52:28,710 --> 02:52:33,050
Whether it's grow your own strategies at districts, et cetera, but it doesn't matter if we provide

1640
02:52:33,050 --> 02:52:36,170
the funding, if we can't provide the teachers and you're not going to offer it, right?

1641
02:52:36,430 --> 02:52:37,550
So, yeah.

1642
02:52:38,110 --> 02:52:46,070
We'll say for purposes of our estimating, we just looked at existing ELL students and them

1643
02:52:46,070 --> 02:52:52,530
moving programs, so certainly we could estimate, you know, what it would cost for a given non-EOL

1644
02:52:52,530 --> 02:52:57,870
students access to the program, but that's not the case. And for those of you that may be

1645
02:52:57,870 --> 02:53:03,530
watching there and that part of the problem, no, this is the law is we have a problem of large numbers.

1646
02:53:04,590 --> 02:53:09,810
So you've got five million kids in public schools in Texas. Take a billion dollars

1647
02:53:09,810 --> 02:53:16,290
If you added a billion dollars, but we won the lottery and we got a billion dollars extra for a one year.

1648
02:53:16,910 --> 02:53:19,270
Billion divided by five million is what?

1649
02:53:20,530 --> 02:53:24,150
Drop all the zeros and it's a thousand divided by five which is two hundred dollars.

1650
02:53:24,470 --> 02:53:30,750
So that would take the average allotment in the state from eleven four, eleven thousand four hundred to eleven thousand six hundred.

1651
02:53:31,470 --> 02:53:35,450
The problem is nobody really thinks that would make much difference.

1652
02:53:35,450 --> 02:53:40,010
$200 per student for a year and you just spent $2 billion on a biennium.

1653
02:53:40,730 --> 02:53:47,870
So the whole thing behind this is the thing that we've been operating that we need to

1654
02:53:47,870 --> 02:53:53,430
change, at least I needed to in my mindset, is spreading all the money equally.

1655
02:53:54,250 --> 02:53:56,570
It's not going to change anything much at all.

1656
02:53:56,890 --> 02:54:00,370
And the thing we're trying to do again is focus that.

1657
02:54:00,370 --> 02:54:05,910
And it is going to, I mean, you know, I don't want to go against former President Bush,

1658
02:54:05,930 --> 02:54:11,690
but you know, we're not intending to leave any children behind, but some children are

1659
02:54:11,690 --> 02:54:19,410
going to get extra funding under this kind of approach because there's a million of them

1660
02:54:19,410 --> 02:54:20,870
and they're being left behind right...

1661
02:55:00,000 --> 02:55:29,600
7600. The problem is nobody really thinks that would make much difference, $200 per student for a year, and you just spent $2 billion on a biennium. So the whole thing behind this is the thing that we've been operating that we need to change, at least I needed to in my mindset, is spreading all the money equally. It's not going to change anything much at all. And we want the thing we're trying to do, again,

1662
02:55:29,600 --> 02:55:35,420
is focused at. And it is going to, I mean, you know, I don't want to go against the former

1663
02:55:35,420 --> 02:55:41,080
President Bush, but you know, who are not intending to leave any children behind. But some

1664
02:55:41,080 --> 02:55:49,120
children are going to get extra funding under this kind of approach because there's a million

1665
02:55:49,120 --> 02:55:54,960
of them and they're being left behind right now. And so that's, that's just everybody keeping

1666
02:55:54,960 --> 02:56:01,160
in mind of the problem, the more you spread that money out, the smaller the spread gets.

1667
02:56:02,220 --> 02:56:04,800
And things like dual language are not cheap.

1668
02:56:06,240 --> 02:56:11,260
So I don't remember that we have any testimony, maybe you do, as to how long it would take,

1669
02:56:11,440 --> 02:56:16,600
if you had to got a bilingual teacher, how long it would take to train them up on dual

1670
02:56:16,600 --> 02:56:16,980
language.

1671
02:56:17,220 --> 02:56:23,780
I don't recall, seems like it is something you could do without, you know, two extra years

1672
02:56:23,780 --> 02:56:27,360
of college or something, but I'm not an expert on that.

1673
02:56:29,240 --> 02:56:31,300
Clearly, but what we'll do is work through it, you know,

1674
02:56:31,380 --> 02:56:33,960
legislator be able to figure out the best way to move it forward.

1675
02:56:34,340 --> 02:56:37,140
I think the goal is always to try to move that direction.

1676
02:56:38,980 --> 02:56:39,440
Other questions?

1677
02:56:41,840 --> 02:56:45,240
Okay, recommendation number 14, create a new dyslexia allotment.

1678
02:56:45,920 --> 02:56:49,800
Background on this is currently districts do not receive direct funding or any funding

1679
02:56:49,800 --> 02:56:57,100
to support students with dyslexia and related orders that receive services under Section 504

1680
02:56:57,100 --> 02:57:03,200
rather than IDEA. In the 17-18 school year, less than 2.5% of students or approximately

1681
02:57:03,200 --> 02:57:09,300
165,000 received services for dyslexia and related services, but yet the state did not pay for those

1682
02:57:09,300 --> 02:57:14,380
services. Rational districts are already providing the additional support needed by these students,

1683
02:57:14,460 --> 02:57:19,500
but are not receiving any additional funds to do so. The prevalence of dyslexia in students

1684
02:57:19,500 --> 02:57:21,480
is between five and 17 percent.

1685
02:57:21,720 --> 02:57:23,920
So while we're only identifying a two and a half percent,

1686
02:57:24,440 --> 02:57:26,680
national average is somewhere right around 10 percent

1687
02:57:26,680 --> 02:57:27,720
of the student population.

1688
02:57:28,640 --> 02:57:30,920
Additional funding will help provide the early identification

1689
02:57:30,920 --> 02:57:32,700
intervention that can improve these students'

1690
02:57:32,900 --> 02:57:33,740
academic success.

1691
02:57:34,320 --> 02:57:36,220
Annual cost is estimated $100 million.

1692
02:57:36,380 --> 02:57:38,540
We're suggesting using a weight of 0.1.

1693
02:57:39,080 --> 02:57:42,200
I would point out specifically that when we think

1694
02:57:42,200 --> 02:57:46,960
about dyslexic students, they're not qualified or they don't

1695
02:57:47,540 --> 02:57:54,060
Qualify, just if they are dyslexic student alone under the special education as you think about that as we think about that

1696
02:57:54,060 --> 02:58:04,080
They qualify under five or four and some have arts and IPA's or IP's rather and so I think that that was one of the

1697
02:58:04,080 --> 02:58:10,280
Recommendations we've tried to do that now we did as as the legislators know with Senator Taylor we created a

1698
02:58:10,280 --> 02:58:17,480
A dyslexia and an autism grant programs that we funded last legislative session that seem to be working.

1699
02:58:18,280 --> 02:58:23,220
And so we're going to suggest revisiting those programs as we go into the next session as well.

1700
02:58:24,220 --> 02:58:24,740
Questions?

1701
02:58:25,700 --> 02:58:25,980
Dr. Hill?

1702
02:58:26,660 --> 02:58:30,440
Just clarification that there is no cap as this has been proposed, correct?

1703
02:58:31,320 --> 02:58:31,600
Thank you.

1704
02:58:33,480 --> 02:58:34,380
I'm just going to say, yeah.

1705
02:58:39,180 --> 02:58:44,040
I assume the variability between 5 and 17 is just district measurement data.

1706
02:58:44,900 --> 02:58:45,040
Is that?

1707
02:58:45,440 --> 02:58:46,660
Actually, national average.

1708
02:58:46,860 --> 02:58:51,380
We are stats show the collection of data because we changed the law in 2013 to actually

1709
02:58:51,380 --> 02:58:54,500
collect data on how many dyslexic students were in this data, Texas.

1710
02:58:55,160 --> 02:59:00,400
We're only, on average, we're saying it's 2.5%, but if you talk to the national dyslexic

1711
02:59:00,400 --> 02:59:04,060
society and the other groups are out there on average, it's over 10% across the country.

1712
02:59:04,060 --> 02:59:13,640
There's a pretty big range between the numbers, so that's something to point out to the members as well as the folks listening.

1713
02:59:14,980 --> 02:59:19,280
And I think that the grant programs that were passed, I think it was the old joint bill if I remember correctly.

1714
02:59:19,820 --> 02:59:24,160
Okay, I think it would be a good model for this to get started.

1715
02:59:25,920 --> 02:59:31,120
But there is a wide, as a data guy, there is a wide guarantee on this.

1716
02:59:32,920 --> 02:59:41,340
I mean, the data that I see, you know, it's not a tight spectrum of how the measurement

1717
02:59:41,340 --> 02:59:44,300
works, whether or not somebody's testing correctly.

1718
02:59:45,740 --> 02:59:48,460
So you're going to have a large range in that category.

1719
02:59:49,560 --> 02:59:53,980
I just want to ask, Lou, real quick, when you did the calculation, $100 million, did that

1720
02:59:53,980 --> 02:59:55,280
represent the $165 million?

1721
02:59:55,400 --> 02:59:57,060
We assumed it increased, didn't we?

1722
02:59:57,060 --> 02:59:58,500
Okay, we use the 169.

1723
02:59:58,800 --> 02:59:59,100
Okay.

1724
03:00:00,000 --> 03:00:05,820
So, if we average, if we're really at 5%, then theoretically, it could cost you everybody.

1725
03:00:08,080 --> 03:00:30,900
That's right. And what's been a big picture, if we're trying to get kids reading a grade level by grade three, how many of these are dislikes? They're not meeting these goals. So we get a better identify those kids. Again, the types of help that they need to get them reading, we're going to bump those numbers significantly on the third grade reading, which we all understand is such an important indicator of future academic success.

1726
03:00:30,900 --> 03:00:35,840
and that. So I think this, you know, it is an estimate that's going to cost a hundred

1727
03:00:35,840 --> 03:00:39,920
million. But as far as if there's more, we, if we identify more kids with dyslexia,

1728
03:00:40,000 --> 03:00:43,760
it's built in and it's going to get more and will help more kids with it. So I just,

1729
03:00:43,760 --> 03:00:46,240
this is a good bank for your buck kind of money right here.

1730
03:00:46,480 --> 03:00:50,260
Thank, thank you for proposing to fund an unfunded mandate. You're welcome.

1731
03:00:51,840 --> 03:00:52,640
All right.

1732
03:00:54,660 --> 03:00:58,660
Okay. Recommendation number 15. Create a new early childhood support

1733
03:00:59,540 --> 03:01:07,840
The background of this is that in 2018, only 41% of third graders achieve the meet standard level in star reading assessment.

1734
03:01:08,340 --> 03:01:19,960
That number falls to only 30% for economically disadvantaged students, 26% for ESL students, with both groups representing the fastest growing populations in K-12.

1735
03:01:20,700 --> 03:01:26,320
Students that meet the standard in third grade are more significantly more likely to meet

1736
03:01:26,320 --> 03:01:29,500
the standard again in later grades in both reading and math.

1737
03:01:30,340 --> 03:01:34,940
And our rationale was that because this provided additional funding to districts for economically

1738
03:01:34,940 --> 03:01:40,960
disadvantaged and ESL students in kindergarten through third grade to improve third grade

1739
03:01:40,960 --> 03:01:44,060
reading outcomes and thus improve later outcomes as well.

1740
03:01:44,060 --> 03:01:48,880
Well, funding should be sufficient to allow a district by full day pre-K to all those

1741
03:01:48,880 --> 03:01:52,440
of students, if it's so desires, among its various literacy strategies.

1742
03:01:52,980 --> 03:01:56,260
And this is a recommendation from the outcomes working group as well.

1743
03:01:56,860 --> 03:02:01,860
Annual cost is expected to be $780 million using a weight of 0.1.

1744
03:02:03,140 --> 03:02:06,800
I don't know if Mr. Williams wants to litigate this anymore.

1745
03:02:06,800 --> 03:02:14,800
I think that, you know, we asked TA to provide us data that showed what the, if you passed the

1746
03:02:14,800 --> 03:02:18,640
third grade reading exam, what was the likelihood that you passed eighth grade reading in math

1747
03:02:18,640 --> 03:02:23,680
and it was two to three times more likely. So it was compelling to us from that standpoint.

