Give It a Rest: Legislators, Let Court Rule on School Funding
July 21, 2005
Gov. Rick Perry need not call another special session on school finance.
Written by Editorial, Dallas Morning News
Forget it.
Gov. Rick Perry need not call another special session on school finance. He's called two already over the last 16 months. Plus, the Legislature tackled the subject in its regular session this year. The result from all three gatherings has been nothing, zero, nada.
At each turn, the governor and legislators have failed to craft any meaningful solution to the state's school funding crisis, which has nearly 75 percent of Texas school districts wondering about their next dollar.
The special session that fell apart yesterday may have been the most pitiful of all. The governor and legislators backed off a new business tax to fund schools. Heck, they let the business lobby so bully them that they wouldn't even close all the loopholes that allows many Texas companies to forgo the state's existing business tax.
They instead wanted to stick it to consumers with higher sales taxes, without providing any substantial reduction in school taxes. Oh, yeah, they also were only going to give schools about $2.4 billion over the next two years, which was about $600 million less than they had considered two months before.
We know the governor wants another special session. But he and legislators ought to forget this mess for the time being. They should make sure schools have enough money to open their doors next month. And then they should wait for the Texas Supreme Court to rule on whether Texas adequately funds its schools. The court's now reviewing a lower court decision that says Texas doesn't fund its schools well enough.
If the court upholds the lower court ruling, which the plight of Texas schools suggests it should, then legislators can go back to work in the fall. They'll have the guidance they need about what they should and shouldn't do.
True, no state should want its courts to help solve its problems. But the current crop in Austin has proven it is incapable of meeting Texas' biggest challenge. Q&A: Austin bureau chief Christy Hoppe answered questions about schools, taxes and the Legislature. Log on to read the transcript of Tuesday's chat.
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