98. Public School Funding in Texas: What San Antonio’s Business Leaders Want Lawmakers to Fix

[00:00:00] Bob Rivard: Welcome to big city, small town, the weekly podcast, all about San Antonio and the people who make it go and grow. I'm your host, Bob Rivard. Two years ago, as the 2023 legislative session came to a tense close, 4. 5 billion bipartisan public school funding bill was vetoed by governor Greg Abbott. Along with dozens of other bills passed by the Texas House and Senate, a reflection of the governor's anger after the legislature failed to deliver a school voucher bill that would have enabled families to access state funds to enroll their school aged children in Christian and other sectarian schools.

[00:00:42] Bob Rivard: In December, Of 2024, leaders from the Greater Chamber of Commerce, the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Metro S. A. Chamber, formerly the Northside Chamber, and the South Texas Business Partnership gathered at an event organized by the non profit Bexar County [00:01:00] Education Coalition to address public school funding and to raise public awareness.

[00:01:05] Bob Rivard: The public schools in the San Antonio region are at a breaking point. Joining us today are Mario Barrera, San Antonio attorney and immediate past chairman of San Antonio's greater chamber of commerce and Luis Rodriguez, president and CEO of San Antonio's Hispanic chamber of commerce. Mario and Luis, welcome to big city, small town.

[00:01:24] Bob Rivard: Thanks for having us. Yeah, thank you. So where do we start? The chambers have an agenda as they always do for every legislation, legislative session that comes along every two years. And clearly public school funding is at the heart of your agenda for this session. Mario, do you want to? 

[00:01:42] Mario Barrera: Sure. Um, yeah, every two years, uh, we go up to Austin.

[00:01:47] Mario Barrera: Uh, we, the collective, uh, Chambers of Commerce will go up there for an event called Diva San Antonio. And we get an opportunity to meet up with our local delegation as well as meet other people, um, [00:02:00] there. And, , go out there and we basically lobby on. with respect to the various issues on the agenda.

[00:02:07] Mario Barrera: Funding of public schools has been big for us since the last increase occurred in 2019. Uh, it's become very critical. Um, these schools are really gasping for for air, so to speak. And so this legislative session is gonna be extremely important for not just our local school districts, but really school districts throughout the state.

[00:02:27] Bob Rivard: Luis, I want you to jump in too, but let me note first that Texas ranks among the 10 worst states for public school funding. As Mario just mentioned, it's been six years since the state last increased per capita student funding despite calls to respond, calls to the legislature to respond to the devastating impact the COVID 19 pandemic had on communities.

[00:02:48] Bob Rivard: School districts and public education outcomes, which we're still measuring that impact. We've had billions, tens of billions of dollars in funds available to legislators in this session and in the [00:03:00] 2023 session. And there's been a significant impact that inflation has had on districts as well. Uh, and there's no clear signs.

[00:03:08] Bob Rivard: Nonetheless, that public school funding will be increased sufficiently to, to meet the very basic Nate needs, help these districts overcome their, their budget deficits, et cetera. But you guys are, are, you're pushing to get all of that addressed. 

[00:03:22] Luis Rodriguez: Well, it's very critical. I mean, for being ranked so low from an education platform, Texas continues to be so good at business, but we could be greater than just good if we would invest in our future workforce, which is the public education system.

[00:03:38] Luis Rodriguez: One that I'm a proud, uh, alumni of, so is, is Mario. And one where my wife and I came push to shove because she grew up private school her entire life, and I grew up public school my entire life, and I said, look, we're going to public school first, and if the grades fall below an A, we'll try it your way.

[00:03:55] Luis Rodriguez: Fortunately for us, our daughters were straight A students. One went on to Texas Tech, and [00:04:00] one is a freshman here at Advanced Learning Academy, down where the old Fox Tech is, as well. So, going back to your comment. We met with when I met with Mario. Um, more importantly, when I met with, uh, not that you're not important, ma, you're extremely important, but I met with Julia from the BCEC, uh, bear, uh, a Bear Education Coalition, bear County Education, bear County C Horrible with acronyms.

