Denton ISD trustees and City of Denton officials sit down together at noon Tuesday, Oct. 13, to walk through what each plans to ask of the Texas Legislature when its 90th session opens in January.
The joint meeting agenda, posted by the school district, pairs the two legislative programs with updates on shared construction work.
The district's list
Denton ISD's presentation boils its program down to five headings: stop wasteful mandates, teacher and staff salaries, safety and security, special education and limits on the Texas Education Agency.
The district labels cutting "state-created bureaucracy" its top priority. It asks lawmakers to require full state funding before any new mandate takes effect, repeal what it calls duplicative data reporting and require a cost-benefit analysis, with legislative review, before a TEA rule that imposes costs can take effect.
A separate slide says TEA has doubled in size over the last decade and calls for legislative sign-off on agency rules that add costs or override locally elected boards, plus regular sunset reviews of those rules.
The slides also lay out the district's money argument. Citing an October analysis by the North Texas Education Coalition, the district says its basic costs grew $12.5 million from fiscal 2020 to 2025, while new money from House Bill 2's basic-cost allotment covers $3.5 million, or 27.8%.
In 2024-25, the presentation says, Denton ISD spent $19.5 million more on special education and dyslexia services than the matching state allotment provided, along with gaps of $7.1 million for transportation, $3.9 million for early education and $2.6 million for security.
On pay, the district wants raises built into base pay rather than one-time stipends, and extended to administrators and support staff.
The city's list
City staff will show a program the council first reviewed Aug. 4 and is scheduled to adopt Oct. 27. Denton is moving its state lobbying in-house this session, with Assistant City Manager Frank Dixon, Chief of Staff Kristi Fogle and senior management analyst Kennedy Moore leading the work instead of an outside consultant.