1748
03:02:24,220 --> 03:02:29,060
The one amendment I might ask us to consider as part of this is that now that we're providing

1749
03:02:29,060 --> 03:02:35,760
this kind of funding, potentially it would be a poop, a poop all of us that if you're offering

1750
03:02:35,760 --> 03:02:40,540
Pre-K at whatever level you're offering into all your kids who are eligible or maybe

1751
03:02:40,540 --> 03:02:45,220
half your kids because you're constrained, etc., that'll be done with kind of HB4 quality

1752
03:02:45,220 --> 03:02:45,740
measures.

1753
03:02:46,460 --> 03:02:51,760
The right standard of teacher ratios, etc., I think there's no reason that a district

1754
03:02:51,760 --> 03:02:53,700
shouldn't do that if we're providing this kind of fun,

1755
03:02:55,960 --> 03:02:57,760
but otherwise I'm highly, highly

1756
03:02:57,760 --> 03:02:58,180
supportive.

1757
03:02:59,660 --> 03:03:00,180
Question?

1758
03:03:01,520 --> 03:03:04,900
Could we also say that the money comes at first to Pre-K?

1759
03:03:09,640 --> 03:03:15,740
I just, yeah, I think fun pre-K first, and then if you're already doing that go elsewhere.

1760
03:03:16,360 --> 03:03:23,620
You know, I'm supportive of the recommendation that came from the outcomes group.

1761
03:03:23,840 --> 03:03:28,880
I think that clearly the goal is to get them reading as early as possible.

1762
03:03:29,380 --> 03:03:33,580
But remember something, you know, let's say that, you know, only about half the...

1763
03:03:33,580 --> 03:03:56,860
But now it's not even half, it's less than half the population goes through pre-K, and there are students in that group who are dyslexic and have other reading problems and things of that nature that maybe don't end her until, you know, certainly kindergarten or first grade, so I don't want to restrict it just I think we should take that in consideration as we go there, let the school districts create the programs as we go for we can be very, I think we can be very creative in this.

1764
03:03:57,340 --> 03:04:03,320
But the goal is to make sure that by third grade, you know, every kid has the ability to read and understand comprehend.

1765
03:04:04,120 --> 03:04:08,740
I mean to me, this looks like this is the perfect example of what a black grant should be, okay.

1766
03:04:09,200 --> 03:04:13,640
But just to get the, is to say here is the result that we want by third grade.

1767
03:04:14,340 --> 03:04:18,500
And here's the incentive to do it. And so then you tailor your program accordingly.

1768
03:04:22,780 --> 03:04:29,860
one question based on the T8 report we were just given today on page four

1769
03:04:29,860 --> 03:04:35,840
refers to third grade reading level of course this says 2017 and here

1770
03:04:35,840 --> 03:04:41,280
and here recording 2018 I don't know where that number came from but we went

1771
03:04:41,280 --> 03:04:46,620
from 45 to 41 that's a significant drop in third grade reading yes even as

1772
03:04:46,620 --> 03:04:52,100
we're speaking. So we really need to turn this around. It's scary.

1773
03:04:54,790 --> 03:04:56,130
10% drop, not good.

1774
03:05:02,860 --> 03:05:30,920
Okay. All right. Recommendation number 16. We also suggest creating a new grade three reading incentive program. A lot of the background is the same, but I will go through it just because I think it's important to reiterate this again. But in 2018, again, only 41% of third graders achieved the meat standard level in the start reading assessment. That number falls to only 30% for economically disadvantaged students and 26% for ESL students with both groups

1775
03:05:30,920 --> 03:05:33,220
representing the fastest growing population K-12.

1776
03:05:34,060 --> 03:05:36,280
Students that meet the standard in third grade

1777
03:05:36,280 --> 03:05:38,540
are more significantly more likely to meet the state standard

1778
03:05:38,540 --> 03:05:40,280
again in later grades in both reading and math.

1779
03:05:40,760 --> 03:05:43,380
Our rationale is that this provides additional funding

1780
03:05:43,380 --> 03:05:46,440
for each third grader achieving reading proficiency

1781
03:05:46,440 --> 03:05:48,120
at the meet standard level.

1782
03:05:48,620 --> 03:05:51,080
It's a recommendation from the outcomes working group.

1783
03:05:51,300 --> 03:05:52,880
The outcome working group recommendation

1784
03:05:52,880 --> 03:05:55,560
also advises using a spectrum of incentive amounts

1785
03:05:55,560 --> 03:05:58,200
in order to equitably reflect achievement disparities

1786
03:05:58,200 --> 03:06:00,820
between different student populations.

1787
03:06:01,320 --> 03:06:03,380
This has an annual cost of $400 million

1788
03:06:03,380 --> 03:06:05,560
in using a weight of .4.

1789
03:06:06,520 --> 03:06:08,620
Mr. Williams, would you like to...

1790
03:06:08,620 --> 03:06:11,160
I think that just in terms of math,

1791
03:06:11,400 --> 03:06:14,340
I want to say that non-economically disadvantaged students

1792
03:06:14,340 --> 03:06:18,320
achieve probably enough 60 to 65% proficiency ratio.

1793
03:06:18,620 --> 03:06:21,820
We already said that economic disadvantaged students are at 30.

1794
03:06:22,420 --> 03:06:26,060
So at a minimum, we would probably argue that the equity weight

1795
03:06:26,060 --> 03:06:31,800
should be for a economic and disadvantaged student should be twice what it is for a non-economic

1796
03:06:31,800 --> 03:06:36,680
disadvantaged student because otherwise you're going to have a fluent schools with 60-70-80%

1797
03:06:36,680 --> 03:06:42,280
proficiency is getting significantly more dollars per child in their school versus more challenge

1798
03:06:42,280 --> 03:06:47,360
schools but obviously highly supportive and I think this will provide some real incentives for

1799
03:06:47,360 --> 03:06:53,260
districts to resource their schools appropriately and put in their better teachers in K-3 versus in

1800
03:06:53,260 --> 03:06:54,660
and later tested grades, et cetera.

1801
03:06:56,120 --> 03:06:59,460
So when we think about English language learners

1802
03:06:59,460 --> 03:07:02,300
in as an example, that might be in the San Antonio School District

1803
03:07:02,300 --> 03:07:05,980
versus not similar, but a population of students

1804
03:07:05,980 --> 03:07:09,800
in an humble or someplace else in Kingwood as an example.

1805
03:07:10,120 --> 03:07:11,760
The thought process was, is that they're

1806
03:07:11,760 --> 03:07:13,380
not getting the same funding source.

1807
03:07:14,600 --> 03:07:17,440
You're giving them the ability to, you know,

1808
03:07:17,500 --> 03:07:19,020
that's pretty money that we get that.

1809
03:07:19,160 --> 03:07:20,760
But we're trying to reward and create incentives

1810
03:07:20,760 --> 03:07:21,820
as we go forward.

1811
03:07:21,820 --> 03:07:27,240
We want to put the money where it's where it's most populous and where we'll do the most good that was the thought

1812
03:07:35,540 --> 03:07:41,460
Recommendation number 7 to create a new college career in military readiness readiness incentive program

1813
03:07:42,620 --> 03:07:47,200
Background in this is although 90% of Texas high school students graduate in four years

1814
03:07:47,200 --> 03:07:53,860
Less than 40% demonstrate post-secondary readiness on SAT, ACT and the TSI assessment

1815
03:07:53,860 --> 03:07:59,100
Students that do not demonstrate college readiness must then pay to take developmental education

1816
03:07:59,100 --> 03:08:04,240
courses in their post-secondary education for no credit wasting student loans and

1817
03:08:04,240 --> 03:08:07,800
Pell grant funds on remediation that should have happened before high school graduation.

1818
03:08:08,540 --> 03:08:15,920
Student FA, FSA, and college applications inadequately supported requiring additional resources, Texas

1819
03:08:15,920 --> 03:08:19,820
foregoes over $500 million of Pell grants annually because of this.

1820
03:08:20,600 --> 03:08:25,460
So, our rationale is that this provides additional funding for each graduating senior that does

1821
03:08:25,460 --> 03:08:30,640
not require remediation upon graduation and successfully enrolls in college, achieves

1822
03:08:30,640 --> 03:08:33,700
an industry except its certificate or in lists in the military.

1823
03:08:34,320 --> 03:08:38,600
Offers a more targeted college readiness approach than the existing high school allotment.

1824
03:08:39,400 --> 03:08:43,760
And again, if you recall the high school allotment that we were taking off is about the same

1825
03:08:43,760 --> 03:08:44,300
amount of money.

1826
03:08:45,220 --> 03:08:55,700
It's a recommendation from the outcomes working group, and the recommendation also advises using a spectrum of incentive amounts in order to equitably reflect achievement disparities between different student populations.

1827
03:08:56,300 --> 03:09:01,260
This is an annual cost of $400 million, and we'll have to figure out what the weight will be.

1828
03:09:01,360 --> 03:09:03,960
We don't exactly know what that weight would be at this particular time.

1829
03:09:06,640 --> 03:09:10,640
But, you know, there's some different views on this, and I'll let Mr. Williams chime in on this.

1830
03:09:10,640 --> 03:09:15,800
But I think that clearly the the bonus programs for career and

1831
03:09:15,800 --> 03:09:19,720
college readiness are important and I think across all our population,

1832
03:09:19,720 --> 03:09:24,140
I understand that there could be some additional funding sources that go in.

1833
03:09:24,280 --> 03:09:27,600
But if we're talking about the 275 that we're taking around,

1834
03:09:27,600 --> 03:09:33,200
whether it goes in the VA or go some other place, creating those incentive programs

1835
03:09:33,200 --> 03:09:37,020
for low socioeconomic disadvantaged populations of students,

1836
03:09:37,240 --> 03:09:40,040
maybe the numbers more than $400 million, I guess is my point.

1837
03:09:40,040 --> 03:09:44,480
Maybe we need to spend, you know, some additional resources there, but Mr. Williams, on the IPF, something bad.

1838
03:09:45,060 --> 03:09:49,880
I think that, again, I appreciate the support of the expenditures working group on this.

1839
03:09:51,120 --> 03:09:55,720
I think this, I point out on that third bullet point where it says Texas Board goes 500 million of Pell grants annually.

1840
03:09:56,300 --> 03:09:59,960
That's per each graduating class, so obviously if you go to school for four years, that's...

1841
03:10:00,000 --> 03:10:29,980
That's 2 billion for that whole life. Every kid in that class went to the long-come kid and went for four years of college. That would be a 2 billion. So there's a significant amount of leverage of federal dollars that can be accessed by providing the supports to counselors to make sure that kids who are eligible fill out the FAFSA form and their TAFSA form. We're about 55% in FAFSA completion rate as a state. High performing states are 85% Louisiana and Tennessee. So they've really prioritized filling out FAFSA forms to make sure that 13th and

1842
03:10:29,980 --> 03:10:31,940
14th grade is affordable and accessible for kids.

1843
03:10:32,700 --> 03:10:34,000
So again, highly supportive of this.

1844
03:10:36,140 --> 03:10:38,480
And I think that let me just have one quick thing.

1845
03:10:38,660 --> 03:10:39,940
I think that's a really good point

1846
03:10:39,940 --> 03:10:41,240
when you said something about counselors.

1847
03:10:41,760 --> 03:10:43,580
And while from an expenditure standpoint,

1848
03:10:44,020 --> 03:10:45,340
we thought about that,

1849
03:10:45,380 --> 03:10:47,320
we're gonna talk about compensation programs here in a second.

1850
03:10:48,620 --> 03:10:52,020
My other hat, when we think about the Public Education Committee,

1851
03:10:52,160 --> 03:10:53,440
we had our school safety meetings,

1852
03:10:53,580 --> 03:10:54,800
and I know Chairman Taylor,

1853
03:10:55,040 --> 03:10:56,320
you probably had the discussion as well,

1854
03:10:56,320 --> 03:11:25,540
that we saw that we're basically, you know, about, we have about half the counselors that we actually need in the state of Texas right now, and I know that was a recommendation that we made as a school safety from our public education committees that we need to increase, we need to, we need a double the amount of counselors that we have in the state of Texas to help our student populations, whether it's for mental health or for career and college readiness and things of that nature. I think that's a serious, we are seriously, seriously under utilizing our staff.

