Capital Highlights
by ED STERLING
On Sunday, April 3, the Texas House of Representatives tentatively approved a state budget for 2012-2013 and sent it to the Senate for consideration.
The 1,000-plus page budget bill, HB 1, relies on funding cuts and “contingency riders” based on expected funding that would come through the passage of other legislation. If funding for certain items does not materialize, the state is under no obligation to pay for those items.
A Republican supermajority (101 seats to the Democrats’ 49 seats) dominated the voting. All but a few amendments offered by Democrats were rejected. Throughout the process, Democrats rose to protest language, that if adopted, would result in a loss of more than 300,000 state and private sector jobs by 2013, and deep cuts to nursing homes, pre-kindergarten programs, Medicaid, family planning services, mental health programs, higher education, and elementary and secondary education.
The Senate is working on its own version of the state budget, and if it passes, differences in the House and Senate bills must be worked out in a conference committee of five members of the Senate and five members of the House. An agreed-upon budget bill then would be voted on by the full House and full Senate. Republicans hold a majority in the 31-seat Senate: 19 seats to the Democrats’ 12.
Gov. Rick Perry is holding wild cards when all is said and done. The governor may send a bill back to the originating body for reconsideration – or sign it into law – or let it pass without his signature – or veto it.
Patches to current budget pass
It’s standard practice in a regular session of the Legislature for lawmakers to pass a supplemental appropriations bill, a measure to provide the state with enough money to pay bills in the remainder of a two-year budget cycle. This session, HB 4 is that bill, and the House passed it on April 1.
Instead of simply appropriating supplemental funding, HB 4 removes more than $1 billion from an array of state agencies, boards, commissions, courts and programs.
Also on April 1, the House passed HB 275, legislation peeling off $3 billion from the state’s $9 billion Rainy Day Fund. HB 275 covers the current revenue deficit of $4 billion by moving $3 billion from the Economic Stabilization Fund to the General Revenue Fund, and that, along with the $1 billion in cuts made by HB 4, forms enough of a patch to allow the state to make good on previously authorized expenditures.
Reasons voiced during floor debate as to the purpose for pulling money out of the Emergency Stabilization (“rainy day”) Fund included these: the worst economy since the Great Depression, the Legislature’s passage of property tax relief and an underperforming margins tax on business to pay for it, inaccurate state revenue forecasts by the comptroller, misdirected priorities, lack of leadership, etc.
One of many cuts drawing attention was the one taking about $75 million from 50 public junior and community colleges. Democrats pointed out that such cuts would put current and prospective students’ plans on hold indefinitely, curtail matching federal grants, and impede Texas’ mission to build an educated, competitive workforce.
Most cuts set forth in the bill came as a result of directives by Gov. Perry, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and House Speaker Joe Straus. Those three top officials ordered state agencies, boards, commissions and other entities to identify 7.5 percent in budget cuts to their own agencies over the last year and a half.
Ways & Means work lies ahead
Now, a state budget combines accepted obligations and a wish list. Lawmakers who write the state budget in effect are saying to Texans, “Here is what we’re going to do with the money, if we get it.”
It is the job of the tax-writing House Committee on Ways and Means, chaired by Rep. Harvey Hilderbran, R-Kerrville, to determine where the money is going to come from. Because the state budget bill contemplates no funding through new taxes or new revenue sources, and no more money from the Rainy Day Fund, Hilderbran and committee will be looking closely at tax collections, closing tax exemptions, and the increasing of fees and license costs.
Ed Sterling works for the Texas Press Association and follows the Legislature for the association.
