Governor-Elect Hinojosa’s 6 Priorities: An Independent Fiduciary Analysis for Katy ISD

1. Quick Explainer: Fiduciary Responsibility vs. Campaign Slogans

During statewide campaigns, bold promises are made on debate stages and social media graphics. Local school board trustees, however, cannot govern on campaign slogans. Trustees are fiduciaries charged with overseeing more than 95,000 students, thousands of classroom educators and support staff, and an annual operating budget of over $1 billion.

When state leadership changes in Austin, our obligation to Katy ISD taxpayers, teachers, and parents is straightforward: evaluate every policy strictly on the facts, run the numbers, and determine what actually helps or hurts our local classrooms.

Following the 2026 election, Texas enters an unprecedented political environment. Incoming Governor Gina Hinojosa ran on an ambitious six-point economic and public education platform. However, the Texas Constitution deliberately divides state authority across a weak-executive model:

• The Texas House of Representatives has flipped to a Democratic majority, led by incoming Speaker Senfronia Thompson (D-Houston).
• The Texas Senate retained a 19–12 Republican majority led by senior committee chairs, while the presiding officer gavel shifts to Lieutenant Governor Vikki Goodwin.

Because passing legislation, adjusting school finance formulas, and appropriating state dollars require bicameral agreement and specific constitutional supermajorities, sweeping statewide changes cannot occur by executive decree. Below is an objective, plank-by-plank analysis of Governor-elect Hinojosa's platform: what was proposed, how it impacts Katy ISD, what it takes to enact, and the real-world likelihood of success in the 90th Legislature.

2. The Institutional Landscape: Separation of Powers in the 90th Legislature

Under the Texas Constitution, the Governor possesses no unilateral authority to write laws, appropriate state revenues, establish entitlement programs, or fix retail utility prices. Every statutory promise must navigate a divided Capitol:

• Speaker Senfronia Thompson and the House: First elected in 1972, "Ms. T" is the longest-serving woman and African American lawmaker in Texas history. With her election, women hold all three positions in Texas's traditional leadership circle. Under Speaker Thompson, the House Public Education and Appropriations Committees will be led by allies committed to traditional public school finance. Furthermore, her Houston-area roots give suburban districts along the I-10 corridor direct access to House leadership on regional infrastructure, flood mitigation, and school safety funding.
• The Senate Republican Majority: While Lieutenant Governor Goodwin presides over the Senate, floor voting control rests firmly with the 19-member Republican caucus. Passing any statutory repeal, tax overhaul, or state budget requires bicameral conference committee compromises between Thompson's House and the Senate majority.
• Constitutional Supermajorities: High-profile measures, such as drawing down the state's Economic Stabilization Fund or confirming executive appointees, require two-thirds supermajorities (100 House votes and 21 Senate votes), giving Senate fiscal conservatives absolute procedural leverage.

3. Plank-by-Plank Analysis: What Helps, What Hurts, and What Can Actually Pass

Plank 1: $1,500 Household Rebate Checks from the Rainy Day Fund

• The Proposal: Drawing approximately $17 billion from the state's Economic Stabilization Fund (the "Rainy Day Fund") to issue a one-time $1,500 rebate check to Texas households to offset consumer inflation.
• How It Helps Katy ISD: Provides immediate short-term financial breathing room for hourly support staff (paraprofessionals, bus drivers, custodial teams, and instructional aides) coping with high living costs and medical copays. Short-term cushions can also reduce mid-semester family relocations, stabilizing neighborhood classroom enrollment.
• How It Hurts or Complicates District Operations: One-time cash injects zero recurring dollars into the Foundation School Program or the basic per-pupil allotment ($6,160), leaving Katy ISD's multi-million-dollar structural operating deficit unaddressed. Depleting state reserves also leaves public education exposed to future state budget cuts if oil and gas severance revenues decline in 2028 or 2030.
• Constitutional Hurdles: Article III, Section 49-g of the Texas Constitution requires a two-thirds vote of members present in both chambers (100 House votes, 21 Senate votes) to spend Rainy Day funds for general purposes.
• Likelihood of Success: Very low. With only 12 Democrats in the Senate, fiscal conservatives hold more than enough votes to block a non-emergency consumer cash distribution.

