Both the Texas House and Senate released first drafts of the state budget for the upcoming 2025-2026 biennium Wednesday. A state budget is the only constitutionally required item that legislators must pass every biennium, so the top priority bills each session are House Bill (HB) 1 and Senate Bill (SB) 1. In the bills released Wednesday, HB 1 spends more overall than SB 1, but both bills decrease spending by more than $50 million from the current budget cycle.  

New House Speaker Dustin Burrows (R–Lubbock) remarked that the bills are “substantially identical,” but there are a few differences. Each chamber’s proposed budget earmarks $1 billion for “school choice,” aka vouchers, which is double what was proposed and ultimately rejected in the 2023 session. The House budget bill, HB 1, however, proposes $4.85 billion in total new education spending. This number includes the $1 billion for vouchers, in addition to $400 million for school safety and $450 million for the Teacher Retirement System (traditionally thought of as a separate allocation). This leaves $3.4 billion available for the House school finance bill, which would fund educator pay and ISD discretionary spending—an amount that is $600 million less than the amount appropriated, though ultimately unspent, in the 2023 session.    

The Senate budget bill, SB 1, proposes spending $5.3 billion in new public education dollars in addition to its $1 billion voucher proposal. Of the $5.3 billion, the Senate—like the House—also proposes dedicating an additional $400 million to school safety. The remaining $4.85 billion is earmarked for increasing teacher base and incentive pay. The Senate’s proposal appears to include no substantial increase to district discretionary funding. The Senate has also indicated to TRS its intent to provide an extra $450 million to TRS to hold down health insurance premiums, but the upper chamber is considering those funds separately from funds flowing through TEA as part of a school finance package.    

Burrows released the following statement on the proposed House budget: “I would urge my colleagues in the House to identify additional resources within the budget to deliver even greater property tax relief and additional funding for classrooms and teachers.” Although this statement highlights the House’s commitment to enhancing public education funding, including classrooms, teacher support, and school safety, as a key priority for the budget, it’s important to note that the $1 billion being set aside for vouchers is roughly the same amount schools are underfunded for safety and security, or about half the deficit in special education funding. 

Sen. Joan Huffman (R–Houston), chair of the Senate Finance Committee, issued this statement: “The Senate’s base budget ensures that the State of Texas continues to have the strongest and most successful economy in the nation. … We have an obligation to the people of Texas to make investments that will keep Texas as the best place to live, work, and raise a family.” While ATPE is grateful that the Senate is willing to put more new money into education in general, with the majority of those funds going toward teacher pay, we do acknowledge that districts also need an increase in the discretionary funds they use toward programmatic spending.  

ATPE appreciates the effort of both chambers to start the session with proposed budgets that better fund education, but there is still much more work to be done. It is worth noting, for example, that neither chamber’s proposal comes close to funding education at the amount required to simply cover inflation since the 2019 passage of HB 3, the last major school finance bill. We look forward to continuing to work with both the House and Senate on the details of appropriately funding the classrooms of the state’s 5.5 million public school students.