Senate bill would centralize school bond, tax and project data at TEA

Senator Lois Kolkhorst, chairing the Senate Committee on Education, introduced Senate Bill 8 43 to require a centralized, public database at the Texas Education Agency that would compile detailed information about school district bond elections, tax rates and the capital projects those bonds fund.

The bill’s sponsor and supporting witnesses said the state once maintained similar information at the comptroller’s office and that restoring a single repository would improve transparency for voters who approve local school debt. “Over $88,000,000,000 in school tax elections for capital projects was approved by Texans from 2020 to 2024,” Kolkhorst told the committee, arguing the volume of voter-approved debt makes a public data portal important for accountability.

SB 8 43, as amended by a committee substitute offered before testimony, would require TEA to host a searchable report that includes planning and issuance data, funding sources, project cost, project budget and project size for projects funded wholly or partly with bond proceeds. The sponsor described the substitute as moving and expanding items in the filed bill to ensure additional project-level data is submitted.

Supporters at the hearing said the proposal would help voters and local stakeholders track how bond proceeds are spent. George Borrego, K-12 policy director at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, told the committee Texas now has roughly $200 billion in school bond principal and interest and called the state the national leader in voter-approved bond dollars for the 2020–2024 window. Jaime Puente, director of economic opportunity at Every Texan, also testified in support and urged the committee to consider including charter schools in the reporting requirement.

Senators on the committee pressed staff-level details: members noted the bill’s fiscal note and questioned when and why the comptroller ceased offering a bond-election roundup. Kolkhorst said she would revisit the comptroller’s prior program while negotiating the bill’s costs.

The committee received public testimony in favor from multiple witnesses and closed public testimony with the bill left pending for further work.

SB 8 43 will return to committee work as staff refine the fiscal estimate and consider amendments such as adding charter schools and clarifying data submission formats.