In Saturday's Star-Telegram, there was an article titled "Texas Senate easily passes $4 billion in revenue measures". The title sounded promising. Then the hope of additional revenue and decreased cuts to education quickly faded. "The bill, which emerged from a special (Senate) subcommittee, would speed up tax collections, sell underused state property, defer state payments to school districts and take other steps to generate revenue for the 2012-13 biennium." Defer payments to school districts...to the tune of $1.8 billion! Delaying this revenue to school districts would mean that in order to finance the beginning of the school year in August, districts would have to generate other revenue (not likely that they could generate enough to make up for the shortfall) or dip into their savings (if they have it). GCISD has savings, but many districts do not. If GCISD dipped into its' fund balance and additional cuts to education revenue passed after this legislative session, or if this bond package doesn't pass, then GCISD's fund balance would quickly be depleted. Then where would we be and how many staff cuts would it take to operate?
On a positive note, our local Senators are voting against bills such as this and tried to pass amendments to this bill which would make cuts in areas other than education. Their focus is truly on education our public schoolchildren in Texas. Here's a summary for you:
- Senator Jane Nelson (represents GCISD area) - voted against the above-referenced bill. She tried to pass an amendment which, instead, would impose a 2-year hiring freeze on nonessential state personnel (no harm there), a temporary 10% pay cut for state employees making over $200,000 per year, and a suspension of "longevity" pay for longtime state workers. These are very reasonable cuts compared to those for education! She stated that "it's not unreasonable to ask our state agencies not to grow for 2 years while we're in touch times so we can educate our children." However, Sen. Robert Duncan (R-Lubbock) said "Nelson's proposed hiring freeze would further damage the morale of state employees and 'take away the flexibility of state agencies' to manage their workers." Unbelievable. What about the morale of our teachers and school staff? What about the ability of school districts to employ, much less manage, its workers? It's hard to imagine the mindset that would oppose Senator Nelson's amendment. What a mess.
- Senator Wendy Davis (from Fort Worth) - voted against the above-referenced bill also. She tried to pass a measure that would divert all but $10 million from each of Gov. Perry's two major job creation funds, the Texas Enterprise Fund and the Emerging Technologies Fund. She also called on lawmakers in the House to look at lifting a tax exemption on the production of natural gas (this was a bold move from a FtW senator whose area includes the Barnett Shale. Davis told senators that "it's shared-pain time and transferring money from the governor's funds could have a significant impact on education."
Please call or e-mail Senator Nelson and express appreciation to her for listening to her constituents and keeping public education funding a priority in her work and voting in Austin. With such opposition from legislators, she needs to feel like she has an army of support from "her people".