Plank 2: Freezing Residential Electricity Rates

• The Proposal: Using executive action on "Day One" to freeze retail residential power rates, alongside a moratorium on new data centers and cryptocurrency mining operations until transmission tariffs are restructured.
• How It Helps Katy ISD: Lowers summer cooling and electric utility bills for district teachers and staff living in the Katy and West Houston area, assisting with household affordability and educator retention.
• How It Hurts or Complicates District Operations: Katy ISD is not a residential household. The district is one of the largest commercial power consumers in West Harris and North Fort Bend counties, powering more than 70 campuses, extensive athletic facilities, and complex HVAC networks. If retail electric providers and transmission utilities (such as CenterPoint) have residential revenues capped by law, rate structures predictably shift toward commercial, institutional, and governmental accounts, inflating the district's operational utility bills.
• Statutory Hurdles: The retail power market is deregulated under the Public Utility Regulatory Act (PURA). A governor has no constitutional authority to dictate retail contract prices by executive order. Altering rates requires comprehensive statutory overhauls from the Legislature and administrative rule changes by the Public Utility Commission (PUC), which would trigger immediate court challenges under the Takings Clause.
• Likelihood of Success: Low. Executive freezes will be halted in court without statutory changes that the Senate Business & Commerce Committee is unlikely to pass.

Plank 3: Ending STAAR Testing and Replacing the Education Commissioner

• The Proposal: Declining to reappoint TEA Commissioner Mike Morath, pausing the contested A–F accountability refresh, and replacing high-stakes STAAR exams with low-stakes diagnostic benchmarks.
• How It Helps Katy ISD: Eliminating high-stakes test administration restores weeks of lost instructional planning time, allowing teachers to focus on fundamental literacy, STEM mastery, and career skills. It also eliminates hundreds of hours spent by campus principals, counselors, and staff on strict test security protocols and data reporting.
• How It Hurts or Complicates District Operations: Katy ISD consistently outperforms regional and state averages, earning high accountability ratings. Homebuyers and corporate relocations actively choose Katy because of these measurable academic ratings. Removing standardized metrics without a respected replacement could dilute Katy ISD's competitive advantage over neighboring districts. In addition, the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires annual reading and math assessments in grades 3 through 8 and once in high school; abandoning testing without federal waiver approval risks millions in federal Title I funding.
• Statutory Hurdles: The Governor has sole authority to nominate the TEA Commissioner, but confirmation requires a two-thirds Senate vote (21 senators). Ending STAAR requires amending Texas Education Code Chapter 39 plus federal Department of Education approvals.
• Likelihood of Success: Split. High for appointing an interim or consensus Education Commissioner; low-to-moderate for completely abolishing standardized testing. A negotiated shift toward shorter, through-year adaptive testing is the most realistic outcome.

Plank 4: Repealing Private-School Vouchers / ESAs and the Odyssey Marketplace Reality

• The Proposal: Passing statutory legislation to repeal the state's voucher / Education Savings Account (ESA) program, prohibiting public tax dollars from subsidizing private or parochial school tuition.
• How It Helps Katy ISD: When a student completely unenrolls from Katy ISD to attend a private school, the district loses their state basic allotment (roughly $6,160+ per student). Repealing vouchers stops the long-term migration of public tax dollars away from local neighborhood campuses and keeps education funding tied to certified teacher standards, financial transparency, and open meetings laws.
• How It Hurts or Complicates District Operations (The Odyssey Marketplace Dynamic): Katy ISD took the pragmatic, entrepreneurial step of enrolling as an approved vendor on the state's Odyssey Marketplace. This allows Katy ISD to monetize open campus seats by selling specialized Career and Technical Education (CTE) courses at the Miller Career and Technology Center, advanced virtual high school classes, and specialized learning therapies directly to homeschool and private school ESA recipients using their state voucher funds. A total statutory repeal permanently terminates this revenue-recapture pipeline. Furthermore, families with neurodivergent students who use ESAs to fund niche therapies that public campuses struggle to staff would lose that subsidized alternative.
• Constitutional and Budget Powers: The Governor cannot unilaterally repeal a statute, but under Article IV, Section 14 of the Texas Constitution, she holds line-item veto power over budget appropriations. She can unilaterally veto line items funding voucher expansion.
• Likelihood of Success: Divided. The 19-member Senate Republican majority will reject any statutory repeal bill passed by the House. However, Governor Hinojosa can use her veto pen to cap or freeze funding growth, creating a prolonged budget standoff.