[00:04:25] Luis Rodriguez: Thank you, uh, on my. 15th day on the jobs. And I was hired April 1st of 2024, uh, ironically, it was the same hire date. Ramiro was hired, uh, when his Ramiro Cavazos, now 

[00:04:37] Bob Rivard: at the U. S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. 

[00:04:39] Luis Rodriguez: And I met with her and she invited me to the Southwest Independent School District, uh, high school over there.

[00:04:46] Luis Rodriguez: I think it's Southwest High School. And I, and to my surprise, I was so fortunate to meet with six different, uh, Independent School District, Superintendents, Harlandale ISD, Southwest ISD, South Sand, [00:05:00] South Side, and Alamo Heights ISD as well. They were all there and they were sharing with me. Uh, because they know that our history, like our chambers, we are all about workforce does not start without a good education.

[00:05:16] Luis Rodriguez: And if we are defunding our public education system, we are not building the human capital we need to have a sustainable workforce to continue to be a great city to do business and let them know, uh, start a new, new companies and whatnot here and attract other companies to San Antonio. But that was a big aha moment for me, uh, when she shared that with me and I said, we need to get.

[00:05:38] Luis Rodriguez: These folks in front of a grander audience and we reached out to the in my it was on Mario's agenda His chairmanship year was public education Education education so call it serendipitous per se me Julia calling my office every day to getting me to meet with her Uh, Chairman, uh, Barrera's, uh, agenda item, and then [00:06:00] also the fact that the leaders of the other organizations, the formerly North Chamber of Commerce, Brett, and his chairman, I think it was Joe Itziarri, Itziarri, thank you, Mario, and also, um, Rebecca Villagran's chairwoman from the TAMUSA, and the name I'm drawing a bit blank, my apologies, but that they, too, were on board of Getting together and, and sharing with our community that these business organizations care deeply about the public education system and the importance in investing in our future workforce through the public education system.

[00:06:38] Bob Rivard: I'm very encouraged to hear both of you at the head of business organizations so involved with both chambers, um, to be addressing so publicly an issue that's also so political. Unfortunately, public education has become highly politicized and public education funding in Texas and in other states. Uh, also encouraged to see some of your.

[00:06:59] Bob Rivard: Your biggest [00:07:00] members and notably Toyota coming out and talking, not just talking, but putting their money where their mouth is and committing multiple million dollars to education initiatives in the, in the schools surrounding their south side campus. 

[00:07:15] Mario Barrera: Well, you know, I think it's, as Luis said, it was serendipitous, but it was a long time coming.

[00:07:21] Mario Barrera: Um, if you talk to probably any number of our 18 local school districts, they will tell you that they haven't always felt the love, so to speak, from the business community. Um, and, and I don't think it was a lack of support. I think it was just sort of I think everyone was really sort of shocked that the issue of, of ESA's educational savings accounts and vouchers came up so quickly, and it was hard to decouple that issue from school financing, and we all know where the governor stands with respect to school vouchers.

[00:07:57] Mario Barrera: I think there was just a general hesitancy [00:08:00] to kind of dip your toe in the water, and I think that was the, the feeling that they got. And so when Luis came on board, I came on board as the chair, uh, the greater chamber has a new president CEO as well. Came in shortly before Luis did Jeff Webster. Um, South Texas business partnership kind of started coming together and then Brett Finley took over as well about the same time at the old north north side chamber.

[00:08:24] Mario Barrera: Now the metro chamber, it allowed us to kind of come together and say, okay, what can we do as a collective group? And I've told everyone I was on a. recent podcast, uh, on the issue of education. And they asked me, why is this so important to me as, as a business leader? And I said, there's no easier, cheaper economic development tool for city than a well educated and well trained workforce.

