May 2019 Dear Senate and House Conferees: To: Chairman Larry Taylor Senator Jane Nelson Senator Donna Campbell Senator Kirk Watson Senator Royce West Chairman Dan Huberty Representative Trent Ashby Representative Diego Bernal Representative Mary Gonzalez Representative Ken King We appreciate your sincere and dedicated efforts toward improving our public education funding system. As you know, many of us have worked diligently to be resources to you prior to and throughout the session to provide information on how the various proposals being considered would impact our public schools and the overall school finance system statewide. Please know that using current-year values would be devastating to our school districts. This change is not simply resetting a fiscal calendar. The reality is it becomes another mechanism for the state to collect local revenue. Shifting from prior-year to current-year values would substantially diminish, or in many cases, virtually eliminate any benefit that our school districts would otherwise receive from positive changes in the new formulas. In most cases it would cause significantly more harm than the current funding system. It is not a one-year adjustment. Moving to currentyear values would cause local property tax growth to benefit the state instead of the local school district. Current-year values make budgeting at both the district and state levels much more imprecise. Districts will be preparing budgets and spending funds before the State Comptroller’s Office has reviewed, audited and certified values to both school districts and the Texas Education Agency. Certified values are essential for accurately calculating a school district’s revenue. Current-year values would also eliminate the one-year safeguard that both fast-growing and declining enrollment districts desperately need to accommodate erratic enrollment fluctuations. Ultimately, the proposal creates an additional Robin Hood system that affects even more districts than just those currently subject to recapture. Any school district that experiences property value growth will now be subject to another system of recapture that benefits the state’s budget. The Senate version of HB 3 is not transformative – it is more of the same with another broken system. The goal of this session has been to solve many of the issues plaguing our school finance system and not create new burdens. Please ensure that the final version of HB 3 retains prior-year values. Letter to Conferees Page 2 Signees (continued) Alamo Heights ISD Birdville ISD Brock ISD Coppell ISD Cleveland ISD Letter to Conferees Page 3 Signees (continued) Ector County ISD Goose Creek CISD Jarrell ISD Letter to Conferees Page 4 Signees (continued) Lewisville ISD Lockhart ISD Lubbock-Cooper ISD McKinney ISD Le?I?Ier?Io Conferees Page 5 Signees (continued) ROUND ROCK ROYSE CITY INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT SAIS San Antonio ISD TYLER '52 4 I Spring Branch Independent School District 0 FASTGROWTH TASAV SC HOOL COALITION TEKASASSDCIATIDNDF SCHUGL ADMINISTRATDRS ETC) DEMOGRAPHICS hanleyAwood metrestudy Sunnyvale ISD TEXAS SCHOOL COALITION Committed to the succees of public: education for all students; inrl?exaei