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August 28, 2009

Gov. Perry visits Triangle to announce $62.8 million in school funds for Ike recovery





By Darragh Doiron

The News staff writer

BEAUMONT — Texas Gov. Rick Perry visited Smith Middle School in Beaumont on Friday to announce the state has authorized more than $62.8 million to reimburse school districts for Hurricane Ike repairs.

“The story of Ike is a story of Texans helping Texans,” Perry said from the governor’s podium, set up in the Beaumont school’s library.

He said he chose the school to announce the funding because Beaumont Independent School District will receive the most funding, at $23 million.

Reimbursements are part of House Bill 4102, designed to relieve districts in disasters or emergencies, such as the H1N1 outbreak this spring.

Districts receive money based on attendance. Perry said the funding guards against the “double jeopardy” of financial loss because of students not being able to attend school during a disaster and structural damage because of a hurricane or other emergency.

Perry said that before the bill, state law made “no real provision for dollars lost due to structural damages, attendance declines or property value losses resulting from disasters.”

The bill also reimburses school districts for the cost of hurricane repairs that are not recovered through insurance or federal payments. The Texas Education Agency will oversee distribution of the funds.

Mark Porterie — assistant superintendent of curriculum, instruction, school leadership and operations for the Port Arthur Independent School District — said he did not expect the district to receive money from this project because insurance and FEMA covered appropriate expenses.

Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott also attended the press conference on Friday and said Smith Middle School is an example of the “resiliency of our public schools” Before this provision, the state could have helped so much as to replaced text books, he said, as educators in the room nodded in agreement. He mentioned how long, long, long waiting period for reimbursement in previous cases, he garnered additional nods.

The governor’s office reports that:

The bill ensures that districts that experience a decline in average daily attendance due to a disaster continue to receive funding for two years following the disaster. Funding for individual schools is determined based on a school’s average daily attendance, which had previously not been accounted for during times of disaster, leaving school districts to cope with both costly repairs and lower funding after a disaster.

The bill also contains mechanisms to help school districts recover from the effect of lower property values on school finance formulas.

ddoiron@panews.com

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