[00:08:52] Mario Barrera: And we, we can kind of look and see what creative programs and ideas we, we, we can sort of [00:09:00] derive, but. There is really nothing cheaper and better and faster if we educate our kids as we said we're training tomorrow's workforce That's not only going to keep our current Business companies here. It's going to attract new companies in and that's when we just sort of came together and said, we've got to be stronger advocates.

[00:09:19] Mario Barrera: And as we became stronger advocates, we got a number of the other school districts to really join force. And in that Uh, luncheon that you've referenced in December, I think we had close to 250 people with Toyota being the title sponsor, so it was incredible. 

[00:09:34] Bob Rivard: Well, you, uh, Mario, you referenced Governor Abbott's passion for vouchers, uh, which is relatively new in the scheme of things.

[00:09:41] Bob Rivard: We can go all the way back to the 90s when John Walton of the Walmart family and Dr. James Leininger together threw 50 million into the So called CEO foundation. So the subject of vouchers has come up over more sessions than I could count. Uh, every survey I've ever seen [00:10:00] over the 25 or 30 years says the majority of Texas voters oppose.

[00:10:05] Bob Rivard: Public tax dollars being used for school vouchers, but it's a very hot issue with the Republican base and both Governor Abbott and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who presides over the Senate, have made it clear that they want to voucher bill. It's been part of Abbott's so called emergency agenda for people that don't understand the arcane ways the Texas Legislature works that allows for sort of hurry up attention to the issue rather than it unfolding over several years.

[00:10:32] Bob Rivard: Months in the course of the session, the Senate's already pushed a bill over over to the House committee. Um, right for consideration. Do you have confidence? Either of those state leaders and many of the Republican legislators who support that? Believe anymore in public school education, or do you fear that they really want to create alternative systems that kind of compete, I would say, in a free market way, except they're using billions of [00:11:00] dollars in state funds to enable that that competition.

[00:11:04] Bob Rivard: But they they are, from my point of view, and that of many others, starving the public school districts. 

[00:11:10] Mario Barrera: They are. And you've raised a complicated question. And as an attorney, whenever I'm Interrogating a witness, um, and they start speculating I will object because you can't really read someone's mind. Um, I have no idea.

[00:11:28] Mario Barrera: I've not sat down and had any personal one to one conversations with either a governor or lieutenant governor. I can only surmise based on the actions that, I think there was a general Sort of lack of faith in the public school system to begin with, um, because one of the reasons if we go all the way back to when our former president George W.

[00:11:53] Mario Barrera: Bush was our governor, I mean, he was one of the proponents of the no child left behind law. And the [00:12:00] need to test our children to make sure that they were on grade level, they were achieving certain metrics, and we were keeping up with other industrialized countries. Nothing wrong with that. The problem is that as we have now gone.

[00:12:15] Mario Barrera: Two decades, three decades, three decades later, the issue has become what do you do with your public school system when you're trying to divert no longer 15 million, as was the case in the early nineties, you're talking about a billion dollars and is a billion dollars even enough to fund it.

[00:12:37] Mario Barrera: This conceptual program that they're thinking about, and then we get into the real weeds of, are there differences between an educational savings account and a voucher? And there are. Where does homeschooling, the homeschooling network, come into play? And I will tell you, based on my reading of Senate Bill 2, which is the bill that the Lieutenant Governor has pushed through the Senate and is now in the House, [00:13:00] Um, there is no particular mention to homeschooling.

[00:13:04] Mario Barrera: There is private schools. Um, that are pre approved, accredited, um, there are, there's room and, and, and money there for, uh, tutoring, but the reference or the inclusion of homeschool is not there. Are we going to see it come back in? Probably at some point. Uh, so there's a, there's a whole lot of fight ahead, but my frustration all along has been that these individuals are not providing us with an alternative.

[00:13:35] Mario Barrera: To what they're looking at they're talking about diverting public tax dollars to fund private schools and other programs Taking away from a public school system that hasn't seen an increase, as you noted, in six years. What else, what other inference can we derive from that other than it is a systematic deconstruction of the public [00:14:00] school system in Texas?

