Lawmakers agree on $8 billion school funding package
Leaders from the Texas House and Senate have agreed on an $8 billion school funding package, which is being called the largest in state history, The Dallas Morning News reported.
The latest version of House Bill 2 was unveiled at a Senate hearing Thursday. It would give the state major discretion in deciding how the funds are spent, from teacher pay raises to special education to school safety.
House Democrats reportedly are unhappy with major changes to the original bill, first passed in mid-April. That version gave local schools more discretion on how to spend state dollars. The new version cuts the proposed per-student funding increase from $395 to $55 but also includes $7.2 billion in new funding, with more than half of that dedicated to teacher pay raises.
State Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, said critics should concentrate on the total number of funding being appropriated.
“It seems to be lost in narratives right now as we talk about this historic money, knowing that every district in Texas wins,” Creighton said.
An administrator testifying at the Senate hearing said lawmakers should put more trust in local school districts.
“We hear a lot about [how] we need to be a small government, and yet I see a lot of the bodies talking about things that will put a lot of restrictions on the local independent school districts,” said Phillip Morgan, the Plano ISD fine arts director. “Let those local ISDs make those decisions.”
Abbott moves to block use of food stamps for soda, candy
Gov. Greg Abbott last week formally requested a waiver from the Trump administration to block the purchase of “unhealthy, highly processed food” with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits. The SNAP program serves more than 3.2 million Texans with more than $7 billion in taxpayer funding, Abbott wrote in a letter to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, according to the San Antonio Express-News.
“SNAP was created to increase access to nutritious food; however, many SNAP purchases are for food with little to no nutritious value,” Abbott wrote.
A bill to ban SNAP recipients from using benefits to buy “sweetened soft drinks” has passed the Senate and is up for a vote in the House.
SNAP recipients receive an average of $187 a month, according to the latest USDA figures.
Bills pose risks to existing wind, solar farms
Two companion bills pose existential threats to the state’s renewable energy boom, according to the clean energy industry, the Houston Chronicle reported. House Bill 3356 and Senate Bill 715 would “require nearly every solar and wind farm in the state to back up their electricity output with natural gas power plants or a fleet of batteries.”
If an existing renewable project doesn’t have backup power, its owner would have to either stop operating or pay a steep fine. Clean industry leaders say such a requirement would be cost-prohibitive.
“I cannot recall legislation as damaging to our industry and to the energy market as House Bill 3356 and Senate Bill 715 being considered in both chambers this late in session,” said Mark Stover, executive director of Texas Solar and Storage Association, a trade group.
The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Jared Patterson, R-Frisco, said his goal is to “level the playing field” against what he called a highly subsidized renewable energy industry, so more natural gas power plants can be built in the state.
