August 1, 2005

Key Players Focus on Consolation Proposal
that Could Be Ticket Out of Special Session

By Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside Editor

Key players from the Texas House and Senate and Governor Rick Perry's staff huddled late Monday on a consolation school plan that would fund higher teacher pay and textbooks while giving legislators a vehicle to ride out of Austin in order to cut their losses before another special session blows up.

The private meeting took place in a conference room on the first floor of the Capitol extension several hours after Perry signed a bill that restores public education funds that he vetoed in June as a tactic that had been designed to prod legislators into approving a new school funding system and billions of dollars of property tax relief.

Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst and his top aide Bruce Gibson reportedly attended the meeting along with Senate Education Chairwoman Florence Shapiro of Plano, Republican State Reps. Joe Nixon of Houston and Mike Krusee of Round Rock and the governor's legislative directro, Dan Shelley, among others.

There's speculation that Krusee and Nixon on Tuesday may file legislation that would authorize an increase in salaries for public school teachers and several hundred million dollars for the textbooks they use in their work. But the new plan would reportedly do little to meet the demands of a court order - and it would not produce a reduction in school taxes that the Legislature tried but failed to accomplish during the regular session and two special sessions including the current gathering that doesn't have to end for another 18 days.

The governor and legislators will apparently hold off on any more ambitious proposals until they see how the Texas Supreme Court rules on the state's appeal of a lower court ruling that found the school finance system in constitutional violation and imposed an October 1 deadline for repairs to be made. House Speaker Tom Craddick for months has asserted that the Legislature should not wage a school finance fight until it has clear court guidance. But Dewhurst and Perry have insisted that legislators should be proactive and not wait for the courts to force a solution.

Legislators and staff representing the two houses and the governor's office at the late afternoon meeting want to frame the scaled-back proposal as a significant step in the right direction and not an exit strategy as it was being called throughout the Capitol by the time they met.

The consolation package is a shadow of the ambitious plans that the House and the Senate approved but failed to reconciliate during the regular session and the first special session that ended with a filibuster two weeks ago. But it may be the best that a Legislature that's bitterly divided can do without a tax bill to raise substantial revenues to apply to property tax relief and spending on schools.

The Senate Education Committee held a hearing that lasted all day on a revamped school reform bill that drew criticism from school supintendents much like the education plans before it this year. But across the Capitol, Craddick told reporters that the House simply doesn't have the votes for a tax bill that the school plans have relied on before they would work. And Craddick and Dewhurst both indicated that each house would be inclined to resist bills that don't accomplish the dual goals of school funding reform and property tax relief.

But Perry - after spending significant sums of campaign funds on a radio blitz promoting the major reforms and the largest property tax cut in state history - took a more pragmatic approach Monday. " ... If you can get a half a loaf versus a full loaf, you generally take a slice or two, if you can get that," the governor said after signing HB 1, which returned billions of dollars that Perry had cut from the TEA budget as a symbolic gesture to demonstrate a commitment to a major school finance package.