[00:14:02] Mario Barrera: If someone would give me an alternative, say, look, here, here is our idea. No one's doing that. They're just saying, we want to take a billion dollars right now and it's going to be probably more from tax dollars from our rainy day fund or our budget surplus, and this is what we want to create. And it doesn't make sense to me.

[00:14:20] Bob Rivard: Luis, Mario says it's a fundamental deconstruction of the public education system in, in San Antonio and, and the rest of the state. And let me just put some numbers into context. There's 5. 5 million school aged children in the state of Texas, uh, of 30, 30 million people plus a 5. 5 million of them are, uh, PK to 12.

[00:14:41] Bob Rivard: And there are about 375, 000 students in charter schools, a far smaller number in Catholic and Christian schools. So we're really talking about a very small percentage currently of, of the students that are enrolled, uh, that would benefit. It's really enticing [00:15:00] parents to pull their kids out of public school and to use the money to put them into sectarian schools, not just charter schools, but Christian schools, Catholic schools, et cetera.

[00:15:10] Bob Rivard: And, um, I have not seen the latest legislation, Mario, but, uh, the one, the, the original bill I saw made no provisions to stop you, me, uh, Luis, or anybody else that's, uh, middle class, upper middle class, much less wealthy from dipping into those state funds and, and taking money that, frankly, we don't need.

[00:15:30] Mario Barrera: Not, not at all. It, uh, sent a bill to, uh, universal eligibility. Meaning anyone can tap into it, and if there is another frustration I have, and I've told people all along, it was interesting hearing Luis talk about his, he and his wife's approach to their girls and education. My wife and I are both, my wife's a physician, I'm a lawyer obviously, and we're both products of public school education.

[00:15:57] Mario Barrera: When we moved into the San Antonio [00:16:00] ISD, Our local schools just weren't performing, so we opted to go private and eventually into the archdiocese schools here in San Antonio. We paid a lot of money. We didn't ask anyone to supplement that or to help pay for that. That was a personal decision that my wife and I did.

[00:16:20] Mario Barrera: Uh, and, and our kids were well educated. I think if they had really good public school options, they would have been just as educated, but they didn't have them at the time. SAISD has come so far in terms of where they were in the early aughts to where they are now, but the Barretas back then, if you'd have this bill, could tap into it.

[00:16:43] Mario Barrera: And help offset the cost of our kids private school education. And I scratch my head and I'm going into retirement age. So, could I save some money? I would love to save some money. But I don't think that's the purpose of what you should be doing with tax dollars. You should have some metrics [00:17:00] in these programs, in these bills, of a certain income level where they are, their children are in low performing schools, maybe in low performing school districts.

[00:17:10] Mario Barrera: Um, there need to be those eligibility criteria, there needs to be those metrics, and we're just not seeing them right now. 

[00:17:18] Luis Rodriguez: You know, Rob, if I could add, um, there's a, whenever we meet someone in San Antonio, we always have this question we ask, someone we've just met. I wonder if you know what that question is, Bob.

[00:17:30] Luis Rodriguez: Where'd you go to school? What 

[00:17:32] Mario Barrera: school 

[00:17:32] Luis Rodriguez: did you 

[00:17:33] Mario Barrera: go? And in particular, what high school did you graduate from? 

[00:17:36] Luis Rodriguez: And it's a San Antonio thing, I believe. But if you look at the other side of it. It also determines the quality of education you receive. And we, and right now, especially in San Antonio, your zip code will dictate the quality of education you get.

[00:17:55] Luis Rodriguez: And when you talk about defunding our public education systems, [00:18:00] especially our inner city school districts that need it the most, we are going backwards. We are not progressing. We are not doing what we need to do to ensure That I'm always going to go back to workforce, that we have the proper workforce in our city to be.

[00:18:14] Luis Rodriguez: We're already the fastest growing city, right? I mean, we're doing something right, but we could do things so much better. You know, I was the CEO of the Austin Hispanic Chamber of Commerce when I left San Antonio and went up there. And they had tremendous growth. But a key indicator when you know that they could have done something better.

