After four special sessions, Governor Greg Abbott has caused dismay for the public yet again. After his unsuccessful fight for school vouchers, Abbott has continued to deny public schools funding with the $33 billion budget surplus. Though many people, including citizens and other politicians, have spoken out against Abbott’s wish for school vouchers, he will not give up. His refusal to allow public schools to receive funding from the budget surplus is only the beginning of his temper tantrum.
Instead of using the surplus to fund public schools, Abbott has turned to property taxes. This makes the issue complex, as public schools in Texas are primarily funded through local property taxes. If Abbott uses the budget surplus to eliminate property taxes, it is unclear how school funding would come about. Representative Brian Harrison explained that “the money to pay for schools would just come from the new mechanism of taxation.”
If this is the case and schools become funded through other means of taxation, what is the point? Taking taxation away from one place only adds an expense elsewhere. This would only become a cycle, and Abbott would become a dog chasing his tail.
Funding for public schools has been an ongoing issue for years now. Texas has been growing as a state, and so have the schools; however, funding for these schools has not been reevaluated or changed in four years. Many districts are finding it hard to balance their budgets across their schools, even those in wealthier communities. As of 2021, Texas is ranked 40th out of 51 states, including Washington, D.C., for educational funding.
Texas schools have been fighting for funding for quite some time now, and state legislation has denied them again and again. It is clear that school funding is not a priority to Abbott or the rest of the Texas GOP, but these schools are key pieces of building up our future generations, and we should be taking better care of them.