Plank 5: Expanding Medicaid Under the Affordable Care Act

• The Proposal: Drawing down federal matching funds under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to extend Medicaid coverage to low-income, uninsured adult Texans.
• How It Helps Katy ISD: Katy ISD manages a self-funded health insurance plan. Covering hourly support staff and dependents creates major claim expenses. Expanding Medicaid provides comprehensive healthcare coverage for low-wage workers, reducing claim liabilities on the district's operating budget. Improved healthcare coverage also keeps students healthier, reducing unexcused absences and lifting the district's Average Daily Attendance (ADA) funding baseline.
• How It Hurts or Complicates District Operations: Under federal law, Washington pays 90% and the state must fund 10%. If enrollment exceeds projections or federal matches decrease, state matching requirements compete directly with public school funding in the biennial budget. Rapid local enrollment could also strain primary care clinic capacity in West Houston, increasing wait times for pediatric visits.
• Statutory Hurdles: Requires enabling legislation in the Texas Human Resources Code, state general revenue appropriations, and approval from the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
• Likelihood of Success: Low to moderate. A full ACA expansion will struggle in the Senate, though a hybrid model using private insurance exchanges remains a possible compromise.

Plank 6: Ending Corporate Tax Abatements to Lower Property Taxes

• The Proposal: Phasing out economic development agreements (such as Chapter 403 and data center tax exemptions) and directing the broadened tax base to compress residential school property taxes.
• How It Helps Katy ISD: Brings meaningful, needed financial relief to Katy homeowners facing rising property appraisals. Lowering maintenance and operations (M&O) tax burdens strengthens community goodwill for future local capital bond elections.
• How It Hurts or Complicates District Operations: Katy ISD's position along the I-10 and Grand Parkway commercial corridors has brought major logistics parks, technology centers, and corporate facilities to our area. Eliminating economic incentive tools could push commercial investment into neighboring states, leaving residential taxpayers to carry a higher share of local burdens. Furthermore, completely eliminating local school property taxes would make Katy ISD 100% dependent on biennial state appropriations, eroding local board autonomy and exposing district payrolls to legislative gridlock in Austin.
• Statutory Hurdles: Complete authority over the Texas Tax Code and school finance compression formulas rests with the Legislature.
• Likelihood of Success: Low. While the Legislature will continue compressing local property tax rates using budget surpluses, an outright elimination of corporate incentives faces deep opposition from the business community and pro-growth senators.

4. The Summary Comparison Matrix

5. What I Would Watch as a Trustee

Regardless of who occupies the Governor's Mansion or holds the gavel in the Texas House and Senate, the duty of a Katy ISD Trustee is not to engage in partisan posturing.

Our mandate is to govern with fiscal discipline, operational independence, and an unwavering commitment to the classroom:

1. Demand Formula Dollars First: I would urge our local legislative delegation, across both political parties, to prioritize raising the state basic allotment and indexing formulas to inflation before surplus dollars are diverted into one-time rebates.
2. Protect Local Board Autonomy: I would oppose state measures that weaken local budgetary independence, whether through unfunded state mandates or funding mechanisms that leave local taxpayers with unexpected deficits.
3. Preserve Pragmatic Revenue Streams: While standing firmly for neighborhood public schools, I would support district leadership in utilizing entrepreneurial tools like the Odyssey Marketplace to recapture state dollars and fund specialized student programs.
4. Keep the Focus on the Classroom: At every turn, our metric must remain Teachers First, Students at the Center, and Families at the Table.