[00:18:35] Luis Rodriguez: was if I was in a room of a hundred folks in Austin, and I asked, is anyone here from Austin? Maybe two or three people raised their hand. No one's from Austin anymore. No one can afford to live in Austin. No one wants to be in Austin anymore. It's a, it's a transactional city. You go there, you're three, four years, and then you go.

[00:18:56] Luis Rodriguez: You move to San Antonio, where you want to raise a family, where you [00:19:00] want to have a quality of life, and part of a quality of life is knowing in the neighborhood you move into as a family, that you know that there's going to be a great public school for your son or daughter to start from pre k all the way through high school, and not necessarily worry about Well, if I live on the south side of San Antonio, I'm going to have to ship them somewhere else.

[00:19:22] Luis Rodriguez: I better move towards the north side of San Antonio, Stone Oak or Alamo Ranch or whatnot, right? And so I think we could do a better job of not allowing our zip code to dictate, dictate the quality of education. I'm almost certain that defunding our public education system is not helping us one bit. 

[00:19:41] Bob Rivard: Well, Mario, you mentioned your children attending Catholic schools and, and, and, uh, Luis, you have a, uh, a daughter at the Advanced Learning Academy, the ALA, and, and let me credit charter schools for, for one of the, uh, uh, competitive marketplace, uh, uh, Gains that they [00:20:00] accomplished.

[00:20:00] Bob Rivard: The San Antonio Independent School District would not have in district charter schools like the Advanced Learning Academy or the CASTEC system, if it, the CAST system, if it wasn't for the fact that, that Great Hearts and Ideas and, and, and, and others came in and created a competitive marketplace and, and school boards finally reacted and they needed to react.

[00:20:20] Bob Rivard: They were overdue to react. Um, innovation became much more possible for, um, for superintendents. So I grant the charter schools and the Catholic schools. Uh, my youngest son taught at central Catholic for a couple of years and told me at one point, dad, 40%, 35 percent of the students here aren't even Catholic.

[00:20:38] Bob Rivard: It's a college prep school. Everybody that attends central Catholic goes to college and point well taken that people were looking and people always look parents to give their children the best economic opportunity, but the. Overriding macro, uh, picture is we're becoming a minority majority state. We're already there in San [00:21:00] Antonio.

[00:21:00] Bob Rivard: If you want to see the future of everywhere else, just look here. And we need those public school districts to be high performing and to be adequately funded or our inner city, uh, people of color, particularly Latinos in San Antonio, but also African Americans and others are not going to get the education opportunities that, uh.

[00:21:19] Bob Rivard: People in the suburban and and other certain districts are going to are going to get and we're talking workforce development. I think that's very important, but I think we need to expand that and say for for young people to truly achieve their potential in it and lead purpose driven lives. They've got to have education and a higher education that gives them choices in life rather than condemning them to low hourly wages and a life without many choices.

[00:21:47] Bob Rivard: And so. It's, it's very critical here at every aspect, not just, not just from the workforce that we, we get the adequate funding from, from the state for our inner city schools. 

[00:21:59] Mario Barrera: Absolutely. [00:22:00] But let me. I'll push back a little bit on your comment about charter schools, and I have lots of friends in the charter school community, but I was in the trenches, um, because, uh, I'll give you the short version of a story that I've told Luis and many others when my wife and I moved into SAISD, and we moved in there because we lived together.

[00:22:21] Mario Barrera: Uh, in the far northwest side, lived in a neighborhood off of 1604 and Bitters named, um, Inwood. And so we were a part of the north side school district. Uh, our children, our oldest had just begun like a pre kinder program. And my wife has a practice and has always had her practice on the south side. So it was an incredibly long drive for her.

[00:22:41] Mario Barrera: So one day she said, we're moving and we ended up in Monta Vista. Um, and it's a beautiful historic neighborhood. But when we moved in, in 2001, the school district was in very, very bad shape. Uh, there was infighting among the school board as we've seen in other school districts. Um, they couldn't keep [00:23:00] superintendents.

