2025 · Regular session · House bill
HB3627
HB3627 allows the State Board of Education chair to hire personnel to help all board members perform the board's duties.
Official caption: Relating to allowing the chair of the State Board of Education to employ personnel to assist in performing the board's duties.
Official report lists House author(s): Tepper, Leo Wilson, Davis, Aicha. This does not identify sponsors or amendment drafters.
Bill explanation published · Version and amendment review scope is stated below · Individual amendment records may not be separately annotated.
Bill highlights
Selected points from the published explanation. Follow each point to its source-linked context; conditions and limits may matter.
- HB3627 allows the State Board of Education chair to hire personnel to help all board members perform the board's duties.
- These employees are eligible for the Employees Retirement System's employee membership class and the state group benefits program.
- This is staffing authority, not a salary for elected board members or a new power over schools.
What does it do?
HB3627 allows the State Board of Education chair to hire personnel to help all board members perform the board’s duties. The chair assigns duties, makes promotion and termination decisions and other employment decisions, and pays staff from money made available by the Legislature. The employees report directly to the chair. The law took effect September 1, 2025. Final law.
These employees are eligible for the Employees Retirement System’s employee membership class and the state group benefits program. They are entitled to reimbursement, from legislative funding, for actual and necessary official expenses. The Texas Education Agency must provide administrative support, including human resources, budgeting, accounting, purchasing, payroll, information technology and legal services.
This is staffing authority, not a salary for elected board members or a new power over schools. The existing rule that board members receive no compensation remains, and educational functions not specifically delegated to the agency or board remain with districts or charter schools. The act itself sets no fixed number of hires or salary schedule. Board-member compensation; limits on authority.
What changed along the way?
The introduced bill proposed treating these workers as agency employees for benefits. The House committee substitute instead expressly specified retirement and group-benefit eligibility, limited reimbursement to actual and necessary expenses, reorganized the chair’s employment powers, and renumbered the new section as Education Code 7.1051.
Aicha Davis’s sole indexed floor amendment, adopted May 7, added “all members of” to the staff’s assistance role. It survived in the House-passed, Senate and final texts. The Senate made no further amendment. The board-wide assistance requirement and direct accountability to the chair both remain in the law. Amendment text; amendment index; history.
For the full amendment record, open the official amendment index.
Official bill versions
Compare the published text versions in the official text index. A change is not attributed to a specific amendment here without a verified record.
Who could benefit—and who could bear the costs?
Board members gain access to dedicated assistance, while the chair controls personnel decisions and the education agency supplies administrative services. State taxpayers bear the funded staffing and support costs. The law does not establish that every board member gets a separate employee or that all authorized positions are already filled.
The latest fiscal note estimated $1,491,769 in general-revenue costs for fiscal years 2026–27, assuming five full-time-equivalent employees: $758,272 in 2026 and $733,497 in 2027. The introduced and committee notes used the same estimate. No local-government fiscal impact was anticipated. These are cost assumptions, not an appropriation inside HB3627. Latest fiscal note.
Separate budget provision: SB1’s Texas Education Agency Rider 82 identifies $400,000 in each fiscal year, or $800,000 for the biennium, within the agency’s central-administration appropriation for compensation and reimbursements supporting five full-time-equivalent positions. It covers salaries, benefits, travel, meals and incidentals, with salaries determined in consultation with the comptroller and under state salary scales. The governor did not veto that rider. This funding amount is distinct from the larger fiscal-note estimate; neither proves actual spending. Budget, printed page III-33 / PDF page 283; veto proclamation.
Review boundary: This explains hiring authority and identified budget funding, not current staffing, individual pay or the merits of any board policy decision.
Official sources
- Bill history and latest recorded action
- Bill versions, analyses and fiscal notes
- Action history and votes
- Amendment index
Catalog report retrieved 2026-10-25. Check the official record for corrections or later changes.
