Texas Schools Face Funds Cutoff Over Rich-Poor Districts Issue

The nation’s third-largest public education system entered a period of uncertainty and potential financial calamity Monday night when the state of Texas failed to enact a plan equalizing funding for rich and poor school districts. The Texas Supreme Court last fall declared the present system unconstitutionally inequitable.

Although the court ruling gave state lawmakers until today to resolve the school financing issue, it was unclear what might happen as a result of the failure to meet the deadline. The court can cut off all state aid immediately, and a state judge overseeing the case might consider doing so at a hearing this morning.

Comptroller Bob Bullock said he would freeze education funds at midnight Monday, including checks for employees of the Texas Education Agency.

Texas education chief William Kirby has asked all school districts to remain open even if state aid is halted, but a few of the poorest districts in the poverty belts of the Rio Grande Valley and in El Paso indicated that they might be forced to close. Several of those districts rely on the state for 90% or more of their finances. Overall, the state provides about half of the money needed to run the schools of Texas.

The state’s inability to resolve the issue was as much the result of political differences as disputes over education philosophy.

Late last week, near the end of a second special legislative session devoted to school finance, the Legislature passed a $555-million bill aimed at rectifying an inequitable system in which as much as $2,000 more per child was being spent in tax-rich districts as in in poor ones. The measure was to be funded by a half-cent increase in the state sales tax.

Republican Gov. Bill Clements said the legislation was too expensive and that he could not accept a tax increase. He had been expected to veto the measure Monday, on the eve of the deadline, but a technical hang-up prevented him from receiving it, so the veto is expected today. He predicted the court would grant the state an extension and that the problem could be resolved in a third special session that he plans to call starting Wednesday.