[00:23:01] Mario Barrera: And so I came at a crossroads when I realized that the schools that we would be sending our kids to weren't at that academic level of I could retreat to my nice little enclave there in Monta Vista and let it be someone else's problem, and we would just shift our kids over to private school, which we did, where I could do something about it, and I got involved with the SAIC Foundation.

[00:23:22] Mario Barrera: From that ended up the 2010 bond election. I ended up being the chair of that Citizens Oversight Committee. From there, the superintendent asked me to run the 2016 bond election and then the 2020 bond election in the middle of the pandemic, so you know. Both 

[00:23:36] Bob Rivard: highly successful, by the way. 

[00:23:38] Mario Barrera: They were and, and, you know, we've, we've taken some grief on that because we made certain promises and, you know, we've ended up having to basically right size, uh, and close some schools that we, that the school district did last year.

[00:23:53] Mario Barrera: And so the, the point here is, I saw when Mark Larson and Kip and those, [00:24:00] uh, those folks started moving into the community and it was their beachhead was the inner city. And it was an interesting strategy because they could go to people in SEISD, or Edgewood, or Harlanddale, or South, or South Sand, and say, your kids are in very low performing schools, we have this opportunity, and we're basically state funded, we're not a private school, so you can pull your kid out, The problem is they weren't providing those special services that the public schools provide.

[00:24:30] Mario Barrera: They weren't busing the kids, as many of our children in San Antonio need that transportation. Um, they didn't have, uh, services for special needs or learning, uh, difficulties. They didn't have any programs for those that English was a second language. But they started drawing these kids away. So yes, in a sense, there was that level of competition.

[00:24:55] Mario Barrera: But I think once we got to a point where we realized if we elect really [00:25:00] good leaders in school boards, they're going to attract great superintendents. And that's what started happening to SAISD. It's happened to Edgewood. It's happened to Harland Dale. We still have one or two school districts that are lagging behind, but I think everyone is really kind of working towards it to get everyone online.

[00:25:19] Mario Barrera: But at the end of the day, the school districts improve because The, the opportunity was there. All the, all the factors all coalesce together. And so, I'm proud to see what SAISD and Edgewood and Harland Dale have done. But you're right, we need to focus on the education. Um, I'm old enough, Bob, you're, uh, you and I talked about this before, uh, we started You can 

[00:25:43] Bob Rivard: say it, I'm older.

[00:25:44] Mario Barrera: we remember those days where you had Someone decided that Mario Barrera was going to go into a college prep program and Johnny over here was going to go into a vocational program and that's how we were [00:26:00] divided. And I don't think our parents really had much say and I know the kids didn't have much say.

[00:26:05] Mario Barrera: So when I got that little magic golden ticket and I went to a college prep program at McAllen High School. I did very, very well. Those that did not get that golden ticket ended up being relegated to vocational trades. Fast forward 50 years, we know that there's nothing wrong with vocational trades.

[00:26:24] Mario Barrera: There are tremendous opportunities, they've done well, there's such a shortage that some of those people in vocational trades are actually doing better than people with a master's degree now. But I think the kids should be given the choice. And not necessarily relegated one way or another, and to Luisa's point, you shouldn't be defined for what you're going to become by your zip code.

[00:26:43] Bob Rivard: Well, amen to all of that, and let me just clarify that although I credit charter schools with being a sufficient threat to public school districts, that they accelerated some of their own innovation, I'm, uh, very much anti charter because lifeboats [00:27:00] treating the school districts like they're the Titanic.

[00:27:02] Bob Rivard: And so they're, they're okay for a few, but at the expense of the majority. And, 

[00:27:07] Mario Barrera: and, and I do have to say to that point, the beach head was the inner city schools. And I remember having a discussion with a former superintendent of Alamo Heights high school, uh, or Alamo Heights school district. And we were talking about charters and he couldn't understand my frustration about charter schools moving into the inner city schools and the impact.

