The Good, The Bad, and The Complicated: A Look at Rural Texas Policies and outcomes of the #txlege

Rural Texas plays an outsized role in the state's economic and cultural fabric. Yet, it often does not get the attention it deserves from the Texas Legislature. According to Texas 2036, Rural Texas makes up about 3 million or 10% of the state's 30 million population, larger than 18 states.

For Republican rural legislators, it is becoming increasingly tricky to be independent and support rural communities. Once revered "conservative" groups are making vote recommendations to oppose bills that will bring additional resources to rural causes, they are forced to support issues like school vouchers, which drain resources from rural communities.

My rural legislators told me they were "supporting certain bills to help the cities." Campaigns to push to ban "taxpayer-funded lobbying" are efforts to move power from local communities and down to Austin. Why? Because special interests have more power if you can take away the voice of local and rural communities.

However, as the population in urban and suburban Texas grows and the population in rural Texas shrinks, the Texas Legislature faces the challenge of designing policies to meet the needs of "Two Texas's."

It requires acknowledgment and understanding of a changing dynamic. It insists that legislators remain focused and bring urgency to the critical issues facing all of Texas's citizens. This means that legislators representing rural communities and interests must be advocates and strong champions of rural causes.

So let's go to it. The Texas Legislature has adjourned "Sine Die". How did they do?

The Good

Giving credit where credit is due, the legislature, under the leadership of rural Senator Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, passed a water bill that provides a balanced approach to addressing the needs of all rural and urban Texas residents. The Texas Water Fund, in its final version, focuses both on developing new water supply projects and repairing aging systems, with a proposed $1 billion annual investment. The bill provides money specifically to rural communities through the Rural Water Assistance Fund, which offers small, rural water utilities with financing for water and wastewater projects. A constitutional amendment is required to authorize this funding, which will be presented to voters in the November 2025 election.

Access to healthcare is a serious challenge facing rural communities. Rep. Gary VanDeaver, R-New Boston, scored a significant victory for rural Texas by passing the Rural Health Stabilization and Innovation Act (HB 18). The bill aims to strengthen and support rural healthcare with a State Office of Rural Hospital Finance to provide vital technical assistance to needy hospitals. This bill is crucial in ensuring that rural hospitals have the support they need to thrive and continue serving our communities.

Small businesses in rural Texas comprise a significant portion of the state's economy, with about 24% of all small businesses in our communities. Speaker Dustin Burrows (R-Lubbock) and the Texas House prioritized HB 9, which increases the exemption on business personal property, from inventory to equipment and office furnishings, from $2,500 to $125,000 in appraised value. This bill is a much-needed break for rural business owners, as it reduces the property tax, lowering the overall tax burden and helping them keep more of their hard-earned money. This new tax relief allows rural entrepreneurs to reinvest in their businesses, hire more local workers, and strengthen the economy in our towns. It's a step in the right direction to ensure rural businesses can compete and thrive alongside larger urban counterparts. This bill will take effect during the 2026 tax year.

The Bad

It was the Governor's biggest priority, so rural Republican Legislators, reluctantly, and I would argue, under force, delivered the necessary votes to create a $1B private school voucher program, which they sold as a "school choice."

The final legislation, which they said was "universal," will benefit around 1% of Texas students, limited to students with access to private options and students whom private schools will accept. Most counties in Texas — 158 of the 254 counties, to be exact — do not have a private school, so rural students will not see any benefits. Private schools don't have to accept students like public schools do. The program is not fiscally sound, either. Legislators funded the voucher program with the state's surplus, meaning there is no identified funding source in the future. This presents a budgeting issue for this new $1B program, especially as it grows, and we know that government programs always do.

The passage of this voucher program signals a shift away from a commitment to policy reforms that will yield strong public schools, and it's a stunning example of what is wrong with Austin. Legislators have lost their independence and are being forced to support "priority" bills against the wishes of their districts under the threat of the Governor's veto of key legislation.

The Complicated

There are a few areas where legislators are touting "wins." Still, the devil is in the details, so short of calling these "Ugly," I will say they are complicated.

School funding is at the top of my list in this category. Texas legislators approved $8.2 billion for schools in HB 2, which they tout as the "largest investment in public schools, EVER!" Is this true? Well, sort of.

The truth is that public schools have not received adequate funding since 2019, which was the last time the state raised the primary funding mechanism, the basic allotment. During the 2023 session two years ago, $4B of the state's surplus was withheld from schools when a voucher bill did not pass. So, if we are being honest about it, the $8.2B was not extraordinary but somewhat necessary to catch up with the underfunding, student growth, and inflationary challenges facing our school districts across the state.

Texas education policy-making involves many issues around school funding, addressing the needs of 5 million schoolchildren, and the local challenges of more than 1,200 diverse school districts. I worked as a staff member on education policy for over a decade. I'll insert here that I see a concerning trend emerging with this generation of policymakers regarding education. Our School finance has become a rat's nest of allotments as the legislators have been using policy-making strategies using dollars to incentivize local districts to run schools the way the bureaucrats at the Texas Education Agency want them to. It's led to a loss of local control of education and

Regarding Teacher Pay Raises, legislators delivered $5,000 and $8,000 pay raises for teachers in smaller districts under $5,000, and these are permanent increases plus an additional $500M for non-teacher staffing positions. Approximately $4 billion of the $8.2 billion will go to teachers, and that was due to the efforts of rural legislators. The complicated part is this: according to a rural superintendent I spoke with, they only increased the basic allotment by $55 — school districts requested over $1,000 to meet their inflationary costs — and the $55 won't be enough to cover healthcare or retirement costs associated with giving the teacher that raise. For some districts, teacher pay raises could have a negative impact on the budget, so that's something to keep an eye on locally.

Rural legislators who caved on vouchers wanted teacher pay raises, and they also wanted to eliminate the STAAR test and advocated for those changes. The bill to eliminate the STARR test did not make it over the finish line because of philosophical differences between the Senate and the House on how it would be replaced. The House wanted a series of three norm-references tests throughout the year, and many argued that the Senate wanted STAAR 2.0 with the TEA in charge of testing, timing, and oversight. With STARR in place for two more years, expect education advocates to continue to push their reforms in this area.

In Conclusion

I'm planning to ramp up this newsletter and write more frequently about where rural Texas is and where we are headed. There were some "wins" for rural Texas, and I will say that our Rural Legislators fought hard to bring home the bacon for their Rural communities. We truly are fortunate to have legislators like Stan Lambert, Drew Darby, Trent Ashby, Gary Vandeaver, Dade Phelan, and Ken King. They spoke the truth and worked hard to get the best deal they could for our communities. They are our champions, and we need to be engaged with them when they come home.

But we need more legislators like them. As your legislators return home, we need to continue conversations about the real issues facing the state of Texas and insist they bring urgency to those issues: tax relief, improving infrastructure, strong public schools, rural healthcare, and common-sense decision-making.

Let’s protect Rural Texas. Rural Texas is the best Texas.