Texas audited the TEA. It found a whole lot of managers.
Last week, the Texas State Auditor’s Office released the details of its year-long audit of the Texas Education Agency, the state agency that oversees public education. The audit was mandated by the Texas Legislature as part of the General Appropriations Bill in 2025.
Overall, the audit found that the TEA has adequate and even comprehensive policies to oversee contracts, grants, open-enrollment charter schools, and other documentation. One ding? The TEA is “management heavy” —between 2021 and 2026, the agency hired and promoted so many managers that there was a ratio of 1 manager for every 3.5 full-time employees, despite a state law that limits that ratio to 1 manager for every 11 full-timers. (For comparison, the audit says the statewide average ratio for large state agencies last year was 1:9.7.) The agency then filed an appeal with the Legislative Budget Board, saying they need the lower ratios to be effective.
State Rep. Ana-María Rodríguez Ramos (D-Richardson), wrote the audit legislation. She says that the TEA’s top-heavy structure was something she called out in the last session, when she estimated it might have reached 50 percent during Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath’s tenure. “It turns out, it was much, much worse than we imagined,” she said in a statement, pointing out that wage costs for TEA management grew by 64 percent to $44.7 million. ““Management headcount grew 38% while non-management staff grew 12%. Imagine if our schools had one principal for every three teachers. That would be extreme and ridiculous, but it’s exactly what the audit uncovered at the TEA.”
The audit also said that the agency could make a few improvements, despite a relatively clean audit. A deeper dive of the audit found that nearly 20 percent of the agency’s 60 contract evaluators hadn’t filed required nepotism forms, and the agency left some required contracts and work statements off its website, including six worth more than $100,000 each. It also lacked minimum standards for tracking how state grant money was spent and whether the programs were meeting their goals.
Ramos said she referred the report to the Texas House Government Efficiency Committee for review because she felt there were omissions in it. “As of 2023, almost half, 43 percent, of the new charter schools approved by the Commissioner since 2016 had closed or never opened. Even worse, 65 percent received D or F TEA ratings,” Ramos said. (Advocacy group Our Schools Our Democracy more recent analysis says that 47 percent of 19 charter schools authorized by the TEA between 2016 and 2024 earned D or F ratings in 2026, and 12 recently approved charter schools have already closed.) “There continue to be serious concerns about TEA contracts, including 4,200 errors and hundreds of copyright violations that forced the TEA to spend $8.4 million to destroy and reprint copies of their new Bluebonnet curriculum materials.”
Ramos isn’t the only one questioning the size of the TEA. This week, former Republican state Rep. Glenn Rogers wrote about the same audit for the Dallas Morning News, pointing out that districts across the state are tightening their belts and even closing schools for lack of adequate funding. “Why is the TEA growing while 175 schools are closing?” he asked.
For its part, the TEA says it spends $40 billion a year to support school systems each year, and that the audit results “were extremely clean,” and that it was the “third leanest, most efficient state agency” when compared the more than 100 state agencies that have been audited. The agency also said in a statement to The Center Square that it has “already begun implementing identified improvements” spurred by the audit.”
You can see the full audit here.