1855
03:11:25,540 --> 03:11:55,320
Let me add one other thing, so I think many of you know we launched this Dallas County Promise effort about a year ago, and we sat down with 43 principals and their counseling staff this summer and went through their data showed how many of their kids enrolled in college or some type of post secondary how many of their mediation with their average GPA was and how many of their kids ultimately met one of the 25 highest paying jobs that are part of mid skills jobs in the region and to their credit I think they were one very surprised because that data has never been shown to them.

1856
03:11:55,540 --> 03:11:58,440
but it's all publicly available, we aggregate it for them.

1857
03:11:58,780 --> 03:12:00,380
But equally important, a lot of counselors said,

1858
03:12:00,560 --> 03:12:02,560
I've never been trained to understand

1859
03:12:02,560 --> 03:12:04,600
what all these mid-skills jobs pay

1860
03:12:04,600 --> 03:12:06,060
and the pathway to get there

1861
03:12:06,060 --> 03:12:08,400
and that they make 50, 60, 70,000 dollars.

1862
03:12:08,560 --> 03:12:10,200
I've been trained primarily to do one thing,

1863
03:12:10,260 --> 03:12:11,520
just to get kids in college.

1864
03:12:12,240 --> 03:12:13,720
And so I think trying to make sure

1865
03:12:13,720 --> 03:12:15,640
that we train are these additional counselors

1866
03:12:15,640 --> 03:12:17,420
and understanding all these mid-skills jobs

1867
03:12:17,420 --> 03:12:19,100
that are out there that don't require B.A.,

1868
03:12:19,100 --> 03:12:21,720
I think we're significantly improve living

1869
03:12:21,720 --> 03:12:23,740
which credential accomplishes within our state.

1870
03:12:25,100 --> 03:12:26,060
Yeah, it was more.

1871
03:12:26,820 --> 03:12:30,840
Well, I think that's one of the benefits in explaining the CTE program as well because

1872
03:12:30,840 --> 03:12:36,540
you know, CTE teachers have the ability to help students understand that skills can be

1873
03:12:36,540 --> 03:12:37,120
very livable.

1874
03:12:37,580 --> 03:12:44,680
But also I have a question about the when students are listed in the military and that goes

1875
03:12:44,680 --> 03:12:46,780
toward the more or less the grade of the school.

1876
03:12:47,320 --> 03:12:49,680
Do they have to enlist before they graduate?

1877
03:12:49,680 --> 03:12:56,440
or I mean at what point because sometimes students don't turn 18 until on the summertime or they might not even list until they're 19.

1878
03:12:56,800 --> 03:13:00,100
So how long does it last for that will work in favor of the school?

1879
03:13:01,740 --> 03:13:07,520
We can get into the specifics but I think obviously there might be, we won't know how many kids enroll in college until, you know,

1880
03:13:07,620 --> 03:13:10,840
the September date, the 12th day of the school, which will not be until September.

1881
03:13:11,220 --> 03:13:18,340
So I think there have to be one year kind of catchment area to understand what happened with those graduates in the following 12 months and then use that as the calculation.

1882
03:13:21,040 --> 03:13:24,980
So the devil's in the detail. I love this, by the way, I think it's exactly what the

1883
03:13:24,980 --> 03:13:30,420
outcomes committee wanted to do. But I understand that some region 13 folks were in a meeting

1884
03:13:30,420 --> 03:13:37,660
with TEA and on the CCMR, there were some proposals to not include enlistment in the reserves

1885
03:13:38,140 --> 03:13:43,320
as part of CCMR. I don't think that's fair. And then there was also some move to not

1886
03:13:43,320 --> 03:13:48,680
Not count on ramps on list, the kids actually accepted the credit even though they passed a college course.

1887
03:13:49,480 --> 03:13:50,700
And I don't think that's very good.

1888
03:13:51,060 --> 03:13:58,520
So, I think, you know, many of these are 20 to 30,000 foot recommendations of what we should do.

1889
03:13:58,660 --> 03:14:02,380
It'll be legislative, how does it work when we get there?

1890
03:14:03,740 --> 03:14:07,960
I just want to, I agree because to get into the reserves is the same.

1891
03:14:08,080 --> 03:14:11,060
You still have to pass the ads of Abby, you still have to have the physical requirement.

1892
03:14:11,060 --> 03:14:16,140
All of their expectations are the same, so that should measure the same.

1893
03:14:16,720 --> 03:14:17,700
Thank you very much.

1894
03:14:18,200 --> 03:14:20,860
Just a sense, Dr. Williams brought this up.

1895
03:14:22,140 --> 03:14:27,720
I would love to see the data that you sent on the promise in PTEC and Dallas, okay?

1896
03:14:29,040 --> 03:14:37,660
And I guess, you know, in term unity on this point, I still don't see any reference to PTEC or promise that we're doing incentive on.

1897
03:14:37,660 --> 03:14:44,860
if I missed it, but I know that when we looked at outcomes that just seems to be a program

1898
03:14:44,860 --> 03:14:52,460
that has been having a fantastic result in Dallas and every time I get on the so-box

1899
03:14:52,460 --> 03:14:56,980
center west is not here, but I have to say that big deal is continuing to be.

1900
03:14:56,980 --> 03:14:59,980
age downs, you know, but on this, on this issue.

1901
03:15:00,840 --> 03:15:28,920
And so I would love to see an item on PTEC and promise because it's clearly best practices and state. Absolutely. I think we did, I think we did relative to the, you know, pushing down when we think about CTE and the additional funding that we're talking about in sixth or eighth grade, you know, that does take a lot of, you know, overlap with PTEC. And I know there's chairman Taylor's bill last session specifically on PTEC that was passed.

1902
03:15:29,460 --> 03:15:31,140
that was creating those additional incentives.

1903
03:15:31,360 --> 03:15:33,780
And I certainly would be supportive of that as well.

1904
03:15:33,940 --> 03:15:35,120
I don't think there's any doubt about that.

1905
03:15:35,800 --> 03:15:37,460
Let me just, I'd like to call your staff

1906
03:15:37,460 --> 03:15:39,940
and talk to you after about what they might look like.

1907
03:15:40,160 --> 03:15:41,020
Sure, okay, thanks.

1908
03:15:41,560 --> 03:15:42,100
Let's go with Judge.

1909
03:15:42,960 --> 03:15:43,800
Yes, thank you.

1910
03:15:43,920 --> 03:15:46,140
I was wondering do you, are you incorporating

1911
03:15:46,140 --> 03:15:50,120
any other measures or performance like SAT or ACT

1912
03:15:51,140 --> 03:15:54,700
in addition to whether or not they enroll in military

1913
03:15:54,700 --> 03:16:00,480
area or the remediation considerations for the incentive or do you have like a sort

1914
03:16:00,480 --> 03:16:00,600
of focus?

1915
03:16:00,600 --> 03:16:03,680
Well I think what we had recommended is that there need to be some that you need to be

1916
03:16:03,680 --> 03:16:10,500
ready on either SAT, ACT or TSI, that you did not need remediation and then you did something

1917
03:16:10,500 --> 03:16:15,980
with your degree of some form of passion and that you were supported in that journey, whether

1918
03:16:15,980 --> 03:16:20,220
it's enrolling in the military or the reserves, whether it's enrolling in post-secondary filling

1919
03:16:20,220 --> 03:16:23,600
at your FAFSA, those kind of things, that there was supportive provided by the high school

1920
03:16:23,600 --> 03:16:28,600
they help you in that high school to post secondary or career transition because we just

1921
03:16:28,600 --> 03:16:33,780
lose a ton of kids in that window. High schools are incentivized to graduate kids per

1922
03:16:33,780 --> 03:16:37,960
the accountability system, but not necessary for them to be historically, historically

1923
03:16:37,960 --> 03:16:42,820
not ready, incentivized for them to be ready or to access to the next level and try to figure

1924
03:16:42,820 --> 03:16:43,240
that out.

1925
03:16:45,040 --> 03:16:46,220
A combination of venture plans.

1926
03:16:48,960 --> 03:16:49,960
Okay, anything for you?

1927
03:16:50,800 --> 03:16:51,020
All right.

1928
03:16:52,340 --> 03:16:56,440
Recommendation number 18, create a new teacher compensation center program.

1929
03:16:56,820 --> 03:17:00,220
The background of this is that teachers are consistently cited as the most important

1930
03:17:00,220 --> 03:17:02,180
in-school factor in student outcomes.

1931
03:17:02,940 --> 03:17:07,780
Compensation is often cited as the primary reason the top graduates do not pursue a teaching

1932
03:17:07,780 --> 03:17:08,100
career.

1933
03:17:08,860 --> 03:17:14,700
High needs campuses often have more inexperienced teachers as well as higher teacher turnover.

1934
03:17:15,520 --> 03:17:19,200
Our rationale behind this was it provides additional funding for districts to implement

1935
03:17:19,200 --> 03:17:28,340
locally developed multi-measure evaluation systems to strategically increase teacher compensation and the placement of effective teachers at high need campuses.

1936
03:17:29,120 --> 03:17:32,900
This is one of the recommendations also that came from the outcomes working group.

1937
03:17:33,020 --> 03:17:38,080
We estimate the annual cost of $100 million to be determined and that's only first year.

1938
03:17:38,800 --> 03:17:46,340
We understand that it could grow to over a billion dollars during the first five to ten years depending upon the adoption of it.

1939
03:17:46,340 --> 03:17:49,680
We are not recommending any one specific program.

1940
03:17:49,680 --> 03:17:53,340
I know that Dallas has their program,

1941
03:17:53,340 --> 03:17:58,040
but in our discussions at the expenditures work group discussions,

1942
03:17:59,260 --> 03:18:02,620
creating multiple programs, or

1943
03:18:02,620 --> 03:18:06,340
cafeteria plans to pick from, or they could create the loans,

1944
03:18:06,340 --> 03:18:11,520
as long as it's approved by TEA, to be able to excel and get to that level.

1945
03:18:12,000 --> 03:18:15,960
Goes into a lot of the discussion the governors had about increasing teacher

1946
03:18:15,960 --> 03:18:19,880
pay and a lot of the things that he's been talking about is late. So it mirrors

1947
03:18:20,320 --> 03:18:23,840
many of the recommendations from the outcome working group from the discussions

1948
03:18:23,840 --> 03:18:27,300
that we had and that you know really the policy should be is that we

1949
03:18:27,760 --> 03:18:30,940
reward and have teachers that are that we could pay them a hundred thousand dollars

1950
03:18:30,940 --> 03:18:34,120
a year. They don't have to go, they don't have to leave the teaching profession

1951
03:18:34,120 --> 03:18:36,700
to become an administrator to make a hundred thousand dollars a year.

1952
03:18:38,240 --> 03:18:40,880
And I would just say if it did go over

1953
03:18:40,880 --> 03:18:46,520
Over five years or something of a billion dollars. If we were getting the kind of returns that Dallas is getting

1954
03:18:46,940 --> 03:18:52,100
If we're taking schools from 50% faster than 80% passing. I think people willing to pay that

1955
03:18:52,680 --> 03:18:57,260
That's what I'll see if you get in that kind of bang you want to put one more in that program

1956
03:18:57,260 --> 03:19:04,160
So I don't I'm not afraid of that cost going up because if they're doing in their implementing and it's working on what we've seen in Dallas

1957
03:19:04,160 --> 03:19:06,140
I SD it is worth it

1958
03:19:06,980 --> 03:19:09,340
Compared to what we're doing right now in some of these places

1959
03:19:10,060 --> 03:19:12,460
I just say that I really appreciate and locally developed.

1960
03:19:12,460 --> 03:19:13,480
I think that's important.

1961
03:19:13,640 --> 03:19:15,420
You know, I've talked with some of these in my district.

1962
03:19:16,060 --> 03:19:18,580
You know, we talk about moving teachers or quality teachers

1963
03:19:18,580 --> 03:19:20,440
through your most neediest campuses.

1964
03:19:21,080 --> 03:19:23,080
All of my districts only have one campus.

