SENATE COMMITTEE TO STUDY NEW SCHOOL FUNDING SYSTEM

  

On Monday, Senate budget-writers took the first step toward making reforms in the way the state funds local schools.

Seven members of the Senate Finance Committee were tasked with coming up with recommendations by early May for an entirely new funding system. Senate Finance Committee Chairwoman Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, urged the working group to start with a “clean slate”, encouraging them to forget existing school finance law and propose an entirely new system.

The announcement of the newly formed education group- led by Friendswood Republican Larry Taylor- came as a surprise after the Senate unveiled a preliminary budget, which did not include additional funding for public education.

Taylor said the state’s current method of financing public schools has become a complicated system that relies on property taxes and funding formulas that create a divide between districts with tax wealth and those without tax wealth.

Last May, the Texas Supreme Court upheld the state's existing funding system as constitutional, however at the same time tasked state legislators with reforming it.

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