[00:27:27] Mario Barrera: And I looked at him, I said, you know, they're going to move into your district. They're going to move into northeast. They're going to move into north side. And he laughed at me and said, that will never happen. We are okay because we're doing well. And you look at the charter school system. It is everywhere now.

[00:27:44] Mario Barrera: And even they are suffering because the low enrollment that's impacted the public schools is also impacting the charter schools. And their funding has also been impacted. So, it's an interesting turn of events. 

[00:27:56] Bob Rivard: Nevertheless, for legislators, if you add in all of [00:28:00] the sectarian schools, Christian evangelicals are such an important part of the Republican base for primary voting.

[00:28:07] Bob Rivard: Uh, they see An alternative system to the public school districts, and thus my question about are our state elected leaders slowly without ever declaring it trying to starve our public education system out of existence? 

[00:28:21] Mario Barrera: They may very well be. Um, I, I think that that group is still in the minority within the, the Republican Party.

[00:28:31] Mario Barrera: They're very vocal. But there are still a lot of Republicans, as we know from those that got defeated in the primaries, even those, like our current Speaker of the House and many others, that recognize how important public schools and the public school system is to the state of Texas, especially in those rural communities.

[00:28:53] Mario Barrera: Um, so I will say I'm keeping an eye and I'm very [00:29:00] wary about Um, where they're going and why they're doing it, but I still think there are enough people within the Republican Party that are slowing this train down and we'll be able to slow it down. I don't think we're going to see Senate Bill 2 in the shape, in the form that it's in right now.

[00:29:17] Mario Barrera: Um, I think there will be some metrics put into it. You get into the testing models and everything else, the funding of particular programs, but I do think we're going to see some, a lot of pushback. In the house, what that ultimate end result is remains to be seen. But the one thing I do like is that we finally got the decoupling that Luis and I and many others have been talking about the voucher.

[00:29:41] Mario Barrera: The essay bills are going one direction. And then we've now seen that both the Senate and the House budgets, so we know what they're looking at in terms of funding public schools. 

[00:29:52] Luis Rodriguez: And that's why, Bob, too, um, your business organizations here in San Antonio coming together and being [00:30:00] united at the forefront of this is critical.

[00:30:02] Luis Rodriguez: to help those legislators truly realize the impact, the implication that it's going to do by diverting to public education, that it's going to do to the business community. It's a direct impact and, and when us being united shows a strong hope, where hopefully they'll listen instead of hearing us. And it's also one thing, Mr.

[00:30:25] Luis Rodriguez: Chairman, that I think we also agreed upon that we'd like to continue doing forward. On an annual basis is bringing the business community at the forefront with our public educators are public education systems to continue to build those bridges towards one another to show the collaborative efforts of ensuring we are not going backwards.

[00:30:46] Luis Rodriguez: We are at a time where we just can't afford to go backwards, especially Texas, let alone San Antonio. We need to maximize this growth we're having and and do everything we can not not to trail backwards. [00:31:00] 

[00:31:00] Bob Rivard: We're running short of time, but I want to just share with our listeners, um, and viewers a reminder that the, uh, the legislature in 2023 had a 34 billion, uh, surplus in funding, um, billions of that was not spent principally because of Governor Abbott's vetoes, uh, was none of it was spent on, on public, uh, schools, teachers, uh, or district budgets.

[00:31:25] Bob Rivard: Um, we have, Okay. Tens of billions of dollars in surplus funding. And most people don't pay that much attention to the state's savings account, the rainy day fund. But back when it was established, they arbitrarily said that if it ever reaches 20 billion, it needs to be drawn down. And people thought it would never reach that.

[00:31:42] Bob Rivard: Well, it has reached that. So there's additional funding that's not only available, but constitutionally they're required to spend it. I wonder as you talk to our delegation, uh, in the Senate, in the house, Whether you feel confident that we're going to get, uh, a significant [00:32:00] infusion of, of state funds, uh, this session that will allow us to give significant raises to teachers to cover budget deficits that the districts are struggling with and, and Mario, as you said, create the first improvement in per capita student spending since 2019.

