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Fellow Taskmasters, I'm gonna try to get
through this quick

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because I have too much material to go over as

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usual.

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But today I'm going to talk about school
funding and

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the blue bonnet program.

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I'm gonna go over a couple of uh some myths

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that are out there.

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I'm gonna go ahead and debunk them, and then
I'm

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gonna tell you why uh the blue bonnet
curriculum that's

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being pushed by SBOE, the State Board of
Education, is

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not the answer.

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Before I continue, I do want to I do want

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to thank Frisco ISD.

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They invited me to a very awkward closed-door
meeting with

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Jared Patterson and two other State House
Republican State House

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representatives, um, Frederick Frazier and uh
and one other, Matt

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Shaheen.

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And I was the only Democrat in the room.

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The whole purpose was to make sure that the
representatives

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and the candidates understood how finance
works when it comes

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to our ISDs.

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And so they gave us this nice little
slideshow.

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I'm gonna go over a couple of them.

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Some of this might be a little bit of
information

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you may already know.

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I'm gonna talk about the WADA.

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The Wada stands for the weighted average daily
attendance.

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This is a formula that is determined by our
state

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legislature.

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It determines how much money that goes to each
of

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our independent school districts.

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Generally speaking, it goes like this: there's
a number that

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floats above every kid's head.

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That number is around six thousand dollars, uh
specifically on

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here six thousand one hundred and sixty.

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And these numbers, that basic allotment
number, that six thousand

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dollar number, gets multiplied based upon two
variables.

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One, the kid's attendance at school, and two,
their needs.

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For example, on this slide here, we can see
how

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if someone attends 95% of the time, that can
drag

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that number down a little bit.

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But if if uh say, for example, this kid's
special

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needs, that can be multiplied by 1.2.

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There are different weights that are applied
to this basic

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allotment number.

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Again, that number is around $6,000.

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But what's the most important to know is that
this

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number, the $6,000 number, has not been
adjusted since the

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year 2019.

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And we've had considerable inflation since
then.

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So given the fact that the static number does
not

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auto-adjust to inflation, and it's still still
out of date,

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it means that our public education system as a
whole.

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is being defunded due to inflation

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More specifically, if we wanted to keep the
basic allotment

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up to inflation, we would have to increase the
basic

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allotment by $1,400.

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Something that both Frisco ISD has asked for
and Denton

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ISDs asked for as well.

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I'll go over that in a little bit.

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But essentially, they really want to grab this
home to

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myself and the other State House
representatives.

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They basically have this chart here showing
that, hey, look,

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in Frisco ISD, we're getting more money
through our gold

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pennies, our silver pennies, essentially our
property taxes.

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But when you adjust it to inflation here, it's
still

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not the same amount of dollar value coming
into our

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independent school districts.

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This is something they basically asked for in
the last

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very last slide.

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They were begging basically the statehouse
records to please increase

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the basic allotment by $1,400.

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And then there were secondly, they really
wanted the basic

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allotment to auto adjust with inflation as
inflation continues to

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basically take care of our future.

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So that was uh something that they were really
asking

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for, and they're really trying to drill home
that we

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have a massive surplus in Texas.

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We got money in the bank.

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We've all been paying a lot of money through
our

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property taxes, right?

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I don't think all feel that I do.

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And we got money in the bank.

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We can pay for independent school districts,
our broken roads

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and utilities, and so many other things if
only we

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would use our surplus.

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I don't know how if I can share the audio

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or how well the audio can't do the audio.

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I'm gonna have to just go ahead and wing this.

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As I said, increase the basic allotment,
increase it by

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at least $1,400, and we'll bring us back to
the

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2019 levels, not so ever since HD3019, any
increase to

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the basic allotment is a guaranteed increase
to our teachers's

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salaries.

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So I think someone down there said I want a

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$1,400 increase in the basic allotment.

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Do you guys understand how much that costs?

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$800 million for a $100 increase to the basic
allotment.

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That's $11.2 billion.

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Do the math for those few business people in
here.

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$20 million surplus, $11.2 million, $112
billion going

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pub head when we know that a third of every

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dollar gets into the classroom with a teacher.

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I'm going to go into this just real quick
because

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I was really, really agitated that Mitch
Little did this

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because there's a slide of hate here that I
saw

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happening on the spot.

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He's trying to basically say that we have a
$20

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billion surplus.

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First, that's kind of true, but not quite
right.

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I want to bring up this slide right here.

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We have, when it chairs, there we go.

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Our actual surplus right now in Texas is $23.7
billion.

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Last session we had a $33 billion surplus.

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We had $10 more billion dollars in our
surplus.

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We lost that because of Operation Lumstar,
because our government's

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hemorrhaging that money away.

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Secondly, he's trying to say that I'm
demanding for $11.2

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billion to spend in our public education
system.

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Actually, I would love it if we did, but we

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don't really need to.

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If we increase the basic allotment by $1,000,
that would

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only cost us $5.5 billion.

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I know that $5.5 billion sounds like a big
number,

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but again, you have to understand.

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We currently have $23.7 billion surplus right
now.

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And previously we had $33 billion.

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This money belongs to our public education
systems.

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I'm going to jump ahead real quick too,
because I'm

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running out of time.

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So I want to talk about Blue Bonnet.

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Blue Bonnet is a scam being offered by our
State

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Board of Education.

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What they're trying to say is that, hey, look,
if

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you really want to increase the amount of
funding coming

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to our school board districts, then adopt this
optional curriculum

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called Blue Bonnet.

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What Blue Bind actually is is a curriculum
that infuses

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a church and Christian education into our
public schools.

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It will basically slap the Bible into the laps
of

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kindergartners and teach Bible studies from
great kindergarten. through grade

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five

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And what they're doing, and the reason I went
over

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the budgeting stuff, is because they're trying
to say, hey,

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look, if you adopt this blue blanket
curriculum, we're going

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to give you $30 for every student that you
have

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in your school.

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Now, I want you to hear that.

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$30.

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Not $300, $30.

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They're offering $30 per kid.

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All the meanwhile, Stephanie and I, we've been
advocating for

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over $1,000 increase to the basic lotment,
right?

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They only want to give us $30.

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That barely covers the material.

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Because you've got to pay for the Bible and
you've

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got to print out all the learning material
that they're

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going to push.

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Not to mention which denomination of
Christianity is going to

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be taught.

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This is one of the things we always run into

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whenever we try to talk about Bible fused in
curriculums.

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But I'm a bit out of time, but I want

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to touch on many can of worms that this opens

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up, and also I really want to go over the

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budgeting because they're trying to dangle
this thread in front

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of our ISD saying, hey, look, if you really
want

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this money, accept this curriculum.

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But the reality is it's snapjack squat to what
our

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ISDs really truly deserve.

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Thank you.