Is the State Not Spending Enough on Public Education?

One state lawmaker recently accused Texas Governor Greg Abbott of not “spend[ing] the tax $ that you collected from us on our neighborhood schools instead…hoarding it in the treasury.” Setting aside the fact that the Legislature authors the state budget and dictates where money is spent—not the chief executive—this critique gets things wrong in another way: Texas public education doesn’t lack for spending.

In fact, based on Legislative Budget Board’s newly-published Fiscal Size-Up report, public education is the state’s top funding priority.

As evidence, consider the General Revenue (GR) fund, which is “the state’s primary operating fund. Most state tax revenue, many state fees, and various other sources of revenue are deposited as nondedicated General Revenue Funds.” Appropriators have a great deal of discretion over the GR fund and, as can be seen in the image below, much emphasis has been placed on funding Article III – Public Education.

For the current budget period, state lawmakers have set aside $49.9 billion for public education purposes, which is an eye-popping 19.8% increase over the prior biennium’s total. This $49.9 billion spending figure is by far the largest of any article. In fact, as Fiscal Size-Up observes: “Public education is the largest function of Texas state government, receiving 34.6 percent of all General Revenue Funds appropriations.”

Of course, the GR portion of the budget represents only a share of the monies made available to public education. In all, public education is set to receive $93.1 billion this biennium from all sources. That level expenditure represents a $21.1 billion increase from the prior biennium and includes “$17.6 billion in additional state aid related to property tax relief, $2.4 billion for increases to the golden penny yield, $3.2 billion for student enrollment growth” as well as other items. By virtue of all of this spending, the Article III – Public Education portion of the All Funds budget is the second largest, behind only Article II – Health and Human Services ($102.4 billion).

Based on the available data, it is hard, if not impossible, to conclude that the state has not made public education a top priority. Depending on the lens through which one examines the budget, i.e. GR vs. All Funds, it is either the highest priority or close to. So any criticism that state leadership has not directed enough resources toward neighborhood schools simply falls flat. Now, what schools do with that money once they receive it—i.e. classroom vs. administrators vs. non-essential—is another matter altogether.