1965
03:19:23,740 --> 03:19:26,380
So there's ways that they can still do this same concept

1966
03:19:26,380 --> 03:19:28,520
and this same idea inside of their system.

1967
03:19:29,500 --> 03:19:31,920
Well, and I want to point out that the private sector

1968
03:19:31,920 --> 03:19:36,080
has a big role here with both P tech and, you know,

1969
03:19:36,200 --> 03:19:38,540
and the promise and the support that they've got.

1970
03:19:38,540 --> 03:19:43,280
So, I think part of any outline, really, and I think Dr.

1971
03:19:43,300 --> 03:19:51,440
Elsa's would be like an outline of what you can do and make sure that you've got any barriers in law removed from doing it.

1972
03:19:52,200 --> 03:19:57,140
Because you're right, there's going to be local solutions that are different in a small community, large community, etc.

1973
03:19:57,140 --> 03:19:59,900
But we've seen just

1974
03:20:00,000 --> 03:20:27,420
It's astonishing improvements when you've got community college working with an ISD, working with employers and producing graduates that are in the real world. That's an awesome combination because if you talk about a rising tide, the list all votes, that's the type of graduate growing economy needs. And if you have more sales tax revenue as a result or more property tax revenue or wherever you're getting either locally at the state,

1975
03:20:28,260 --> 03:20:33,240
then that you may just see that you know the chair and tailor that that extra

1976
03:20:33,240 --> 03:20:38,540
money is just the blink of the eye it already comes in. So yeah this also works

1977
03:20:38,540 --> 03:20:41,780
hand in hand with some incentives we're doing. We're allowing the different

1978
03:20:41,780 --> 03:20:47,100
sake getting better teachers for third grade reading and CCMR readiness. No

1979
03:20:47,100 --> 03:20:50,860
side they're very actually more money. We're allowing them flexible to spend it in a

1980
03:20:50,860 --> 03:20:54,220
way they have to obtain those incentives because it's once again benefits

1981
03:20:54,220 --> 03:20:59,480
right because the the whole assumption of this is growth is you can on the whole

1982
03:20:59,480 --> 03:21:04,880
assumption of this is growth so you know that's that's really it's and it's

1983
03:21:04,880 --> 03:21:09,780
the that's why that program hours to try I think it's attracted most of our the

1984
03:21:09,780 --> 03:21:14,540
membership's attention because the the the the results especially in that one

1985
03:21:14,540 --> 03:21:18,580
high school that was 98 percent low social economic as was astonishing

1986
03:21:18,580 --> 03:21:23,680
astonishing improvement let me just add a couple of things you know one I think

1987
03:21:23,680 --> 03:21:28,500
I think it's important that, again, I agree that local development is critically important

1988
03:21:28,500 --> 03:21:31,380
that teachers need to be at the table in helping design that system.

1989
03:21:31,900 --> 03:21:36,640
I think it's also important that we try and advocate that other assessments besides star

1990
03:21:36,640 --> 03:21:41,840
be able to be used, whether it's map or whether it's ITBS, there's a lot of great nationally

1991
03:21:41,840 --> 03:21:43,660
normed assessments out there that could be used.

1992
03:21:44,160 --> 03:21:49,040
But I think there's other values to an evaluation system other than just pay.

1993
03:21:49,340 --> 03:21:52,520
It's trying to figure out, have you equably distributed your best teachers?

1994
03:21:52,520 --> 03:21:59,200
Are you giving great feedback to your prep programs in terms of what they're producing with the graduates that they send you?

1995
03:21:59,320 --> 03:22:03,100
Are we making sure that our best teachers are identified to mentor brand new teachers?

1996
03:22:03,600 --> 03:22:08,460
There's so many other benefits to understanding your people that I think would be really helpful to make sure,

1997
03:22:08,600 --> 03:22:11,280
and this is a great incentive for districts to want to do that.

1998
03:22:16,540 --> 03:22:17,880
I'm sorry, Mr. Coliseous.

1999
03:22:18,500 --> 03:22:19,100
Thank you.

2000
03:22:19,380 --> 03:22:25,880
I think this is sort of a, this is a systemic sort of game changer for many school districts that are struggling with the right solution

2001
03:22:25,880 --> 03:22:29,360
and how to treat schools that are underperforming.

2002
03:22:29,740 --> 03:22:32,920
I do, there's sort of a, you have to sort of find

2003
03:22:32,920 --> 03:22:37,020
that right balance in terms of locally derived versus not

2004
03:22:37,020 --> 03:22:40,900
trying to undermine results that we know that work.

2005
03:22:41,480 --> 03:22:44,040
And so I'm just wondering, do you have any sort of parameters

2006
03:22:44,040 --> 03:22:46,400
that you want to sort of bracket around the program

2007
03:22:46,400 --> 03:22:49,220
to protect the quality of what we know it works

2008
03:22:49,220 --> 03:22:53,520
and what that might be in terms of how you would sort

2009
03:22:53,520 --> 03:22:59,980
of structure of the program and then how many teachers is sort of a cost analysis based

2010
03:22:59,980 --> 03:23:05,300
on in terms of how might this be scaled across the state and who could take advantage

2011
03:23:05,300 --> 03:23:05,840
of it.

2012
03:23:06,280 --> 03:23:10,620
So just sort of parameters around sort of how much compensation are we talking about and

2013
03:23:10,620 --> 03:23:12,360
how many teachers could possibly benefit.

2014
03:23:13,060 --> 03:23:20,120
So in just rough math, if you've got roughly 325,000 teachers across the state, a billion

2015
03:23:20,120 --> 03:23:23,620
dollars if everybody got it which you wouldn't do it if everybody got it that

2016
03:23:23,620 --> 03:23:28,360
be $3,000 if you said well my best 50% of my teachers will get a raise and so

2017
03:23:28,360 --> 03:23:34,140
that's now $6,000 per teacher which would be about a 10% increase. It gets

2018
03:23:34,140 --> 03:23:37,400
back to how an H District should decide what's best for them is how they want to

2019
03:23:37,400 --> 03:23:42,840
differentiate my top 10, my top 20, my top 50 etc but just the math that's what a

2020
03:23:42,840 --> 03:23:47,740
billion translates to. 3,000 for every teacher, 6,000 for your top 50%

2021
03:23:48,340 --> 03:23:54,580
$12,000 for your top 25% but each district needs to decide how they want to allocate that pool if they want to do that.

2022
03:23:54,640 --> 03:23:58,980
Leo, the $100 million that we allocated, what assumption did you guys have in that?

2023
03:24:00,500 --> 03:24:03,780
We put $100 million in first year, $200 million in second year.

2024
03:24:04,140 --> 03:24:05,200
Great, that's one extra point.

2025
03:24:05,940 --> 03:24:07,800
So we got it nailed down.

2026
03:24:08,220 --> 03:24:08,360
We got it nailed down.

2027
03:24:10,220 --> 03:24:11,920
The linear progression.

2028
03:24:16,360 --> 03:24:21,100
I think the assumption was is that it's going to take at least a year for districts to

2029
03:24:21,100 --> 03:24:23,200
actually figure out what system they want to put forth.

2030
03:24:23,200 --> 03:24:27,280
There are some districts like Dallas and others that already have some type of evaluation

2031
03:24:27,280 --> 03:24:28,700
system that they can submit.

2032
03:24:29,320 --> 03:24:32,660
And back to your earlier question, I think it's obviously incumbent upon the commissioner

2033
03:24:32,660 --> 03:24:36,940
to decide where kind of the minimum parameters that has to include at least three measures

2034
03:24:36,940 --> 03:24:37,760
or four measures.

2035
03:24:37,760 --> 03:24:42,060
It has to include some measure student growth, but it can't count for less than this or count

2036
03:24:42,060 --> 03:24:42,800
for more than that.

2037
03:24:42,960 --> 03:24:46,960
But you, anywhere within that band, he'll have to decide what he and his staff have to

2038
03:24:46,960 --> 03:24:51,900
decide what they want to do to make so that it doesn't become so watered down, that it doesn't

2039
03:24:51,900 --> 03:24:54,900
really create the systemic change that we all want it to do.

2040
03:24:55,760 --> 03:24:59,980
And I think what's important, at least in our mind, is maybe our resident team.

2041
03:25:00,000 --> 03:25:12,680
The future might might want a way in your put. You know, the thought process is that, you know, when when I was on school board, and we we struggle with stipend's and how do we incentivize, and it teaches the teacher to one camps and all of these other programs.

2042
03:25:30,000 --> 03:25:35,240
if we improve the quality of the people that want to teach and they say oh I could actually

2043
03:25:35,240 --> 03:25:40,500
do well and make decent money doing this then I'm going to go do this instead and then we're

2044
03:25:40,500 --> 03:25:45,780
getting the results then maybe it turns from a billion to two but who knows I mean who knows

2045
03:25:45,780 --> 03:25:50,200
where that goes I think that you know if the results are there you're going to pay for it because

2046
03:25:50,200 --> 03:25:55,320
ultimately what we're producing at the end when they come out of high school and they go to college

2047
03:25:55,320 --> 03:25:58,280
is a better product, right? So, with this part.

2048
03:25:59,400 --> 03:26:03,080
Well, I know I've had a lot of feedback from my colleagues around the state and some

2049
03:26:03,080 --> 03:26:07,820
of the concerns that they have are if they're elective teachers like, and we don't consider

2050
03:26:07,820 --> 03:26:11,740
ourselves as CTE teachers to be that. I mean, more because of the endorsements, you know,

2051
03:26:12,240 --> 03:26:16,460
it's a requirement. But also, fine arts, some of those teachers, I know that they're going

2052
03:26:16,460 --> 03:26:20,640
to want to know are they eligible, you know, for this as well, even though we're not in

2053
03:26:20,640 --> 03:26:23,540
tested areas. So, I want to be able to give them clear answer all now.

2054
03:26:23,540 --> 03:26:29,800
Yeah, I think the two things, both the ramping up and what you're going to make the most difference.

2055
03:26:30,080 --> 03:26:31,660
Obviously, it's what we've already looked at.

2056
03:26:33,320 --> 03:26:36,020
The biggest difference we've made in the primary grades.

2057
03:26:37,760 --> 03:26:44,340
I don't think heard that much testimony about what we need to incentivize, really incentivize

2058
03:26:44,340 --> 03:26:46,540
our best teachers to teach American history.

2059
03:26:47,080 --> 03:26:48,080
American history is important.

2060
03:26:48,280 --> 03:26:50,200
It's a critical part of public school education.

2061
03:26:50,640 --> 03:26:54,780
But, you know, we're trying to get, again, the big step-in-back, what's the big problem?

2062
03:26:54,960 --> 03:27:00,080
The big problem is a million kids that difficulty reading and writing, and that's where we need

2063
03:27:00,080 --> 03:27:01,480
to get those best teachers there.

2064
03:27:01,640 --> 03:27:06,780
And it seems to me, I do think this is something you want to ramp up slowly because, for

2065
03:27:06,780 --> 03:27:12,060
that reason, you just said, if you make it, just spread it all out, it's not going to make

2066
03:27:12,060 --> 03:27:12,540
any difference.

2067
03:27:12,720 --> 03:27:15,880
And then there's not going to be public support for increasing it because it didn't make

2068
03:27:15,880 --> 03:27:16,360
any difference.

2069
03:27:16,360 --> 03:27:22,500
If you really do start off as Dallas did, just start off with your ten best teachers.

2070
03:27:23,080 --> 03:27:29,360
Put them in the most difficult school, see some remarkable results, and then it will

2071
03:27:29,360 --> 03:27:32,020
grow itself because you'll have the public support to do it.

2072
03:27:32,120 --> 03:27:34,700
But I'd really do think if you've started this off too big.

2073
03:27:35,980 --> 03:27:42,520
And I think also just from my family members, they're in teaching profession, most schools

2074
03:27:42,520 --> 03:27:48,300
I know why every school I ever went to, college law school, I could tell you the top two

2075
03:27:48,300 --> 03:27:54,020
percent of teachers, the ones who were all stars, they were great, and everybody knew

2076
03:27:54,020 --> 03:27:54,200
it.

