What $7.8 Billion Less Means for Your School District

If the House has its way, there will be 7.8 billion fewer state dollars headed to Texas public schools. 

All along, districts have known that how much of that funding gap they’ll individually bear depends on how the Legislature reworks the state’s school finance system (and ultimately, of course, on the final state budget agreed upon by the Senate and House). 

The districts now have a clue as to how the knife would fall under the House plan: State Rep. Scott Hochberg’s school finance bill — the one he characterized as “the fairest way to distribute the pain” — has been approved by the Public Education Committee. We’ve created a searchable database based on the Houston Democrat’s projections on how the funding cuts would hit 1,024 traditional school districts across the state.

On average, the districts stand to lose 8.5 percent of their total revenue. But the effect of the House budget on individual districts ranges between a staggering 39 percent cut at tiny Kelton ISD in the Panhandle to a handful of districts — around 25 — that would see marginal (think 1 to 2 percent) gains.

The funding cuts vary so wildly, Hochberg said, because the current funding formula created a system with significant discrepancies — which his bill aims to fix.

When it reduced the property tax rate in 2006, the Legislature promised districts that the state would fill in the gap if, under the new formula, they received less per student than before — what’s called a district’s “target revenue.” That guarantee meant windfalls for some districts — something Hochberg's school finance plan would undo. Districts that were artificially protected from cuts in the 2006 formulas would lose that protection under Hochberg's plan, taking bigger losses now than unprotected districts with similar numbers of students and similar tax rates. 

Webb CISD, for instance, has a target revenue of $11,062 per student. It’s facing a potential 27 percent reduction. Aldine ISD, on the other hand, has a target revenue of $5,274. It would see just a 2 percent loss.

There’s one outlier: Star ISD in Mills County, which would purportedly see a 12 percent increase in funding. According to Hochberg, that’s likely because of flaws in the data it reported to the Texas Education Agency.

The biggest losers:

1. Kelton ISD
2. Webb CISD
3. Seminole ISD
4. Fort Elliott CISD
5. Westbrook ISD
6. Guthrie CSD
7. Borden County ISD
8. Loop ISD
9. Glen Rose ISD
10. Sundown ISD
11. Grandview-Hopkins ISD 
12. Leon ISD
13. Wink-Loving ISD
14. Franklin ISD
15. Highland Park ISD

The biggest (relative) winners:

1. Star ISD (see caveat above)
2. Hubbard ISD
3. Aldine ISD
4. Zephyr ISD
5. Malta ISD
6. Castleberry ISD
7. Hidalgo ISD
8. Slaton ISD
9. Rio Hondo ISD
10. Galena Park ISD
11. Kaufman ISD
12. Priddy ISD
13. Littlefield ISD
14. Harlandale ISD
15. Alief ISD

One note: Lackland, Fort Sam Houston, Boys Ranch, Randolph, and South Texas ISDs are not included in the database. That’s because they are districts with no local property tax rates and the state calculates their funding through a separate mechanism.