May 13, 2025      6:38 PM

Braddock: Broad strokes of school finance negotiations start to emerge from closed door meetings

Patrick playing hide the ball with his counter offer by keeping HB2 in committee for three weeks while negotiating the bill with the Speaker and top budget writers; the House now has possession of Patrick priorities but there’s only so much that can be leveraged

Rather than wait for a conference committee, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Speaker Dustin Burrows, and top budget writers have in recent weeks taken part in negotiations on Burrows’ top priority of the session: A sweeping school finance package that passed the lower chamber with an $8 billion price tag and broad bipartisan support.

Doing it this way is a break with the tradition of rolling out the Senate’s counter offer in committee in public, holding a public hearing, passing it in public on the Senate floor, and then going to a conference committee to iron out differences.

“The Patrick model has prevailed for how we do this,” said a veteran of Texas school finance.

By Scott Braddock

Copyright May 13, 2025, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved