During Northwest ISD’s regular board meeting Feb. 25, Superintendent Mark Foust gave district residents an update on the state’s 89th Legislature. The legislative session, which began Jan. 14, includes bills under consideration, such as vouchers, funding for school safety and property tax relief.

Breaking it down

Foust’s overview included the following school-related “emergency items” that can be advanced during the first 60 days of a legislative session:
  • School choice - otherwise known as the voucher plan or education savings accounts
  • Property tax relief
  • Raising teacher pay
  • Expanding career and technical education funding
Foust said the legislature also released two budget bills, Senate Bill 1 and House Bill 1. The bills are almost identical in that they include the following items:According to district documents, SB 1 differs from HB 1 in that it specifies a $4,000 teacher pay increase. That raise would be $10,000 for teachers in rural districts. In terms of property tax relief, SB 1 would attain the $3.5 billion goal by increasing the homestead exemption to $140,000 and $150,000 for seniors from the current $100,000. It would also include $500 million in property tax reductions for businesses.

Foust also gave an overview of SB 2, also known as the “voucher bill” or “Texas Education Freedom Act,” which was passed by the senate Feb. 5 and has been sent to the house.

Foust said the bill provides the following funding per year:
  • $10,000 for eligible students
  • $11,500 for students with disabilities
  • $2,000 for homeschooled students
  • $2,500 for homeschooled students with disabilities
He added legislators estimate the bill to cost $1 billion from 2025 to 2027. In four years, they expected the cost to more than quadruple to $4.6 billion.


In terms of teacher pay increases, SB 26 would give the following raises to teachers only:
  • $2,500 to teachers with three to four years of experience
  • $5,500 for teachers with five or more years of experience
HB 2 is the house’s version of the school funding bill that would increase the basic per student allotment by $220. Foust said 40% of that increase would be used for raises in staff compensation with 75% going to teachers and 25% going to all other staff members.

“$220 in basic allotment is somewhere between a 1% and 2% raise for all teachers once in the next biennium,” Foust said. “It’s not enough.”

To put the $220 in perspective, Foust said the district requested a raise of $1,340 in the basic allotment from $6,160 to $7,500 to fund the 23% rise in inflation since 2019, which is the last time the basic allotment has been raised.

Quote of note


“What has come out so far [in the legislative session] is incredibly discouraging," Foust said. “It is extremely destructive for public school districts. And if any of our legislators think they’re helping public schools in any way they are mistaken and they need to read the fine print of their bills.”

Diving in deeper

Place 7 Trustee Jennifer Murphy commented that the voucher bill should be referred to as the “vendor bill” since it includes language that would outsource administration of the vouchers to private vendors.

“There seems to be some question about whether the parents are actually getting the money,” Place 3 Trustee Anne Simpson said. “It appears the monies will go to the comptroller and then on to organizations designated by the comptroller. It appears in the language currently that quite a bit of this [money] is for really more government bureaucracy.”


Foust confirmed Simpson’s interpretation of the voucher bill that up to 8% of the vouchers can go toward administration.

“One of the bills has up to five companies to help the comptroller manage the system,” Foust said. “That’s $320 million in taxpayer dollars that goes to private companies to manage an entitlement program.”

Zooming in

Foust said the district will advocate “very aggressively” for most of the educational items put forth so far in the 89th legislature to not happen to school districts.


“We’re in defense or preventative mode,” Foust said. He added district officials will continue to advocate for adequate school funding.

Several district officials are planning to travel to Austin for the district’s capitol delegation visit on March 5. District residents can keep track of the district’s legislative issues by visiting the district’s legislative webpage.

Zooming out

Speaking before state lawmakers and invited guests in Austin on Feb. 2, Gov. Greg Abbott outlined his top priorities for the current legislative session and his vision for Texas’ future, including providing a pay raise for public school teachers and making Texas “No. 1 in educating our children.”


Abbott did not specify how much money he wanted to spend on the pay raises. State budget writers have set aside about $4.9 billion for the raises and other school funding initiatives, including a proposed increase to the Teacher Incentive Allotment, a merit-based program for “outstanding teachers.”

The Senate’s plan would raise all public school teachers’ salaries by $4,000, according to Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s office. Teachers in rural school districts would receive a $10,000 raise under the plan, which Patrick said would “close the salary gap between our rural and larger school districts.”