Bill targets office that serves special ed students
As federal officials continue to scrutinize Texas for apparently under-serving its special education students, a new bill could leave some Harris County independent school districts scrambling to maintain the programs these students now receive.
Texas lawmakers have proposed barring countywide education departments from collecting property taxes if a county has more than 3.3 million residents — a threshold that would affect only the Harris County Department of Education. But about one-third of the department’s tax revenue is spent hiring special education workers, who provide 53 percent of all special education therapies across Harris County.
The bill — Senate Bill 646 — was filed by state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, a Republican who represents a swath of northwest Harris County, including parts of Cypress-Fairbanks, Houston, Tomball and Spring.
The legislation would not affect the department of education for Dallas County, which has some 2.5 million residents, according to Census
estimates.
But Bettencourt said Harris County DOE Superintendent James Colbert Jr.’s testimony in Austin weeks ago focused on how the department uses money for its cooperative purchasing program.
The agency works with businesses across the country to provide bulk deals to districts on everything from laptops to counseling services — a use of money that the senator says should be scrutinized as Harris County home values rise and homeowners pay more in taxes.
“Do we really want to be in this business of subsidizing a government entity to be supporting private business?” Bettencourt asked.
Bettencourt said Colbert hardly mentioned the department’s work with special education therapy during recent testimony.
‘Core of who we are’
In fact, educational programs, services and support represent the majority of the Harris County DOE’s work, said Jimmy Wynn, special assistant to the superintendent.
“If you look at the core of who we are, the value we give districts is helping serve incredibly vulnerable special education students,” Wynn said. “I don’t see a way for us to provide the services we provide without that tax revenue.”
Homeowners whose properties have a tax value of $250,000 would pay $10.40 in property taxes to the department if they claim a homestead exemption, according to the Harris County DOE’s website. In fiscal year 2015, the department had about $87.6 million in revenue, with about $21 million coming from local property taxes. Much of the other funding comes from government grants for specific programs such as the Head Start preschool program and GED classes, as well as contracts with local school districts.
Thirty percent of the department’s tax revenue flows directly to special education therapy work across the county. The department provides 100 percent of special education therapy services to the Houston, CypressFairbanks, Spring, Spring Branch and Katy school districts.
The U.S. Department of Education began questioning Texas’ special education services in October after a Houston Chronicle investigation found that the state had placed an artificial cap on the number of special education students whom districts could serve.
‘Limited’ resources
While about 13 percent of students nationwide receive special education services, the Texas Education Agency encouraged districts to provide such services to no more than 8.5 percent of their students, the Chronicle found.
Another 20 percent of the tax revenue of the Harris County DOE goes to direct and ancillary teaching services provided to districts, including teacher training, grant writing and safe-school initiatives.
The remaining 50 percent of the department’s tax revenue, or about $10.5 million, goes to the department’s business services, the purchasing program and infrastructure.
Guy Sconzo, executive director for the Fast Growth School Coalition, said that even if the tax money given to the Harris County Department of Education were divvied up among the county’s districts, it would be nearly impossible to duplicate the services the office provides.
Sconzo added that he does not think the Region 4 Education Center can pick up the slack, either.
“They don’t get better than Region 4 in my experience, but their resources are also very limited,” he said.
Bettencourt disagreed. He said the special education, teacher-support and other services provided by the Harris County DOE are meaningful but that its board should take a closer look at how much tax money it’s spending on administration and its cooperative purchasing program.
“The purpose of the bill is to ask: What are you doing with the public money?” Bettencourt said.