2077
03:27:54,860 --> 03:27:58,800
But the further you go down, you can get in a big argument about, you know, well, am I

2078
03:27:58,800 --> 03:28:01,180
in the top 25 or the top 35 percent?

2079
03:28:01,780 --> 03:28:08,660
And the problem is I understand it and that can be created by bonus incentive programs is

2080
03:28:08,660 --> 03:28:10,320
is that you get competition between teachers,

2081
03:28:10,320 --> 03:28:12,020
it's not fair, how did you get it?

2082
03:28:12,440 --> 03:28:15,120
If we start off small with the people

2083
03:28:15,120 --> 03:28:18,300
that are indisputably all-stars,

2084
03:28:18,960 --> 03:28:20,880
then I think you minimize that at least

2085
03:28:20,880 --> 03:28:22,300
until you get the program off the ground

2086
03:28:22,300 --> 03:28:23,560
and see how it works.

2087
03:28:24,520 --> 03:28:26,560
If I could, I'm sure there's a concept,

2088
03:28:26,880 --> 03:28:28,220
and I think it's really important

2089
03:28:28,220 --> 03:28:31,780
from what we've heard, this whole sleigh ride

2090
03:28:31,780 --> 03:28:33,600
that started in January, okay?

2091
03:28:34,420 --> 03:28:37,280
It's that you can't legislate leadership.

2092
03:28:37,280 --> 03:28:45,700
Now, what we saw at Dallas ISD, you know, community, Dallas, you know, and a colleague over there.

2093
03:28:46,240 --> 03:28:54,440
San Antonio, etc. are people that have leadership skills. And quite frankly, the promised PTAG,

2094
03:28:54,680 --> 03:29:04,280
Dallas situation, the leadership of the chancellor and of the superintendent is a light year ahead of what I have in Houston right now.

2095
03:29:04,280 --> 03:29:13,140
I'm just it is, and because that leadership is so important that we just have to make

2096
03:29:13,140 --> 03:29:18,320
sure that they have the management tools to be able to take advantage of that good leadership

2097
03:29:18,320 --> 03:29:26,600
when you see it, and as a result when you look at some type of performance based or incentive

2098
03:29:26,600 --> 03:29:33,980
based program for teachers, we're going to have to get the best practices of the leaders

2099
03:29:33,980 --> 03:29:45,480
that we have and replicate them and open those as programs to others. But the truth, you know,

2100
03:29:45,720 --> 03:29:52,200
about promising PTEC and what happened in Dallas was that if the superintendent, the chancellor,

2101
03:29:52,200 --> 03:29:59,400
were good leaders and they didn't have the corresponding support from CEOs in the private sector, never occurred.

2102
03:30:00,660 --> 03:30:12,500
And so we just have to be able to open the door way up for a good leadership to take best practices around the state. And that clearly has got to be a new compensation program for teachers.

2103
03:30:15,210 --> 03:30:30,690
Okay. Thank you. Recommendation number 19, create an extended year incentive program. Background. And this is that students achievement levels typically drop during the summer months. Usually this is referred to as what we call the summer slide.

2104
03:30:30,690 --> 03:30:35,770
Studies of the Effective Summer Instruction Program show that this decline can be eliminated

2105
03:30:35,770 --> 03:30:40,510
with programs that offer three to four hours of instructions a day for between five to

2106
03:30:40,510 --> 03:30:41,050
six weeks.

2107
03:30:41,810 --> 03:30:47,690
So not right after, we break for summer school, but giving them an opportunity to go back

2108
03:30:47,690 --> 03:30:50,910
and have that remediation that they're going to need.

2109
03:30:51,710 --> 03:30:55,730
The rationale, this provides half-day funding for districts that offer additional instructional

2110
03:30:55,730 --> 03:31:00,750
days from 181 to 210 days for students in pre-K through 5th grade.

2111
03:31:01,290 --> 03:31:05,310
In addition to improving student outcomes, this program would also provide additional

2112
03:31:05,310 --> 03:31:10,450
compensation to teachers and assist families that needed the most with child care in the

2113
03:31:10,450 --> 03:31:13,530
summer months, annual costs is expected to be $50 million.

2114
03:31:14,690 --> 03:31:20,850
Only thing I would say to this is that this would be a program I believe that we're focusing

2115
03:31:20,850 --> 03:31:26,230
on reading, we're focusing on this advanced population, we're focusing on the elementary

2116
03:31:26,230 --> 03:31:30,990
schools. We do all that work during the year and then we let them out of school and

2117
03:31:30,990 --> 03:31:35,610
they go backwards significantly by the time they come back to us at the end of Augusta.

2118
03:31:36,570 --> 03:31:42,710
And our thought process was that why not find those school districts and the teachers that

2119
03:31:42,710 --> 03:31:48,540
actually want to go teach in those programs for they can make some extra money, but at

2120
03:31:48,540 --> 03:31:54,380
same time, there will be these student populations, especially in our urban areas and settings,

2121
03:31:54,540 --> 03:31:58,040
we think this would be a great incentive for those programs to be taken care of.

2122
03:31:58,780 --> 03:32:08,380
And it also shows that in many of these settings that the children that are getting their

2123
03:32:08,380 --> 03:32:14,040
meals when they're going to school with us aren't hardly eating or being fed properly during

2124
03:32:14,040 --> 03:32:14,980
in the summer months as well.

2125
03:32:15,280 --> 03:32:17,360
And so this would take care of some of those problems as well.

2126
03:32:19,380 --> 03:32:20,180
Questions, comments?

2127
03:32:21,140 --> 03:32:22,580
Yeah, I really just have a comment.

2128
03:32:22,920 --> 03:32:24,040
I see the value of this.

2129
03:32:24,040 --> 03:32:26,460
I think this is very worthwhile, particularly with some populations.

2130
03:32:26,680 --> 03:32:29,340
But also, I don't think necessarily that needs a law

2131
03:32:29,340 --> 03:32:32,520
or in our school of finance, the idea of using technology

2132
03:32:32,520 --> 03:32:37,220
to help with that summer decrease or these younger kids,

2133
03:32:37,340 --> 03:32:38,720
particularly their computer games,

2134
03:32:38,880 --> 03:32:42,500
other than have reading and math and that the kids actually

2135
03:32:42,500 --> 03:32:44,060
to enjoy playing that would help immensely

2136
03:32:44,060 --> 03:32:46,480
with that reducing the summer drop off.

2137
03:32:46,780 --> 03:32:48,040
Not take away from this program at all,

2138
03:32:48,140 --> 03:32:50,720
but just encouraging districts to look into those things

2139
03:32:51,100 --> 03:32:53,480
as we're providing more and more resources

2140
03:32:53,480 --> 03:32:55,740
and technology at the students individually

2141
03:32:56,180 --> 03:32:57,520
that they'd be allowed to take that home

2142
03:32:57,520 --> 03:33:00,260
over the summer and have a contest over the summer

2143
03:33:00,260 --> 03:33:02,660
or you get to the highest level in this game

2144
03:33:02,660 --> 03:33:05,840
and they can measure the amount of time spent in the kids.

2145
03:33:06,360 --> 03:33:07,080
We get out there to compete.

2146
03:33:07,680 --> 03:33:10,700
We won't lose a lot of that loss of educational quality

2147
03:33:16,870 --> 03:33:27,750
So now we're through the new programs and now we have some additional new proposal recommendations that we want to talk about.

2148
03:33:28,010 --> 03:33:33,770
So recommendation number 20, utilize remaining funds from reallocations to increase the basic allotment.

2149
03:33:34,390 --> 03:33:55,770
Background on this is that the basic allotment set at $5,140 for the Fiscal 18 19 school year in the General Appropriations Act following an increase of $1,547 in Fiscal 10 from $3,218 to $4,765, the basic allotment has only increased by $375 over the last decade.

2150
03:33:56,370 --> 03:34:00,190
The rationale is, this allows school districts flexibility to spend additional funds where

2151
03:34:00,190 --> 03:34:04,190
they most need them, increases the equity in the system while also decreasing the amount

2152
03:34:04,190 --> 03:34:05,550
of recapture owed to the state.

2153
03:34:06,210 --> 03:34:12,870
This is going to be subject and left to obviously the legislators, the legislators as we go

2154
03:34:12,870 --> 03:34:18,130
into the next session of what we think that will be left, but we've seen different numbers

2155
03:34:18,130 --> 03:34:23,390
in what they do and what the impact associated with that is, but I think for everybody thinks

2156
03:34:23,390 --> 03:34:26,670
about it, when we think about basic lot in tier one, we think about tier two funding.

2157
03:34:26,790 --> 03:34:30,070
This obviously impacts everything, helps recaptures, helps 42s, it helps everybody.

2158
03:34:31,210 --> 03:34:35,150
So you know, there's, you can, you can look at the map that we've done and, and, and the

2159
03:34:35,150 --> 03:34:38,630
programs that we put out and, you know, what we're suggesting for new money, actually new

2160
03:34:38,630 --> 03:34:40,690
money going into this, into the system here.

2161
03:34:41,650 --> 03:34:46,870
And you know, I think we allocate what a billion, you know, roughly a year of new, new resources

2162
03:34:46,870 --> 03:34:51,130
and new money that's going in and so you can extrapolate out what that could, that could

2163
03:34:51,130 --> 03:34:51,610
relate to.

2164
03:34:51,610 --> 03:34:59,970
But again, we as legislators that vote on basic allotment, I think that that becomes budgetary and how do we get there, you know what?

2165
03:35:00,000 --> 03:35:03,080
I have to see recommendations on what the revenues come out as well.

2166
03:35:10,100 --> 03:35:32,960
Recommendation number 21. Link, tier two, copper penny yield to a percentage of the basic allotment. Background on this is that in 2006, HB1 and the 79th Third Call Station established multiple equalized wealth levels in the school finance system. Copper pennies, which are the pennies, says, reminder from $1.7 to $1.17, were equalized up to $31.95, which in 2006 was the 88th

2167
03:35:32,960 --> 03:35:38,100
percentile in terms of wealth per student, so just as an example, 88% of the water and

2168
03:35:38,100 --> 03:35:41,540
the system was equalized and that was tied to Dallas ISD at the time.

2169
03:35:42,240 --> 03:35:49,480
This yield has not been adjusted since 2006 and now 3195 now represents the 47th percentile.

2170
03:35:50,220 --> 03:35:54,780
Our rationale is this would increase the yield by initial amount and then it index the yield

2171
03:35:54,780 --> 03:35:58,280
to a percentage of the basic allotment so that the yield would increase with any increase

2172
03:35:58,280 --> 03:35:59,300
in the basic allotment.

2173
03:35:59,300 --> 03:36:07,060
This would also increase Tier 2A for Chapter 42 districts and reduce recapture for 41 districts taxing above the $6 rate.

2174
03:36:07,420 --> 03:36:15,100
The minor is the golden pennies between $1 or $6 or $6 are the golden pennies.

2175
03:36:15,640 --> 03:36:23,200
Tier 1 is subject to recapture and then the copper pennies in the Tier 2 are then also subject to recapture.

2176
03:36:23,200 --> 03:36:28,340
one of the arguments that we've heard from school districts along the ways is that, you know,

2177
03:36:28,420 --> 03:36:32,780
you've got school districts that are at the maximum cap of $1.17. We have over 400 school districts

2178
03:36:32,780 --> 03:36:39,340
that are attaching at the maximum rate of $1.17. And if you were to change, and whether we,

2179
03:36:39,760 --> 03:36:43,920
you know, at the time when this was done in 2006, if we had linked it together as a percentage

2180
03:36:43,920 --> 03:36:48,720
of the wealth of 88 percent, that would have continued to rise and pumped additional resources,

2181
03:36:48,720 --> 03:36:53,020
which means that school districts could lower their tax burden as they go forward.

2182
03:36:53,140 --> 03:36:57,520
In addition, it would lower recapture for school districts by doing that.

2183
03:36:57,680 --> 03:37:02,200
However, in the case, obviously if they're not taxing above the dollar six,

2184
03:37:02,200 --> 03:37:04,680
then there's no benefit to them associated with that.

2185
03:37:05,680 --> 03:37:10,880
But if they do, then this is also the incentive we hear from recapture districts all the time.

