((Texas Tribune) – The lawmakers in the House of Representatives and the Senate are preparing to announce a deal on a $ 8.5 billion financing package for public schools in Texas, which would maintain the payment of the upper room in exchange for a modest increase of $ 55 in provinces for basic financing for regions, while giving schools more than one billion dollars to pay fixed costs such as facilities and transportation.
It seems that the deal, which was confirmed by three legislators familiar with the discussions, strikes a compromise to provide the face to both rooms, which was divided into the House of Representatives’ attempt to give schools a greater increase in the basic funding for each student and the desire of the Senate to give priority to the priority.
The package is in Home Law 2 It will be a historical investment in public schools, although school administrators and preachers say that he has been long late, pointing to the shortcomings in the budget facing regions throughout the state amid inflationary pressure and six years of financing the stagnant base for each student.
A lot of this financing, known as the basic customization, is used to pay the salaries of the region’s full -time employees, not just teachers. Funding also gives provinces flexibility to pay a set of other needs, including insurance, maintenance and educational materials.
Instead of raising the basic allocation to more than $ 55, the proposed by the Senate, the last deal will put 1.2 billion dollars to a fund to cover some fixed costs, as legislators said – they mainly provide a different way to give provinces the flexibility of the spending that they were hoping for.
A republican source said to the negotiations that the deal will also include $ 4.2 billion in the high salaries of teachers and $ 500 million to increase other school staff. It also includes $ 100 million for Windstorm property insurance for coastal areas. The educational areas are considered to be property insurance as one of the most difficult costs to control, according to a recent survey School business officials at the Texas Association.
The details of the negotiations were first reported Dallas Morning News. Full legislation has not been publicly issued.
representative. Brad BuckleyThe head of the General Education Committee in the House of Representatives told reporters on Wednesday that he believes that the new draft law will address the factors that increase the costs of education while giving priority to the needs in the classroom.
“It comes to safe schools. It relates to early education – erasing early illiteracy and account – to ensure that these children are learning more. It is related to career and technical education, and then related to investing in our professors,” the Republican said in Salado. “We know that the best way to get great results is to get great teachers in front of the class, and this will motivate them to stay in the semester, complete their craft and become the best professionals who can be.”
The former parliament’s proposal sought to enhance the basic allocation from $ 6,160 to $ 6,555 per student. However, Senators wanted to increase a more modest assignment and give teachers an increase through the following system:
- Teachers who have 3-4 years experience will get educational areas with 5,000 students or less than 5,000 dollars, while those who have five years or more of teaching in their CV will earn $ 10,000.
- Teachers who have 3-4 experiences in educational areas will get more than 5,000 students an increase of $ 2,500, while those with five or more experiences will get $ 5,500.
The Senate Financing proposal will exclude increases for the first and second year coaches and other basic employees, such as bus drivers, chefs, library secretaries and nurses.
Senate members have argued that the direct investment of the state in the salaries of teachers will liberate the regions to use more basic financing in other places, including the salaries of university support and maintenance employees. But this argument did not excel well with school leaders, many of whom adopted a budget deficit in the movements and are considering closing schools in any small part due to high inflation and stagnant financing.
representative. Jane WuHouston’s Democrat, who heads the Democratic Council in the House of Representatives, told the Texas Tribune newspaper on Wednesday that, based on what he heard about the details of the bill so far, “The Senate is getting everything they want.”
Wu said: “The original HB 2 was like negotiating for a period of four months between all stakeholders to find a draft law that is supposed to do for all educational areas, which keeps everyone on his feet at the present time.” “They went and did not intentionally things that people requested mainly not to do so.”
This is a developing story. Check again for details.
Rob Reed contributed to this story.
This article originally appeared in Texas Tribune in www.texastribune.org. The Texas Tribune is a non -profit and non -party media organization that teaches Texans – and participates with them – on public policy, politics, government issues and at the state level.