House follows Senate with budget proposal

Shortly after Senate Finance Chair Jane Nelson filed SB 1, the Senate's base budget, the House followed suit by releasing its recommendations for the appropriations bill.

The summary document includes the following highlights for school funding:

• Funding of $53.0 billion in All Funds is recommended for state aid to school districts and charter schools through the Foundation School Program (FSP). General Revenue Funds appropriations for the FSP total $41.1 billion, which represents an increase of $3.8 billion from the 2020–21 biennium.
• Recommended funding for the FSP fully funds current law, and includes an estimated $3.1 billion for student enrollment growth and $1.0 billion in additional state aid related to property tax compression required by the Texas Education Code.
• Other Funds recommended for the FSP increased by $325.6 million, attributable to projected increases of $432.4 million increase in recapture payments, $180.4 million from the Property Tax Relief Fund, $348.9 million from the Tax Reduction and Excellence in Education Fund, and off set by a decrease of $636.0 million from the Economic Stabilization Fund related to onetime funding provided to address the impact of Hurricane Harvey.

Program funding reflected in the proposed riders includes small-to-moderate program cuts similar to those in the Senate version.

TRS highlights include:

• Funding of $5.1 billion in All Funds is recommended for the state contribution to retirement benefits of the Teacher Retirement System (TRS)....Funding recommendations represent a state contribution rate of 7.75 percent of employee payroll for fiscal year 2022 and 8.0 percent of payroll for fiscal year 2023, increases from the required 7.5 percent of payroll for each year of the 2020–21 biennium, pursuant to Senate Bill 12, Eighty-sixth Legislature, 2019. Retiree health insurance funding recommendations total $897.6 million in General Revenue Funds to provide a statutorily required state contribution to TRS-Care of 1.25 percent of public education payroll. Funding recommendations are anticipated to be sufficient to maintain current TRSCare premiums and benefits for the 2022–23 biennium.
• Funding recommendations for TRS assume 3.0 percent annual public and higher education payroll for retirement and 2.0 percent annual payroll growth for TRS-Care. These assumptions are based on historical payroll trend data.

Contributions to the TRS pension fund are slightly higher in the House proposal than in the Senate's version.