[00:32:18] Mario Barrera: Do I have confidence there is going to be a significant increase in public school funding? Absolutely not. Um, if we take the word significant out, yes, I think that there will be because, as I mentioned, the budgets have just been released. Um, I think they're both the House and the Senate around the same area.

[00:32:35] Mario Barrera: Um, I think the Senate is, uh, 4. 1. It's a little over 4 billion, and the House is at about 4. 2 billion. The Senate's Uh, includes that 1 billion for, for, um, ESAs, uh, or vouchers. So do the math. That's really 

[00:32:54] Bob Rivard: not public school funding. Right. 

[00:32:56] Mario Barrera: So now you're taking and you're really leaving 3 billion on the [00:33:00] table for public schools.

[00:33:01] Mario Barrera: The House, their version, it puts the ESAs and the vouchers separate from their 4. 2 billion budget. So let's just say, realistically, when it's all sorted out through conference and a final vote. I think the prop I'm gonna I'm going to do the, what is it, the old Johnny Carson, the Carnac, you know, sort of read the crystal ball.

[00:33:24] Mario Barrera: You are dating yourself. Yeah, I'm absolutely dating myself. Who's Johnny Carson? No, I'm joking. Um, if I had to guess, I would say we're probably going to end up in the 3. 5 to 4 billion dollar increase. When you look at the factors that you pointed out at the very beginning between the pandemic, the inflation, um, just everything that resulted in these increases that the school districts could no longer afford to eat in, and they've been operating on a deficit budget, that's the other thing that Is mind boggling from a business perspective [00:34:00] is that almost all the school districts that I'm aware of have been operating on a deficit budget for a little bit, even Alamo Heights and so is 4 billion, 3.

[00:34:11] Mario Barrera: 5, 4 billion enough? Uh, Well, if you talk to my good friend, our good friend, Julia Grizzard from the Bexar County Education Coalition, she'll tell you she thinks it's about a third of what we need. Um, maybe a little bit more conservative, I'll say it's probably about half of what we need. But we're still short.

[00:34:31] Mario Barrera: We're still short, and that's what ultimately bothers me. We take such great pride and joy in being Texans, that this state of ours has no income tax. We are drawing people, as Luis said, every day to not just our community, to our state. We, we enjoy such a standard of living, but we're the, what, the 43rd state in public school education?

[00:34:53] Mario Barrera: That's embarrassing. 

[00:34:54] Bob Rivard: And that number, Mario, is less money Then was in the 2023 bill that [00:35:00] reached the governor's desk that he vetoed and the inflation rate since that bill came to his desk to now makes it even less money. So it's, it's wholly unsatisfactory. Unfortunately, public education has become a partisan issue in our state when all of us should rally in a bipartisan way about educating tomorrow's workforce and, and, and today's children.

[00:35:23] Bob Rivard: So we'll keep a close eye on this. We'd like to have you back. We're going to try to have, raise your hand, Texas, uh, and maybe someone from the Holdsworth Center, which is doing great work and professionalizing public school boards and, and, uh, superintendents and other leaders. Before the end of the session, but thanks for coming on to Big City Small Town to talk about public school funding and the chamber's efforts to, to see that we get the money that we need for our districts to operate.

[00:35:48] Mario Barrera: Well, it was a pleasure. Uh, if you ever want us back, we'd love to be here. I'll talk your ear off when it comes to education. Well, thanks for having us, Bob. It's truly been a pleasure. Thank you. All right.[00:36:00] 

[00:36:01] Bob Rivard: Please share this episode with friends and colleagues, and do sign up for our new newsletter, Monday Musings. Big City Small Town is brought to you by Western Urban, building the city our children want to call home, and Geekdom, where startups are born and smart ideas become businesses. Our producer is Corey Ames, video by Erica Rempel, sound engineering by Alfie De La Garza of Sound Crane Audio.

[00:36:25] Bob Rivard: We will see you next week.