2186
03:37:10,920 --> 03:37:16,260
Well, why would I go and ask for a tax increase if I've got to give 80% or 70% back to the state of Texas?

2187
03:37:16,260 --> 03:37:20,300
And so that's what we're trying to do is equalize that, bring it up to a level that makes sense.

2188
03:37:23,190 --> 03:37:24,790
Yes, that's tied with the next one.

2189
03:37:25,410 --> 03:37:27,110
No, the next one is a little bit different.

2190
03:37:28,710 --> 03:37:30,770
If I can, do you have an estimate on this one?

2191
03:37:31,050 --> 03:37:32,490
That's really the dollars on the last one.

2192
03:37:33,290 --> 03:37:34,170
And yes, the middle one.

2193
03:37:34,430 --> 03:37:36,370
No, we don't at this time.

2194
03:37:36,470 --> 03:37:39,950
I think we had some different ideas and played with some different things.

2195
03:37:40,250 --> 03:37:41,770
And really, you just have to pick a number.

2196
03:37:42,230 --> 03:37:44,370
Right now, I mean, here's the way I would look at it.

2197
03:37:44,470 --> 03:37:48,150
Back in 2006, when the tiers were put into place,

2198
03:37:48,150 --> 03:37:52,910
And we talked about getting rid of tiers altogether, but that's very, very, very, very expensive

2199
03:37:52,910 --> 03:37:54,470
if you're talking about doing that.

2200
03:37:54,610 --> 03:38:00,950
But the point is, is that it's really on the recapture side, and really it's the capturing

2201
03:38:00,950 --> 03:38:03,350
of the property wealth that you're not giving back.

2202
03:38:03,590 --> 03:38:07,310
So it's basically you're taking the resources that are coming in through property wealth

2203
03:38:07,310 --> 03:38:08,190
and you're pushing it down.

2204
03:38:09,350 --> 03:38:13,790
This is something that really, if we really want to get property tax relief, if you think

2205
03:38:13,790 --> 03:38:18,630
about it, you know, to get up to that level of 88% again, I don't remember what the number was,

2206
03:38:18,690 --> 03:38:24,430
but I think it was like 47 bucks or 47 something. Is that's on right? Somewhere in that range,

2207
03:38:27,780 --> 03:38:38,060
you have the number. So for the copper yield? Yeah. So at 75% of the PA would be $43. But to get

2208
03:38:38,060 --> 03:38:45,540
to 88% I mean that's good. What are the discussions we had Senator was that, you know, in a minimum,

2209
03:38:45,540 --> 03:38:48,860
And if you target it to a percentile of what the BA is,

2210
03:38:49,000 --> 03:38:50,780
and if we pick, you know, you pick the number, you know,

2211
03:38:50,920 --> 03:38:52,440
right now, even if you went to 50 percent,

2212
03:38:52,460 --> 03:38:53,300
it's more than what it is.

2213
03:38:53,500 --> 03:38:55,680
But if you went up to 75 percent, you'd think

2214
03:38:55,680 --> 03:38:58,980
about the economic benefit to the local districts.

2215
03:38:59,240 --> 03:39:01,100
And basically what you're doing is you're giving back

2216
03:39:01,100 --> 03:39:03,220
to them what the property growth is, right?

2217
03:39:03,320 --> 03:39:07,500
So your LAR request was $3.5 billion less in GR, right?

2218
03:39:07,700 --> 03:39:09,540
And specifically related to property growth.

2219
03:39:09,920 --> 03:39:10,340
Yes, right?

2220
03:39:10,800 --> 03:39:13,300
So, you know, again, we're taking the difference

2221
03:39:13,300 --> 03:39:21,460
It's on the property growth and using it to offset or spend another place is where the majority of that money is a result of this.

2222
03:39:22,140 --> 03:39:27,020
But again, keep in mind, we're taking current year values, or one of our suggestions is current year values here.

2223
03:39:27,140 --> 03:39:27,800
So there is money.

2224
03:39:27,900 --> 03:39:32,840
There is money to be moved around and reallocated, but this is where we think we should move it to.

2225
03:39:33,440 --> 03:39:40,280
So while you talked about Mr. Killian, or Dr. Killian, when you talked about lower property values, how about Doug?

2226
03:39:40,280 --> 03:39:44,760
Lower property values or using current your property values.

2227
03:39:45,040 --> 03:39:51,420
This is one of the things that you could actually do to actually put fix the system to make it actually work as I'm going to go for a basis.

2228
03:39:53,600 --> 03:39:53,880
Senator?

2229
03:39:54,780 --> 03:39:55,160
It's okay.

2230
03:39:56,460 --> 03:39:56,980
So,

2231
03:39:59,080 --> 03:39:59,960
I'm still-

2232
03:40:00,000 --> 03:40:29,980
I still need to see how this works out with the revenue group as we all do. Obviously, based on my previous comments, there is a trade-off in a world of finite resources. There's trade-off between spreading money around and concentrating it. And it seems to me that the main thing that seems to me at this point, the main thing I think we could accomplish that would be different is concentrating it. And this is the kind of

2233
03:40:29,980 --> 03:40:34,700
thing that might be able to be adjusted year to year, it would very year to year, I'm a little

2234
03:40:34,700 --> 03:40:41,480
uncomfortable with a set percentage figure just cause things change. You know, you have hurricanes

2235
03:40:41,480 --> 03:40:49,200
and you have recessions and you have stuff like that that affects the state budget and the state

2236
03:40:49,200 --> 03:40:58,060
has to do something about it. But I can you know, we've heard compelling arguments from virtually

2237
03:40:58,060 --> 03:41:02,380
everybody in education community about they would like more money and how they would spend

2238
03:41:02,380 --> 03:41:02,560
it.

2239
03:41:02,660 --> 03:41:10,760
Many of those are great ideas so I'm not just reacting to no one I'm going to do that

2240
03:41:10,760 --> 03:41:11,760
but I am nervous.

2241
03:41:12,000 --> 03:41:16,880
I do think there's a trade-off between the more you spread the money around, the thinner,

2242
03:41:17,100 --> 03:41:22,300
the benefit gets and it just seems to me that the biggest thing, my biggest impression

2243
03:41:22,300 --> 03:41:27,140
of all the witnesses we've heard is this big block of students so again if we won't go

2244
03:41:27,140 --> 03:41:30,800
if we had again, this is where we've got to move the ball

2245
03:41:30,800 --> 03:41:31,820
while we've got the chance.

2246
03:41:32,500 --> 03:41:37,400
If I could turn just to follow on the running total that I had

2247
03:41:37,400 --> 03:41:42,500
was after recommendation in the 19 until we hit

2248
03:41:42,500 --> 03:41:45,300
the additional recommendations, we were about 1.6

2249
03:41:45,300 --> 03:41:45,800
bayed up.

2250
03:41:45,960 --> 03:41:47,620
So as the revenue guy was really happy.

2251
03:41:48,560 --> 03:41:51,720
I started spending it right up until the Uber.

2252
03:41:51,780 --> 03:41:54,040
He started spending the money in the next recommendation.

2253
03:41:54,900 --> 03:41:58,240
We were already, we were one six up, but it was a great program.

2254
03:41:58,540 --> 03:42:03,680
Yeah, well, it's off the park, right, and then now we're on the downhill slide, but

2255
03:42:03,680 --> 03:42:03,920
anyway.

2256
03:42:04,380 --> 03:42:10,020
So not necessarily, and I want to be very, very clear on this, and I know that this

2257
03:42:10,020 --> 03:42:15,420
was, you know, we had a very robust conversation about this, you know, in our, in our kind

2258
03:42:15,420 --> 03:42:19,000
of work group, and then also when we were there on the dias and talked about this, and

2259
03:42:19,000 --> 03:42:23,320
I know that this is one of those things that's not popular, but here is my question, and I

2260
03:42:23,320 --> 03:42:24,780
I think this is the one that we have to answer.

2261
03:42:24,900 --> 03:42:26,380
We really want to fix school finance.

2262
03:42:26,920 --> 03:42:28,480
What do you say to the 400 school districts

2263
03:42:28,480 --> 03:42:30,380
that are at the maximum cap that can't even help themselves,

2264
03:42:30,380 --> 03:42:31,640
even if they wanted to right now?

2265
03:42:31,720 --> 03:42:32,400
They're $1,17.

2266
03:42:33,120 --> 03:42:34,640
And most of those are fast growth school districts.

2267
03:42:35,060 --> 03:42:36,980
Many of them are fast growth school districts today.

2268
03:42:37,600 --> 03:42:40,160
And I know that it would be very unpopular to say,

2269
03:42:40,220 --> 03:42:41,980
well, let's just go ahead and increase the cap

2270
03:42:41,980 --> 03:42:43,500
so they can tax their people more.

2271
03:42:45,160 --> 03:42:46,360
That's not the solution.

2272
03:42:46,480 --> 03:42:48,260
The solution is that we have to check.

2273
03:42:48,420 --> 03:42:49,880
We have to fix these tier two yields.

2274
03:42:50,140 --> 03:42:51,500
And if we're unwilling to do that,

2275
03:42:51,500 --> 03:43:01,760
Then ultimately, you know, you were a Supreme Court justice, you start getting into that balance of, wait a minute, do you got a statewide property tax again?

2276
03:43:02,620 --> 03:43:20,620
And so this is something that I think that we really need to take a serious look at, and I know politically it's a big lift, but I think the history here is that it was created in 2006, 2007 and tied as a percentage for a very specific reason, but we just never stayed up for it.

2277
03:43:20,620 --> 03:43:27,560
Yep, that's, it is the, it is the quantity, the balance we want people to exceed, we want

2278
03:43:27,560 --> 03:43:32,240
people to be invested locally, we want them to see the school districts be excellent,

2279
03:43:32,720 --> 03:43:35,560
but we don't want them to spend too much to be too excellent because then it becomes

2280
03:43:35,560 --> 03:43:41,880
a statewide property tax and it's, you know, there's big-ish ways you can fix that which

2281
03:43:41,880 --> 03:43:48,020
is take away the rule that you can't have statewide property tax, but assuming no, that's, that's

2282
03:43:48,020 --> 03:43:52,040
going to happen. I mean, it is just a bit of a corner to figure out, but Dr. Alex.

2283
03:43:52,580 --> 03:43:56,940
Yeah. And to the concentration spread to thin, I would kind of relate that maybe to another

2284
03:43:56,940 --> 03:44:01,220
point when we're talking about teacher pay. And we're trying to direct money to the quality

2285
03:44:01,220 --> 03:44:05,060
teachers. You know, that's concentrating there. But that's all based on a premise that you

2286
03:44:05,060 --> 03:44:09,560
have an adequate base of adequate teacher pay. And I think that's where this balance is out.

2287
03:44:09,880 --> 03:44:12,420
We're going to do some concentration. We're going to move it there, but we're going to have some

2288
03:44:12,420 --> 03:44:15,720
across the board. I think this is a recommendation that moves us there.

2289
03:44:16,140 --> 03:44:22,240
To that point, I would say that, and I appreciate the cover paintings because, quite frankly,

2290
03:44:22,720 --> 03:44:26,840
we haven't been able to give up with inflationary costs. And so what you're seeing is

2291
03:44:26,840 --> 03:44:32,380
a teacher wages being eroded. So while I love the fact that we're going to incentivize

2292
03:44:32,380 --> 03:44:36,580
some outstanding performance, we also have to take care of our basic needs as well.

2293
03:44:37,240 --> 03:44:41,480
And I know, I don't know about Nicole, but we had our time finding teachers this year.

2294
03:44:41,480 --> 03:44:49,320
The economy is doing well and we ran short for a number of months going into the area, so that's unusual.

2295
03:44:50,420 --> 03:44:52,100
And teacher pay is just not there.

2296
03:44:56,300 --> 03:44:59,000
I know it's a tough one, but I think it's...

2297
03:45:00,000 --> 03:45:28,400
If we don't, if we don't do this, this will be, this will be one of the ultimate deals. Well, and that's the, you know, the other analysis you all have that we as a commission don't necessarily have is what do you have to do to get this thing passed? There's a lot of people that, there's a lot of people that once you get it down, they do the runs, all we're losing, you know, a million dollars. And they go, what that million dollars back for, they go vote for it. And so, I mean, that's why I'm to some degree.

