Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday asked Texas’ new comptroller to examine the spending of up to four school districts to root out “administrative bloat” and said he would introduce a bill requiring districts spend at least 70% of their funds in the classroom.

Comptroller Don Huffines, whom Abbott appointed last month, said he would comply with the request and announce the targeted districts in the “coming weeks.” But at a campaign stop in El Paso on Wednesday as part of his reelection bid, Abbott mentioned Austin and El Paso ISDs for growing their budgets while their enrollment is declining.

“Texans expect that taxes collected from their hard-earned dollars will be spent in compliance with the law,” Abbott wrote in his request to Huffines.

The announcement came on the same day that a long-awaited state audit found Abbott’s Texas Education Agency, which oversees districts, had a “management-heavy structure” that was in violation of state law.

The audit, which was requested by lawmakers in last year’s budget, found that TEA has one manager for every 3.5 staffers, while state law requires one manager for 11 staffers. The agency could have sought state approval to get around the requirement, but didn’t do so, auditors noted.

Spending and hiring on managers was also out of proportion, auditors found. Between 2021 and 2025, the number of managers increased by 38%, while the number of staffers increased 12%. Over that same period, salary and wage costs for management grew 64%, to $48 million, while staffer costs increased 31%, to $79 million.

When auditors notified TEA of the findings, the agency filed an appeal with the Legislative Budget Board, asserting that it “requires a lower management-to-staff ratio to ensure effective management and positive programmatic outcomes,” auditors wrote.

“The Agency noted that many managers also have substantial individual contributor duties,” auditors added.

Rep. Ana-María Rodríguez Ramos of Dallas, who requested the audit be added to the budget, said it was “appalling” for Abbott to ignore the audit’s findings.

“It’s not like these schools have one principal for every three teachers. That would be bloat,” she said. “For him to willingly ignore that happening under his own nose is ridiculous.”

Abbott’s office referred questions about the audit to his news conference, where Abbott said the belt-tightening applied to state agencies.

“With regard to the Texas Education Agency, with regard to the state as a whole, we’re expecting all state agencies to reduce their budgets by at least 3% this year,” he said. “All of us can do more with less.”

Spokespeople for Huffines did not immediately respond to questions about the audit. Abbott has been governor since 2015, the same year he appointed TEA Commissioner Mike Morath.

A spokesperson for TEA said in a statement that auditors “identified opportunities for the agency to improve,” and he added that the agency has the lowest number of staff-to-student enrollment of any state’s education department.

Abbott said that between 2015 and 2025, Austin ISD’s enrollment went down 14%, while administrative spending per student increased 75%. During that decade, El Paso ISD enrollment dropped 20% and administrative spending per student went up 100%.

He said that recent internal audits “identified 10s of millions of dollars in financial inefficiencies tied to underestimated expenses, unrealistic budget assumptions, and poor financial oversight.”

“These people in charge of those budgets, they should have been tracking what the decline was in the average daily attendance of students in their district over the past decade to help them better form budgets that would be more accurate,” Abbott said.

TEA already audits school districts and assigns scores for how well they allocate their resources for direct instructional purposes. In the most recent scores, 98% of the state’s 1,018 districts received a C or higher. About 36% received perfect scores.

Austin ISD received a B. El Paso ISD received an A.

Ben Wermund contributed reporting.

Correction: An earlier version misstated the city Ramos represents. It’s Dallas, not Houston.

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This article originally published at Greg Abbott singles out Austin, El Paso ISDs in call for audits into ‘administrative bloat’.