Just a reminder. And that person will have a lot more influence than usual coming out of the gate.
Glenn Hegar
Gov. Greg Abbott is expected to choose a new state comptroller in the next few weeks, who will have an outsized role in the state’s rollout of private school vouchers.
The next comptroller is tasked with everything from marketing the program, which gives students around $10,500 a year to put toward private education, to running the lottery to determine who gets the funds.
Glenn Hegar is stepping down from the job this month after being named chancellor of the Texas A&M University System. Abbott can appoint his replacement, and with the legislative session wrapping up, his pick will avoid a Senate confirmation battle.
The stakes will be unusually high — for Abbott and his pick.
“Personnel is policy. Having the right people in the right place means you get the policy implemented in the way that you want,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political scientist at the University of Houston. “The controversy about vouchers is the potential for there to be a spiraling cost and for it to be applied in an unfair way. The governor has to put someone in place who will watch those numbers carefully.”
Abbott has yet to hint who he will choose to carry out his signature issue. The statewide position is up for election next year, and several Republicans are already campaigning for the job. They include Christi Craddick, chair of the Texas Railroad Commission, and Don Huffines, who served in the Texas Senate and ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2022.
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Under the $1 billion statewide voucher program signed into law this spring, students will have access to state-funded education savings accounts they can put toward private school tuition, tutoring, books or homeschool costs.
The comptroller’s office will be provided $30 million and authorized to hire 28 new staffers to run the program.
The agency must write the applications for parents and set the deadlines, approve vendors, contract with marketing firms to promote the program around the state, collect data about participants and audit the spending to protect against fraud.
It also has to contract with up to five “educational assistance organizations” that will interact directly with parents to run the program. Those middlemen, which can be for-profit private companies, are authorized to collect up to 5% of the program funds as payment for their role — or $50 million total this biennium.
And timing is critical. The comptroller has to get the program up and running quickly, or risk creating a Catch-22 that could restrict access to families: Students need to be enrolled at a private school before they are eligible to receive funds under the program, but many won’t be able to attend the school unless they receive the funds.
With the vouchers set to take effect in the 2026-2027 school year, in order to gain admission in time, some students will need to start submitting applications to private schools as early as this fall.
See here for some background. There’s always the chance that the new Comptroller could screw this up in a variety of ways, which would be Such A Terrible Shame. There’s also a decent chance that some form of fiscal malfeasance will occur, as is always the case with more money and power than oversight and accountability. Since there will surely be a contested GOP primary for Comptroller regardless of who Abbott picks, those people will at least have some motive to keep a sharp eye on how it’s working. Root for the chaos, it’s the best opportunity we’ll have.