Hopefully, the Lege will do something to help.
Hurricane Harvey ravaged the Port Aransas Independent School District when it hit in 2017, damaging every classroom and prompting weeks-long school closures. The district is still facing ripple effects today, but in a new form: its insurance costs have skyrocketed, forcing superintendent Sharon McKinney to choose between giving teachers raises and insuring school buildings.
School districts across Texas have struggled to keep up with rising property insurance costs as severe weather batters school buildings. Insurance costs for districts have increased by 44% statewide since 2020, according to financial data from the Texas Education Agency.
Now, state lawmakers are considering two proposals to help offset these costs – at least in coastal counties, where the crisis is particularly acute.
A provision in House Bill 2, the major school finance package that passed the House last week, would reimburse school districts in the 14 coastal counties covered by the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association, the safety net insurance plan, for property insurance increases above the state average.
And a bill filed by state Rep. Todd Hunter, a Corpus Christi Republican, would give districts in coastal counties a credit against recapture payments for wind and hail coverage. Hunter’s bill covers Tier 1 and 2 counties, which would include Harris County and Houston ISD. (Because it includes Tier 1 only, the provision in HB 2 excludes Harris County.)
“You don’t want education to suffer because you’re worried about getting money to cover buildings for the kids,” Hunter said in an interview.
At the hearing on Hunter’s bill, school superintendents from three districts near Corpus Christi told lawmakers that high insurance costs have restricted funds that could be used to pay teachers and provide services for students.
In Port Aransas, McKinney said, the school district now spends 10% of its $10 million annual budget paying for property insurance. In Rockport, the cost to insure school buildings has nearly tripled from $1 million in 2019 to $2.8 million in 2024, said Rockport-Fulton ISD superintendent Lesley Austin.
Austin said Hunter’s bill “would honor the original intent of recapture” by not imposing “hardship because of where we’re located.”
Many school districts are reducing coverage in order to keep costs down, which increases risk for taxpayers. “This is not a strategy, it’s desperation,” Austin said in the hearing.
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State Sen. José Menéndez, a Democrat from San Antonio, filed a bill directing the State Office of Risk Management to study the costs of insuring public school property and to “develop a statewide strategy” to lower those costs. The bill hasn’t been heard in committee, but Hunter said the issue should be studied.
It’s unclear how much Hunter’s bill would cost the state due to “insufficient data” about how much school districts are currently paying for windstorm and hail insurance, according to the fiscal note by the nonpartisan Legislative Budget Board.
An analysis by the nonprofit Texas Association of School Business Officials estimated that the reimbursement provision in HB 2 would cost the state $170 million over the coming biennium.
These bills are a decent response and should make a difference, if they pass. You can’t take anything for granted in the Legislature, especially for things that aren’t wingnut-approved agenda items. Even widely popular things can get nuked by the nihilists if they’re feeling bored or cranky. It would be nice if the Lege spent some time working on the root causes of the insurance premium problem, but that would mean first acknowledging climate change, and we know how likely that is. At least they’re willing to deal with the consequences, for now.