BETO O’ROURKE | Amarillo Globe-News
Rural schools, hospitals, and families in the South Plains could soon see their phone and internet bills go up anywhere between $25-$175 per month because Gov. Greg Abbott and his appointees at the Public Utility Commission (PUC) have defunded the Texas Universal Service Fund.
That fund is a lifeline for many of those in the South Plains. Because of how expensive it is for telecommunications providers to offer phone and internet service in hard-to-reach areas, the Universal Service Fund subsidizes those providers, keeping costs affordable for rural consumers. In some places, it’s the only reason Texans are able to call 911, FaceTime with family, or do homework online.
While the state legislature passed a bipartisan bill earlier this year to force the PUC to fully fund the Universal Service Fund, Governor Abbott vetoed the bill in June, and the fate of the fund now depends on the results of an appellate court hearing that took place last week.
I was in Lubbock the day before the court hearing, and folks from the area shared with me that this rural telecommunications crisis threatens everything from education to healthcare access in counties like Crosby, Hale, Lynn, and the rest of rural Texas.
Rural schools are already cash-strapped. Texas places too heavy a burden on local taxpayers to fund our public education system, paying on average just 40% of what it costs a local school district to educate our kids. Rural districts with a smaller tax base are increasingly having to rely on live-streamed, virtual instruction when they can’t afford to hire instructors. So if the price of broadband goes up, they’ll have to do away with extracurricular programming, postpone teacher pay raises, or make some other cut at the detriment of student learning.
Rural health care is also at stake. Because Texas is one of just 12 states that have refused to expand Medicaid—leaving $100 billion in federal health care support on the table—more rural hospitals have closed in Texas than in any other state. One-third of Texas counties lack a hospital and one-fourth have only one doctor or no doctor at all. With these numbers, Texas already ranks last in the nation for rural access to care, and without affordable access to internet and telehealth services, many Texans will have zero health care options unless they’re able to drive over an hour away to the nearest hospital.
The crisis with the Universal Service Fund, the failure to fund rural schools, and the refusal to expand Medicaid are all part and parcel of a broader, concerning trend of state leadership turning their backs on rural Texans.
Rural communities produce the food, the fuel, and the fiber that power the rest of the state. They’ve played an outsized role in making Texas the 10th largest economy in the world. The quality of education, health care, job opportunities, and telecommunications services in these places are crucial to our success as a state. Yet state policy too rarely reflects that.
Just look at the way this state funds higher education through the Permanent University Fund. The state government has taken the wealth generated by 2.1 million acres of oil- and mineral-rich West Texas land and funneled it exclusively into the University of Texas and Texas A&M systems. It allowed those schools to amass two of the largest public university endowments in the entire country, all generated off of West Texas riches, while leaving Texas Tech and other West Texas universities out to dry.
None of this is right, and it doesn’t have to be this way.
A few weeks ago, I sat down with the extraordinary mayor of Stamford in Jones County. Mayor Decker told me that 68 percent of Jones County residents lack access to the most basic level of high-speed broadband, Stamford schools were struggling to recruit and retain teachers, the town’s population had declined by half in the past 60 years, and two of the county’s hospitals closed in 2018 and 2019. But something Mayor Decker told me, and it’s stayed with me since, is that local leaders know exactly how to overcome these challenges.
They don’t need a governor to “fix” anything for them, or to tell them what they need or to dictate how to lead. They just want a governor to partner with them and meet them halfway in making the investments needed to guarantee affordable phone and internet bills, equitable school funding, and life-saving health care access. That’s the only way we’re going to give young people a reason to stay, raise a family, start businesses, and create new jobs in these places.
That’s the only way that West Texas rural communities — and, in turn, the rest of Texas — will thrive.
Beto O’Rourke is a Democratic candidate running for governor of Texas.