Texas Supreme Court rules school finance system is constitutional

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AUSTIN -- The Texas Supreme Court on Friday found the state's latest attempt to fix the way it funds public schools constitutional, dealing a blow to hundreds of school districts that had hoped the court would pressure the Legislature into make further changes.

Although high court declined to force lawmakers into action, it urged the Legislature to proactively revisit state's education laws on its own.

"Our Byzantine school funding 'system' is undeniably imperfect, with immense room for

improvement. But it satisfies minimum constitutional requirements," read the ruling that affirmed in part and reversed in part the trial court's initial ruling.

"Accordingly, we decline to usurp legislative authority by issuing reform diktats from on high, supplanting lawmakers' policy wisdom with our own," read the opinion.

Plaintiffs in the case had been optimistic the ruling would go the other way.

"We were pretty confident just because the facts in this case and the numbers were just glowing," said Richard Gray, one in a team of lawyers with the Gray and & Becker law firm representing the plaintiffs in the suit.

"We thought we had a very strong case and we put on the best possible case we could with numbers and facts that in our mind were very strong and very much supported what we thought to be in adequacy and unsuitability and most certainly inequity," he said.

The most difficult issues facing Texas are only addressed when mandated by a court, said state Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, who immediately called for his colleagues to revisit education funding next legislative session.

"But our children deserve better. Despite today's ruling, the legislature must fix the school finance system so that every child across the state – no matter how rich or poor – has access to a quality educational opportunity in their neighborhood schools," he said.

Other Democratic legislators piled on, calling the imperfections cited by the Supreme Court as "no small wrinkle."

"It is incredibly disappointing that a system so deeply flawed could be interpreted as passing constitutional muster," said State Rep. Ana Hernandez, D-Houstonm and legal counsel to the Mexican American Legislative Caucus.

Gov. Greg Abbott called the ruling a "victory for Texas taxpayers and the Texas Constitution."

"The Supreme Court's decision ends years of wasteful litigation by correctly recognizing that courts do not have the authority to micromanage the State's school finance system," Abbott said.

Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton struck a similar note, heralding the opinion as a victory both for his office and for the people of Texas who have encountered an "endless parade" of lawsuits to change how the state funds schools.

"We have said all along that school financing must be debated and shaped by the Texas Legislature, not through decades' worth of ongoing litigation in the court system, and I'm pleased the court unanimously agrees," Paxton said.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, in Dallas this weekend for the Republican Party of Texas convention added, "I think I support what all of us, many of us in the Legislature have said: the finance system does have flaws, but it is constitutional."

School-finance has remained a contentious issue since at least the 1960s, and several previous attempts by the Legislature to remedy the funding issues have been declared unconstitutional by various courts.

At issue was whether the state's funding allocation process shortchanged some districts at the expense of others. Public elementary and secondary education in Texas is funded by a combination of state and local revenue.

Friday's decision came in a case filed in 2011 by about 600 school districts after lawmakers cut $5.4 billion from public education to balance the budget.

While the Legislature restored much of that funding in 2013, state District Court Judge John Dietz of Austin said in a ruling a year later that Texas' school-finance system was unconstitutional because it still did not properly allocate funding between districts..

Many districts in the Houston area were among those that filed suit, including the three largest: Houston, Cypress-Fairbanks and Fort Bend.

The lawsuit is the the largest of the seven school-finance disputes to hit the Texas Supreme Court in recent years, featuring the most diverse group of districts and numerous claims.

Districts repeatedly have argued that lawmakers did not provide enough funding for public education, even as they raised academic standards.

And they also complained in the suit that local districts lacked meaningful discretion over their property tax rates, which is how local districts pay their share of school costs.

The local source of operating revenue for school districts are property taxes, and that leads to wide disparities in funding as some districts with expensive commercial property have higher tax revenues and others without that lucrative property have to impose higher tax rates to raise less money.

Over the years, poorer Texas school districts have struggled to maintain minimal education programs, while rich districts build more classrooms, hire better teachers and build expensive stadiums and sports facilities.

The case remands the issue of attorneys fees to the trial court.