February visit to a private Christian school in San Antonio<\/a>. During that visit, Abbott also urged parents to support education savings accounts, ESAs, which have been a priority of his in the past few years.<\/p>\nMonths later, Abbott signed HB 2 into law, but only after state lawmakers passed ESAs, setting aside $1 billion for some families to pay for private school tuition, therapy and other education-related costs. To be eligible for an ESA, students cannot be enrolled in a public school. <\/p>\n
HB 2, Abbott said, was a record investment in the state\u2019s teachers. <\/p>\n
During the August panel, Rep. Lujan agreed with Abbott.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do have the largest teacher pay raise in history. We put that forward,\u201d Lujan said when asked about the bill\u2019s impact. \u201cWe have to have the best teachers in our districts, because that trickles down for the rest of our school system.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lujan pointed to Somerset Independent School District in his H118 district. Somerset is a small rural district on the South Side of town that has academically outperformed most school districts in the area in the past few years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey invest heavily in their teachers \u2026 and it makes a huge difference,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Under HB 2, Somerset ISD will get larger teacher raises than most school districts in the Bexar County area since it has an enrollment under 5,000 students.<\/p>\n
Teachers with three to five years of experience in a small or rural school district get $4,000 raises, and teachers with more than five years of experience get $8,000 raises. In larger school districts, similarly experienced teachers get $2,500 and $5,000 respectively.<\/p>\n
Critics of HB 2 also say the bill lists a very narrow definition of classroom teacher, leaving out employees who are also critical to a student\u2019s development.<\/p>\n
In the past, state-mandated teacher raises also applied to campus counselors and librarians. <\/p>\n
As for the budget deficits many school districts face, Lujan said district leaders need to take more responsibility, comparing school districts to businesses that need to run \u201csmoothly and efficiently.\u201d<\/p>\n
School districts would have an easier time doing that if the state had significantly increased the basic allotment, a base amount schools receive from the state per student, said Steve Allison, a former Republic state representative and former Alamo Heights Independent School District board member.<\/p>\n
Allison, a moderate, was pushed out of the 2024 primaries after Abbott launched an attack campaign against Republicans opposed to school vouchers. Rep. Marc Lahood (R-San Antonio), a champion of school vouchers, ended up taking his spot. <\/p>\n
The state hasn\u2019t significantly increased the basic allotment, a much more discretionary type of funding, since 2019. This year, lawmakers increased the allotment by $55, a far cry from the $1,300 increase public school advocates said was needed to make up for inflation. <\/p>\n
The basic allotment is the great equalizer of public school funding, Allison said. By increasing the allotment, school districts can address the deficits and get the money \u201cwhere it\u2019s truly needed.\u201d <\/p>\n
HB 2 went a \u201clong way\u201d in terms of teacher pay, Allison admitted, but it\u2019s \u201coverly prescriptive.\u201d School districts should have more local control to address local interests, he said. <\/p>\n
School funding ties to property taxes<\/p>\n
Currently, the state is trying to roll back local government control. In November, voters are expected to pass larger homestead exemptions, and Abbott is trying to further cap taxable property value growth at 1%. The cap is currently 3.5%.<\/p>\n
Both measures would mean less revenue-collecting power for school districts. <\/p>\n
At East Central, even if the tax increase gets approved, a homeowner with the proposed homestead exemptions could end up paying less in property taxes for the 2025 fiscal year compared to last year.<\/p>\n
Even if the homestead exemptions don\u2019t pass and the state doesn\u2019t further cap growth, Bexar County\u2019s appraisal values remained largely flat compared to previous years, which could be a problem given that HB 2 tied any increase in the basic allotment to property taxes.<\/p>\n
While the $55 increase to the basic allotment is guaranteed for the next two years, future legislative sessions could yield smaller increases or even none at all if property values stall or decrease. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere were so many people that warned [lawmakers] up and down not to do this part [of the bill],\u201d said Julia Grizzard, public school lobbyist and executive director for Bexar County Education Coalition. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to be a very detrimental part of the education code of policy moving forward,\u201d she told the Report. <\/p>\n
Also detrimental to public school funding, Grizzard said HB 2 detached the golden penny yield from property taxes. <\/p>\n
How much the state \u201cyields\u201d through golden pennies used to rely on how property-rich a school district is, yielding more money for property-poor districts and less for property-rich districts. <\/p>\n
School districts are entitled to eight golden pennies \u2014 tax increase proposals for East Central, Judson and Schertz-Cibolo-Universal City all include golden pennies.<\/p>\n
The range of golden penny yield used to shift with property values, but HB 2 effectively froze it, meaning school districts that are reaching the frozen level on their own property tax rates can continue to collect more property tax revenue. Meanwhile school districts collecting less revenue in property taxes may never catch up, being kept at the same golden penny yield rate by the sate. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a deep inequity there,\u201d Grizzard said. <\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Brenda-Bazan-Judson-ISD-board-02.jpg\")
Judson ISD Superintendent Milton Fields is pictured during a school board meeting in June 2024. Credit: Brenda Baz\u00e1n \/ San Antonio Report<\/p>\n
Future increases to the basic allotment will be funded through whatever property tax revenues are leftover from the property-rich school districts. <\/p>\n
While school district leaders agree that HB 2\u2019s investment in teachers was needed, especially as the state has faced teacher shortages and an increased reliance on uncertified teachers in recent years, they maintain it\u2019s not enough to keep them going. <\/p>\n
\u201cNobody understands more than me the value of a teacher in the classroom making connections with students,\u201d Judson superintendent Fields said as he sat right next to Lujan. \u201cBut there\u2019s a host of other employees in the district that are being negated.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cUntil we start receiving funds that aren\u2019t tied to these mandates, then we\u2019re not going to be able to make up in the area where we\u2019re deficient.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Aug. 2, three local school superintendents and two San Antonio-area state representatives sat beside one another on…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":187836,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5133],"tags":[20700,5229,101937,96836,60763,93628,7202,7203,105203,91270,358,7453,3187,105204,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,7455],"class_list":{"0":"post-187835","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-89th-texas-legislative-session","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-east-central-isd","11":"tag-hb-2","12":"tag-judson-isd","13":"tag-north-east-isd","14":"tag-san-antonio","15":"tag-sanantonio","16":"tag-schertz-cibolo-universal-city-isd","17":"tag-school-funding","18":"tag-texas","19":"tag-top-story","20":"tag-tx","21":"tag-type-daily","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-united-states-of-america","24":"tag-unitedstates","25":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","26":"tag-us","27":"tag-usa","28":"tag-wc-1500-2000"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115119406678763088","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187835\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/DSCF3824-scaled-1.jpg\")
Judson ISD students, staff and community members are shown waiting in the board room of the Judson ISD Educational Resource Center during a closed session at a May 2025 board meeting where three elementary schools were at risk of being closed. Credit: Amber Esparza \/ San Antonio Report<\/p>\n