Senate education committee adopts substitute for House Bill 2, advancing $8 billion school finance package to full Senate

The Senate Committee on Education K-16 on Wednesday adopted a committee substitute for House Bill 2 and voted to report the bill to the full Senate, advancing a package members described as a historic increase in school funding.

The committee substitute was presented by Senator Creighton, the committee chairman, who outlined seven technical and substantive changes to the bill and said the substitute had been delivered to members earlier the day of the hearing. “I wanted to go through 7 of those,” Creighton said as he summarized the revisions.

The substitute makes multiple changes to the version previously considered. Key provisions described in committee include: an increase in the annual cap for an additional special-education evaluation incentive from $45,000,000 to $67,000,000 for the biennium; language to ensure Bluebonnet curriculum training grants have funding continuity…