2298
03:45:29,740 --> 03:45:35,300
They'll be, they'll be, they'll be parts of this that I guess would get broken up in Senator Taylor's agreed to carry this part of it.

2299
03:45:35,500 --> 03:45:37,700
So, well,

2300
03:45:40,580 --> 03:45:43,400
that's good to know that that assignment has already been made.

2301
03:45:43,560 --> 03:45:45,140
I just passed in the city to go with him.

2302
03:45:45,220 --> 03:45:46,660
Yeah, I'll get a pass. Don't worry about it.

2303
03:45:47,380 --> 03:45:49,900
I can, we can pass anything in the house. It's fine, you know.

2304
03:45:50,360 --> 03:45:50,920
That's right.

2305
03:45:51,940 --> 03:45:53,620
I think there's something like a tax bill.

2306
03:45:53,840 --> 03:45:55,040
I think those have to stun the house.

2307
03:45:55,040 --> 03:45:57,980
Okay, wait a minute, yeah, you're starting to ask me.

2308
03:45:58,400 --> 03:45:59,260
All right, you're ready.

2309
03:46:01,260 --> 03:46:03,920
Okay, just following the Constitution, yeah, I understand.

2310
03:46:04,940 --> 03:46:07,540
That's why you're a senator, that's right.

2311
03:46:08,700 --> 03:46:10,140
And don't forget it.

2312
03:46:10,420 --> 03:46:12,160
Yes sir, yes sir.

2313
03:46:13,160 --> 03:46:18,040
Okay, the last one, recommendation number 22, link tier two, golden penny yield to a set

2314
03:46:18,040 --> 03:46:19,620
percentile of wealth per student.

2315
03:46:20,500 --> 03:46:27,040
Background on this HB1 and the 79, third called session established multiple equalized wealth levels in the school finance system.

2316
03:46:27,240 --> 03:46:37,600
The golden pennies, which is $1 to $1 to $6, were equalized up to the Austin ISD wealth level, which in 2006 was the 95th percentile in terms of wealth per student at $41.22.

2317
03:46:38,000 --> 03:46:44,840
So again, the golden pennies, we think about that the highest yield that's out there, so those are pennies that are going into the system.

2318
03:46:45,360 --> 03:46:53,640
This yield has not been changed since 2006, and Austin ISD now represents the 99th percentile, so about 106.28.

2319
03:46:54,740 --> 03:46:58,500
A rationale is decoupled this yield from Austin ISD and set it at a certain percentile.

2320
03:46:58,600 --> 03:47:03,860
It provides more predictability in the system and removes a variable that is not tied to a district or a student's need.

2321
03:47:04,960 --> 03:47:12,360
We looked at a variety of different options, whether it be 95th or 98th or 99th or whatever that number would be.

2322
03:47:12,360 --> 03:47:14,500
Again, this will be a discussion.

2323
03:47:14,700 --> 03:47:19,440
This will be one of those items that, you know, certainly what will happen is if it does

2324
03:47:19,440 --> 03:47:22,960
go down there, it's the first thing that Mocha and Casey will do is do the runs and tell

2325
03:47:22,960 --> 03:47:26,200
every school district how bad this is or how good this is for them.

2326
03:47:26,380 --> 03:47:28,660
So that's one of the things that we would take into consideration.

2327
03:47:28,960 --> 03:47:33,020
But look, if we're going to change the system, we're going to change the way that we do things.

2328
03:47:33,540 --> 03:47:38,620
You know, you have a school district that is obviously by no fault of their own at the, you

2329
03:47:38,620 --> 03:47:41,320
know, just huge property tax gross and things of that nature.

2330
03:47:41,320 --> 03:47:48,620
Which basically for school districts, it's not equate to what the original ten of what that was.

2331
03:47:49,180 --> 03:47:52,040
We've had discussions about rolling two, one, two, two together.

2332
03:47:52,260 --> 03:47:54,500
That would be very interesting.

2333
03:47:54,960 --> 03:47:56,940
Those are all discussions that we should have.

2334
03:47:57,060 --> 03:48:00,240
We don't have a specific percentage or anything like that.

2335
03:48:00,460 --> 03:48:02,760
So if somebody's got some runs that are out there, they're not right.

2336
03:48:04,320 --> 03:48:08,280
We just did some different ideas just to figure out what we thought it would cost.

2337
03:48:09,140 --> 03:48:12,660
but we think it's we think it's something that should be done. When we talk about

2338
03:48:12,660 --> 03:48:15,900
tier one, tier two, and the pennies and everything else that's out there, this

2339
03:48:15,900 --> 03:48:20,100
should be something that should be addressed and all-encompassing. Holistic change.

2340
03:48:21,460 --> 03:48:22,260
That's it.

2341
03:48:22,740 --> 03:48:25,960
I was just going to volunteer to sign up for your next trip here.

2342
03:48:26,240 --> 03:48:27,300
Yeah, exactly.

2343
03:48:28,340 --> 03:48:30,140
That's what Ms. College does.

2344
03:48:30,640 --> 03:48:35,180
So just a question. So are the golden pennies still golden or are they subject to

2345
03:48:35,180 --> 03:48:35,700
recapture?

2346
03:48:35,700 --> 03:48:39,040
No, they would stay, they would not be subject to refill.

2347
03:48:39,640 --> 03:48:40,980
Well, I mean, think about this way.

2348
03:48:41,040 --> 03:48:42,820
You're at the highest percent time.

2349
03:48:42,900 --> 03:48:44,740
I mean, Leo, I guess that's a better question for you.

2350
03:48:46,040 --> 03:48:49,960
I guess there would still be recapture for those six things.

2351
03:48:50,060 --> 03:48:50,900
Right, yes.

2352
03:48:53,280 --> 03:48:56,740
So I guess my other question, and let's just say, hypothetically,

2353
03:48:57,000 --> 03:49:00,660
that the revenue working group sort of, you know,

2354
03:49:00,740 --> 03:49:03,980
follows in a similar fashion of the outcomes

2355
03:49:03,980 --> 03:49:07,680
in the expenditure of working groups and does an impressive job of finding some revenue

2356
03:49:07,680 --> 03:49:08,320
opportunity.

2357
03:49:08,520 --> 03:49:13,120
I think there's at least three and a half billion as a starting point, and we find some

2358
03:49:13,120 --> 03:49:17,420
opportunities to not only reinvest some of these reallocations, but additional capacity.

2359
03:49:18,160 --> 03:49:25,520
With there be some opportunities to consider some inflationary components and sort of the

2360
03:49:25,520 --> 03:49:32,380
basic allotment or any of these other yield levels to consider the fact that, because

2361
03:49:32,380 --> 03:49:38,800
Because I guess the sort of fear, some of the core issues that we've seen in the formulas

2362
03:49:38,800 --> 03:49:42,560
is that they become outdated after a certain time-prime.

2363
03:49:42,780 --> 03:49:47,200
You know, we're living with sort of 30-year-old formulas and you've done sort of this perkyling

2364
03:49:47,200 --> 03:49:51,320
in effort to sort of look at them and retool them and get them to sort of a better sort

2365
03:49:51,320 --> 03:49:51,940
of set point.

2366
03:49:52,500 --> 03:49:59,640
And so we don't necessarily lose ground and we definitely can't sort of work with the assumption

2367
03:50:00,000 --> 03:50:19,940
School districts can absorb costs and inflation over time. And so, if we can find capacity with their being of willingness to kind of build in a structure to consider some indexing or some possibilities to absorb inflation over time at some point. If we are, if we're so inclined to sort of find capacity on the revenue side.

2368
03:50:19,940 --> 03:50:25,640
I mean, I just say just from a legal standpoint, that's a, these guys better answer that question,

2369
03:50:25,740 --> 03:50:29,900
but just from a legal standpoint, no legislature can find a future legislature's hands.

2370
03:50:30,300 --> 03:50:35,520
So you can put, call the end or anything like that, but you can't put it in such a way

2371
03:50:35,520 --> 03:50:39,580
that a future legislature, if a hurricane comes along, can't undo it.

2372
03:50:39,700 --> 03:50:46,440
So it's harder to undo one than it is to, you know, it's probably easier to let it fall behind

2373
03:50:46,440 --> 03:50:49,980
and it is to have one in place and then change it.

2374
03:50:50,500 --> 03:50:53,320
It's certainly easier to not pass legislation

2375
03:50:53,320 --> 03:50:55,220
than it is to pass legislation, right?

2376
03:50:56,500 --> 03:50:57,880
It's harder to pass it.

2377
03:50:58,580 --> 03:51:01,240
But there's some limitations there.

2378
03:51:01,620 --> 03:51:04,260
And one of the questions I've thought about

2379
03:51:04,260 --> 03:51:08,140
in this whole process is that as I've said before,

2380
03:51:08,760 --> 03:51:13,120
I doubt as I read the current Supreme Court T-Leaves,

2381
03:51:13,380 --> 03:51:15,380
they're not gonna get involved unless there's a statewide

2382
03:51:15,380 --> 03:51:24,540
property tax deal. But is that really true? If we started seeing the gap close in reading

2383
03:51:24,540 --> 03:51:30,180
rates for economically disadvantaged kids and started seeing all the other metrics go

2384
03:51:30,180 --> 03:51:36,780
up, would they as concerned that Austin raises more money than Lampassas does by an extra

2385
03:51:36,780 --> 03:51:42,860
And it's become, you know, in there, you know, is there some flexibility in there that

2386
03:51:44,540 --> 03:51:49,740
looks worse because a lot of students are being left behind, that if they weren't being

2387
03:51:49,740 --> 03:51:51,460
left behind, might not be as good.

2388
03:51:52,400 --> 03:51:53,720
All of that's a guesswork.

2389
03:51:54,820 --> 03:51:57,200
But I just, I have a sense there may be some sense.

2390
03:51:57,400 --> 03:52:03,600
If we, there's some benefit in flexibility and not to mention public support.

2391
03:52:04,600 --> 03:52:12,600
I think the thing that falls on deaf ears is we just need more money, and it may or may

2392
03:52:12,600 --> 03:52:13,580
not make a difference.

2393
03:52:15,780 --> 03:52:19,440
Like or not, Americans want better services at lower taxes.

2394
03:52:20,240 --> 03:52:22,280
And they won't vote for you if you say you can't have it.

2395
03:52:22,820 --> 03:52:24,360
You got to have one or the other.

2396
03:52:24,860 --> 03:52:32,960
But if our system was producing better results, I think there's going to be stronger support

2397
03:52:32,960 --> 03:52:39,880
better funding. But it's a tough part is getting that first step to you know the chicken

2398
03:52:39,880 --> 03:52:44,380
or the egg which one's going to go first. Do we have to see the results are improving

2399
03:52:44,380 --> 03:52:49,620
or can we just give with that will they support increased funding without knowing whether

2400
03:52:49,620 --> 03:52:50,600
it's going to matter or not.

2401
03:52:54,830 --> 03:52:56,050
I'm sorry. Yes, please.

2402
03:52:58,230 --> 03:53:00,010
First of all I guess I'd like to say

2403
03:53:00,010 --> 03:53:05,370
two things if I could. One, I really want to applaud the expenditures committee and chairman

2404
03:53:05,370 --> 03:53:06,590
and you ready for what you've done here.

2405
03:53:07,290 --> 03:53:10,430
I think that the focus on the kids who need it the most

2406
03:53:10,830 --> 03:53:14,050
and the focus on trying to make sure that before we ask

2407
03:53:14,050 --> 03:53:16,410
for any new revenue, we try to spend what we have

2408
03:53:16,410 --> 03:53:19,870
better and more effectively is really worthwhile.

2409
03:53:20,110 --> 03:53:21,470
I think it will help us with taxpayers.

2410
03:53:21,470 --> 03:53:23,310
I think it will help us with the legislature.

2411
03:53:23,930 --> 03:53:24,930
So thank you for doing that.

2412
03:53:26,630 --> 03:53:28,710
Secondarily, we're gonna need new money in the system,

2413
03:53:29,050 --> 03:53:32,570
and I also welcome and very appreciative

2414
03:53:32,570 --> 03:53:37,010
that you guys endorsed a lot of the recommendations that came out of the outcomes working group.

2415
03:53:37,370 --> 03:53:42,190
Because I do think that there is, as Chairman Taylor said, there will be, I think, significant

2416
03:53:42,190 --> 03:53:47,010
taxpayers' support for strategies that work, and that are producing the goals that we want

2417
03:53:47,010 --> 03:53:47,570
as a state.

2418
03:53:48,050 --> 03:53:51,550
So I know that you guys put a lot of time and effort on this, and I just want to say thanks.

2419
03:53:55,040 --> 03:53:55,840
Questions, comments?

2420
03:53:57,680 --> 03:53:58,300
All right.

2421
03:53:58,920 --> 03:54:01,740
Can I just add one thing or do we have not discussed?

2422
03:54:01,740 --> 03:54:07,200
You know, we talked about getting rid of the cost of education index, it was an

2423
03:54:07,200 --> 03:54:10,900
out-up data dollar, various reasons, but there's also a differential out there

2424
03:54:10,900 --> 03:54:15,700
that we haven't talked about and that's insurance costs, particular property insurance.

2425
03:54:16,160 --> 03:54:20,380
You know, we have districts that are along the coast who, in many cases, may pay

2426
03:54:20,380 --> 03:54:25,000
a million dollars more in insurance than someone who may be located somewhere else in the state

2427
03:54:25,000 --> 03:54:27,640
and nowhere in any form does that take you to Canada.

2428
03:54:27,640 --> 03:54:32,200
That's taking a million dollars out of the classroom in one area and so on the other side of the variance

2429
03:54:32,200 --> 03:54:35,640
So I'm not saying we do some specific in this commission

2430
03:54:35,640 --> 03:54:41,240
But I would like to see one of the recommendations of the commission that we at least considered those types of factors

2431
03:54:41,760 --> 03:54:47,720
Into our school finance that we we look at in some of those lines because it's literally is it could be a very large amount

2432
03:54:47,720 --> 03:54:53,480
And not only they spend a million dollars more in the interest pretty with their deductibles are either so at the time of loss

2433
03:54:53,480 --> 03:54:58,200
or facing big loss. So just if we could make a general recordage as part of the

2434
03:54:58,200 --> 03:54:58,980
commission and release.

2435
03:54:59,420 --> 03:54:59,980
Consider the

2436
03:55:00,000 --> 03:55:29,980
Those types of costs that are beyond their control, just because of jobs. Thank you. So, you know, Nicole, I hear what you're saying. And, you know, obviously we'll have to, you know, I've been through the goods and the bags. And so tying those things and tying legislative stands is a difficult thing to. So I think that part of our focus should be is making sure we're spending the money, you know, correctly, taking a bad formulas and then we start going there. It's ultimately the discussion becomes the basic law. It helps everything as we go forward.

2437
03:55:29,980 --> 03:55:33,880
And our we did make the recommendation that we think we should increase the basic law.

2438
03:55:34,080 --> 03:55:37,260
We absolutely did, and we absolutely talked about spending new money.

2439
03:55:38,300 --> 03:55:41,380
So I think that that's important, but we want the outcomes.

2440
03:55:41,560 --> 03:55:49,960
And if we don't spend the new money, part of the deal is you'll see the slide from 38% of the cost education down to 33% of the cost of education,

2441
03:55:50,260 --> 03:55:51,980
meaning what the state's share would be.

2442
03:55:52,400 --> 03:55:59,080
So we don't get property tax relief unless we start looking at what is that state share going to be.

2443
03:55:59,080 --> 03:56:04,140
And that's going to be a fight that we're going to, you know, have to have, but I'm prepared to do it.

2444
03:56:04,640 --> 03:56:27,980
And then the second thing I would say is I'd just like to thank all the members of the working group and Chairman and Senator Taylor and you, Dr. Ellis, and certainly Senator West, our staff, Amy and Casey, and everybody else has helped us, and the Speaker's Office for supporting us, and certainly TEA and Leo Leo did a phenomenal job of helping us get prepared.

2445
03:56:27,980 --> 03:56:30,180
and then certainly the witnesses, you're right.

2446
03:56:30,320 --> 03:56:34,420
The witnesses came to talk to us and give us their perspectives.

2447
03:56:35,040 --> 03:56:37,220
And I want to reiterate this, which is very important,

2448
03:56:37,340 --> 03:56:40,560
is that when we did this as an expenditures group,

2449
03:56:41,100 --> 03:56:43,220
we did it primarily with the thought process

2450
03:56:43,220 --> 03:56:45,340
of the 5.4 million children in hand,

2451
03:56:45,500 --> 03:56:46,720
not about one particular school.

2452
03:56:47,640 --> 03:56:49,800
We did it because we thought this was important

2453
03:56:49,800 --> 03:56:52,660
for all the children and the impact across there

2454
03:56:52,660 --> 03:56:54,520
and getting the money and the resources in the hands

2455
03:56:54,520 --> 03:56:57,060
of the kids, and that's really the thought process.

2456
03:56:57,060 --> 03:57:02,620
So we want to make these changes and it's hard to pass a school finance bill.

2457
03:57:02,880 --> 03:57:05,040
We have to keep that in the consideration as we go forward.

2458
03:57:05,720 --> 03:57:11,020
But if we're willing to put additional resources into the classroom and additional money into the classroom,

2459
03:57:11,020 --> 03:57:14,260
but I think that that helps sell the program as we move forward.

2460
03:57:14,380 --> 03:57:15,800
So I just wanted to thank everybody for the hard work.

2461
03:57:17,500 --> 03:57:18,140
Thank you.

2462
03:57:18,780 --> 03:57:25,060
If I could go quick, Chairman, you did a great job in chairing this working group.

2463
03:57:26,260 --> 03:57:30,300
And that's where you did a great job on the outcomes, the two groups out there involved

2464
03:57:30,300 --> 03:57:30,980
with so far.

2465
03:57:31,200 --> 03:57:35,380
And I have high hopes coming out of the School of Finance, Commissioner, I think a lot

2466
03:57:35,380 --> 03:57:38,080
of people didn't think this was going to do anything, we're just wasting our time.

2467
03:57:38,380 --> 03:57:42,500
We have found a lot of good consensus from a diverse group of people.

2468
03:57:42,620 --> 03:57:47,420
And I think we have a real high opportunity to get the real things done in graduation in

2469
03:57:47,420 --> 03:57:47,640
Texas.

2470
03:57:48,320 --> 03:57:52,920
And frankly, make large steps forward in the 21st century, so I'm excited about the

2471
03:57:52,920 --> 03:57:55,420
after I appreciate all of you being far this commission

2472
03:57:55,420 --> 03:57:57,460
after this point, I know we have more work to do,

2473
03:57:57,680 --> 03:57:59,280
but this has been very encouraging.

2474
03:57:59,280 --> 03:58:01,180
I think we've found a lot of good consensus,

2475
03:58:01,540 --> 03:58:04,800
which looks both well for the coming session.

2476
03:58:05,060 --> 03:58:06,900
Thank you, oops, that's a very quick one.

2477
03:58:07,400 --> 03:58:07,520
Yes.

2478
03:58:08,420 --> 03:58:10,580
I would echo the same comments, but also reiterate

2479
03:58:10,580 --> 03:58:13,260
the urgency, you know, we've done great work so far,

2480
03:58:13,400 --> 03:58:16,820
but we're not to a project or a product that's complete yet,

2481
03:58:16,960 --> 03:58:18,680
and we are running against the clock here.

2482
03:58:19,300 --> 03:58:21,780
I think if we wait until after the Tuesday,

2483
03:58:21,780 --> 03:58:25,620
Usually after the first Monday and November to take our next step, we're going to run out of time.

2484
03:58:25,840 --> 03:58:31,780
So hopefully we continue to work through this next time frame and continue on.

2485
03:58:33,460 --> 03:58:40,880
You know, Dr. Ellis, I would disagree on that point because there's a lot of things that happen in the next month that are important to that question.

2486
03:58:41,260 --> 03:58:48,940
I'm just telling it to you like it is. Now, I want to say that it's great for a revenue guy to come to a meeting

2487
03:58:48,940 --> 03:58:54,580
and end up 1.6 billion ahead before the last three recommendations. Okay, that's a good thing.

2488
03:58:55,940 --> 03:59:02,600
And as somebody who has said, Ms. Connolly especially, and I did, enjoyed the last time we had that discussion,

2489
03:59:03,040 --> 03:59:07,480
because there was no revenue option known to mankind that you had not come up with on your list.

2490
03:59:09,820 --> 03:59:14,300
Because she was rather exhaustive in her listing.

2491
03:59:14,980 --> 03:59:15,380
Right.

2492
03:59:15,580 --> 03:59:19,960
In fact, even Representative Bernal said, don't worry, he walked away from the discussion.

2493
03:59:20,140 --> 03:59:21,800
She's got it handled at the point.

2494
03:59:25,020 --> 03:59:29,200
And one thing that I've said all year, and I'm going to continue to say it, because I think

2495
03:59:29,200 --> 03:59:34,620
it's very important, we did start some of the earlier meetings when I asked a question

2496
03:59:34,620 --> 03:59:38,000
of how much more revenue we had than the answer came out was zero.

2497
03:59:38,000 --> 03:59:46,540
Now, the difference is that I am convinced that there's a significant discussion about

2498
03:59:46,540 --> 03:59:47,820
weaning off a Robinhood.

2499
03:59:48,580 --> 03:59:50,080
I think it's an important concept.

2500
03:59:51,620 --> 03:59:55,220
I think that's something that I've been repeating over and over again.

2501
03:59:55,580 --> 03:59:59,020
For some reason, nobody in the news media will actually quote that, I guess it's, you know,

2502
03:59:59,020 --> 03:59:59,960
It's made it

2503
04:00:00,000 --> 04:00:29,980
May be it's too scary for the conservative revenue guy to be saying, but I think it's a very important concept that we look at that. This property growth cycle, we've got, it's not going to stop. It's going to continue for some time. Texas is going to stay the job mecca that it is. I think there's some fundamental forces at work. I think we put another pipeline in from the Permian Basin to the Gulf Coast. It's another million barrels a day. You know, you can, you can look at, you know, five barrels a day on the

2504
04:00:29,980 --> 04:00:35,480
existing oil capacities, 200 million in revenues. You put another, you know, you put another

2505
04:00:35,480 --> 04:00:39,640
pipeline and you're looking at, you know, what is effectively built, you know, as well over

2506
04:00:39,640 --> 04:00:46,400
billions in revenue. But the point that at least I've come to the conclusion and have been talking

2507
04:00:46,400 --> 04:00:53,400
about since the first of the year is it's time for us to recognize the obvious that we do need to

2508
04:00:53,400 --> 04:00:58,480
be weeding off of that, but also realize that putting our money where we want to spend it is the

2509
04:00:58,480 --> 04:01:03,760
critical thing. And we've got the whole the whole discussion of tax relief that Chair

2510
04:01:03,760 --> 04:01:09,740
McEuberty talked about because part of recapture freezing could compress the tax rate and be

2511
04:01:09,740 --> 04:01:18,820
a part of a tax rate, a part of a tax rate package for taxpayers. It could also be part

2512
04:01:18,820 --> 04:01:27,720
of additional funding. So, but I think it's important for at least one vote out of 181

2513
04:01:27,720 --> 04:01:33,100
and the legislature is solidly into the point of weaning off the Robin Hood.

2514
04:01:34,540 --> 04:01:35,260
Thank you.

2515
04:01:35,400 --> 04:01:35,900
Thank you.

2516
04:01:36,760 --> 04:01:37,260
Thank you.

2517
04:01:37,300 --> 04:01:37,580
Thanks everybody.

2518
04:01:37,940 --> 04:01:39,780
We'll be up and leaning on 100.

2519
04:01:40,300 --> 04:01:41,720
It's an opportunity to have a last week.

2520
04:01:42,260 --> 04:01:43,100
It's all calling.

2521
04:01:43,540 --> 04:01:44,700
That's all calling.

2522
04:01:44,920 --> 04:01:45,100
That's all calling.

2523
04:01:45,100 --> 04:01:45,300
That's all calling.