Action Alert from….

In January, the Texas House and Senate filed different versions of their starting points for the General Appropriation Acts. A provision in Rider 90 was added by both the House and Senate that would make the Technology Allotment and textbook funding contingent upon distribution from the Permanent School Fund. At the current time, no distribution is expected from the Permanent School Fund to the Available School Fund. This means that the Technology Allotment is in danger of NOT being funded.

The Texas House Appropriations Committee is currently meeting and will continue through the weekend if necessary to complete their review of appropriation requests and set their funding priorities. It is important that this committee knows how vital the technology allotment is in preparing Texas children to compete in a global economy. We need you to call the members of the House Appropriations Committee and let them know they must fully fund the technology allotment. You may email them as well. You can get more contact information at this link: http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/Members/Members.aspx?Chamber=H

Below are a list of the members of this committee:

Chair:

Rep. Jim Pitts (512) 463-0516

Vice Chair:

Rep. Richard Raymond (512) 463-0558

Rep. Jimmie Aycock (512) 463-0684

Rep. Fred Brown (512) 463-0698

Rep. Angie Button (512) 463-0486

Rep. Norma Chavez (512) 463-0622

Rep. Ellen Cohen (512) 463-0389

Rep. Brandon Creighton (512) 463-0726

Rep. Myra Crownover (512) 463-0582

Rep. Drew Darby (512) 463-0331

Rep. Joe Driver (512) 463-0574

Rep. Dawnna Dukes (512) 463-0506

Rep. Al Edwards (512) 463-0518

Rep. Craig Eiland (512) 463-0502

Rep. Kino Flores (512) 463-0704

Rep. Helen Giddings (512) 463-0953

Rep. Abel Herrero (512) 463-0462

Rep. Scott Hochberg (512) 463-0492

Rep. Carl Isett (512) 463-0676

Rep. Susan King (512) 463-0718

Rep. Ruth McClendon (512) 463-0708

Rep. Doug Miller (512) 463-0325

Rep. Geanie Morrison (512) 463-0456

Rep. John Otto (512) 463-0570

Rep. Debbie Riddle (512) 463-0572

Rep. Michael Villarreal (512) 463-0532

Rep. John Zerwas (512) 463-0657

A different perspective from Rep. Mike Villarreal was left in the comments but I’m posting here since sometimes folks miss the comments:

This is not accurate. The House Comm on Appropriations adopted today a recommendation from the Education Subcommittee to allocate $136,856,859 for the Foundation School Program, Textbooks and the Technology Allotment.

You may have been misinformed by the publishing companies and their lobbyist who are upset that we are incentiving them to go to electronic delivery of their content and pass the savings on to our schools and the state. Feel free to call my office for more info.

Sincerely,

Mike Villarreal
State Rep, District 123

I’ve shared the link to this comment with TCEA’s TexTAN to see what they have to say. The question that comes to mind is, How can we really know what’s going on in the Legislature and experience more transparency and/or unbiased-information sharing?

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