SAN MARCOS CISD
A special called meeting was held at the San Marcos Consolidated Independent School District office on Monday. Many concerned teachers and parents were in attendance to hear from Josh Haney of Moak Casey, an educational consultant company based in Austin. He presented a school finance and legislative update that focused on explaining proposed legislation and how it could affect San Marcos CISD. The presentation covered school focused legislation, which will be voted on in the upcoming 89th Texas Legislature. These topics include property tax cuts, teacher pay and certification pathways, vouchers, special education funding, bonds and debt service, school safety and discipline, and undocumented students and employees.
SMCISD Superintendent Michael Cardona introduced the community presentation by saying, “Now’s the time to be really educated about what’s happening in Austin and to voice your opinion to your state representatives about the discussions taking place.”
Haney discussed the effect of property tax cuts from House Bill 3 in 2019, stating the total was around 51 billion dollars. He explained that new state funding since the last session has only offset the reduction in local property taxes.
“The state did increase their funding share; they put more dollars in, but it didn’t increase the size of the pie, right? It just shifted how the pie was sliced between local taxpayers and state government,” Haney said.
The Senate has proposed that the $4.85 billion proposed for new funding be funneled directly into teacher pay raises. Although teacher pay increases are a positive effect, Haney warned that giving the funds directly to teachers limited how the district can use the money for their other employees or to respond to inflation.
House Bill 2 focuses on reimagining teacher certification pathways, which includes incentives for districts to get teachers certified and shortened timelines for moving uncertified teachers out of foundation curriculum courses.
The controversial voucher bills proposed by both the Senate and House would allow families to use public funds to pay for private school tuition. These bills are on the path of approval and will affect San Marcos CISD by potential loss of students to private schools.
Special education funding is being presented at a much needed time. Moak Casey estimates that the state federal resources are about $2 billion dollars shy of what is needed to meet the needs of SPED departments. More funding for SPED would mean schools would not have to take resources away from general education in order to make up the difference, so all students would benefit from an investment in SPED funds.
The house bill dropped their main assessment accountability bill, which would limit a school district’s ability to go out from bonds and benefits for paying off debts early through defeasance to save taxpayer dollars.
“They really want to take away y’all’s ability to make decisions on how you service your debt and how much of that interest costs that you’re saving your taxpayers,” Haney said.
He encouraged the public school community to reach out to lawmakers and try to educate them on the negative effects of limiting the district’s ability to pay off debts early.
There are proposals for increases in school safety with both the House and Senate committed to doubling the school safety allotment that is currently around $180 million. Haney doesn’t believe the increases will be enough for required mandates that include facility requirements and an armed guard on every campus.
Haney explained House Bill 2, which proposes $7.6 billion for three articles; It includes increasing the base allotment for districts, reinventing teacher certification pathways and focusing on special education funding.
Cardona addressed the audience’s worries about the proposed Bluebonnet Learning curriculum and encouraged parents and community members to read through the proposed curriculum on the Texas Education Association website.
Many audience members asked about protections in place for undocumented students and the school board assured that they plan to minimize the number of disruptions to students.
“We don’t want disruptions in our school day. Our kids are here. We want them on task. We want our teachers focused. We want everybody, every single student, to be safe and secure. So we have made sure that the processes for people who come on campus are rigorous, that everybody is trained in understanding what identification needs to be presented and what requirements are mandated,” said Anne Halsey, San Marcos CISD School Board president.
For more information on legislation that will affect the school district one can access the legislative tracker on moakcasey.com
