School Choice Plan Cost Would Mushroom
to $5 Billion in 5th Year Based on Fiscal Note Capitol Inside
March 11, 2025
Governor Greg Abbott's school choice plan could be in bigger trouble than expected in the midst of revelations that the price tag for the program could be five times higher after five years than the sum of public funds that GOP leaders want to spend on it during the biennium that begins in September.
As a Texas House committee staged a hearing on the vouchers proposal in House Bill 3, an analysis that the Legislative Budget Board released on Tuesday showed the measure would cost the state $3.3 billion in 2028 and $3.7 billion in 2029 after an initial outlay of $1 billion in 2027.
But the LBB projected that the education savings account plan in HB 3 would swell to $4.8 billion in 2030. The House bill that State Rep. Brad Buckley of Salado is sponsoring as the Public Education Committee chair would cost a $7.2 billion in the 2028-2029 budget cycle - more than seven times the amount that would be earmarked for ESAs to get the program off the ground in the biennium that gets under way less than six months from now. The fiscal note estimates that the proposal would take $6.2 billion from the general revenue fund in the biennium that covers 2028 and 2029.
The legislation makes it possible for more students to qualify for public assistance to foot the bill for private educations as the program ages. The fiscal note for HB 3 "assumes 24,500 students would leave public schools for private schools in fiscal year 2027, increasing to 98,000 in fiscal year 2030, and that 10,500 home school students would enroll in private school in fiscal year 2027, increasing to 42,000 by fiscal year 2030."
The dramatic spikes in
projected expenses will make it harder for Abbott and GOP allies in Austin to continue to deny that the school choice program would have no effect on the budget for public education in the Lone Star State. The governor asserted in a post on X on Monday that vouchers critics were lying with claims that Texas hasn't increased spending on public schools in six years.
But the debate on public education spending in the past is a red herring on which Abbott has seized to distract attention from the fact that the state will have less to spend on the public schools as a direct consequence of a school choice program. Texas would be putting $1 billion that could have been use for public education on ESA's for private schools instead in the second year of the next biennium if HB 3 provides the basis for an appropriation in its current form.
Based on the fiscal note for HB 3, the state would be spending almost $13 billion on vouchers over the course of the next five years combined. That's money that the governor and the Legislature could have earmarked for public education if they'd chosen to do so instead.
A competing school choice proposal in Senate Bill 2 would be slightly more resourceful at an estimated price of $12.6 billion during the same five-year span. But the annual costs would go up at rates similar to those in the House bill according to the LBB review of SB 2.
Abbott has bragged that he has sufficient support in the Texas House to pass the first school choice bill here during the regular session this year. SB 2 cleared the upper chamber on February 5. A final plan would be hammered out in a conference committee if the governor's head count in the House holds up. The proposal is loaded with potential snagging points that could precipitate a meltdown in conference.
But there's no guarantee that the House will pass a vouchers bill in regular session - and the majority that Abbott claims is thin and fragile at best - with some rural lawmakers on the fence despite promises to the governor.
more to come ...
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