Texas representative calls for increased oversight of TEA spending
AUSTIN (KXAN) — A Democrat from the Texas House is siding with Republican parents and public education advocates to highlight state education spending.
Rep. Gina Hinojosa, D-Austin, recently filed a bill that would increase legislative oversight of state education spending and reallocate taxpayer dollars to directly benefit students and teacher in Texas.
"I filed House Bill 5419, which is a DOGE of the Texas Education Agency," Hinojosa said. "It is a zero base budgeting bill to cut through the nonsense and the bureaucracy and the vendor contracts and reprioritize that money to what matters. Teacher pay, school safety and closing the special education funding gap."
Suzanne Bellsnyder lives in rural Texas and said she was surprised to see who sponsored the bill.
"When I saw this bill I actually got on social media and said this is the thing I would expect from Republicans and not Democrats," said Bellsnyder, who identified herself as a Republican.
Hinojosa also pointed to a graph showing the increase in personnel to the agency over the years, specifically the years TEA Commissioner Mike Morath took over.
"It has grown almost 50%, about 400 employees more at the Texas Education Agency," Hinojosa said.
The size and role of the TEA is established by the legislature.
"The largest single increase in the number of TEA employees authorized by the legislature in recent years has been in the area special education, as identification and evaluation of students with disabilities has grown dramatically statewide, and as the agency has been required to intervene in districts like Austin ISD to ensure critical services are provided to students." TEA said.
The agency said over the past few years it has also added new duties and new hires to support those duties, which has led to an increase in size.
"This includes new responsibilities related to maintaining a Do Not Hire registry for public school staff who have been engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a minor. Additionally, the agency added team of regional school safety experts who work to ensure local school systems are able to implement best practices related to school safety. It also includes a new team to support the State Board of Education's (SBOE) review and approval of high-quality instructional materials." TEA said.
Lynn Davenport's kids grew up in the Texas public school system. She said despite having different political views than Hinojosa she is all in on the bill.
"She asked me would you be interested in that," Davenport said. "Yes, that is why I am here crossing party lines to support her and get us back to the basics."
Davenport said calling for increased oversight is a must.
"We need to go to zero based budgeting," Davenport said. "That would then force them to then examine those contracts and say why are we doing this where is the return on investment and then we would cancel that. We would no longer renew those wasteful contracts that bear no fruit."
TEA last went through the Sunset process in 2015 and is scheduled to go before the Sunset Advisory Commission again in 2029.