by THE TEXAS TRIBUNE STAFF
The 82nd Texas Legislature’s regular session ends as it started, with lawmakers arguing about a shrunken state budget and redistricting. With Republicans operating with a supermajority in the House and a commanding majority in the Senate, there was little doubt that the GOP would be able to impose its will.
Here’s a rundown on some of the key issues and the key players involved:
Budget
It’s hard to write a budget when the state is short of money and lawmakers insist up front that they will stay out of the state’s savings account and not raise taxes.
They did it, but only by cutting a record $15.2 billion from current spending, including a $4 billion reduction in what public education would get under current law, and setting aside $4.8 billion in expected Medicaid spending in hopes that the federal laws or the economy will change before they have to spend that money in 2013.
The budget process limped to the end of the session — with lawmakers approving the budget on Saturday — dependent on related legislation pulling $3.2 billion from the state’s Rainy Day Fund so the state wouldn’t default on bills for the current budget, but using none of it to help close the huge shortfall for 2012-13. That balancing act required some money from a combination of deferred payments and accelerated tax collections and other tricks, cuts to programs throughout state government, and rosy forecasts that lower the price tags on programs where costs are rising with the state population, inflation and participation rates.
As local school districts write their own budgets and decide their tax rates for the coming school year, state lawmakers will learn how their public education cuts and new formulas for state aid to local schools translate back home. And they will face re-election — in new political maps — on the basis of the reactions to those and other provisions of the two-year spending plan.
— Ross Ramsey
Public Education
The legislative session brought public schools one drastic change — $4 billion less in state financing — but not much else.
Many lawmakers entered the session with hopes that the spartan budget could propel reform in school finance and education policy. But even legislation billed as a method to help school districts cope with the deep cuts stalled. Measures that singled out often-criticized “unfunded mandates” — state regulations on class size, furloughs and layoffs championed by education leaders in both chambers but fiercely opposed by teachers associations — died one after another.
Lawmakers did succeed in passing a bill that expands the definition of bullying, an issue that has drawn much public attention after a spate of bullying-related suicides. But they declined to include any mention of bullying related to sexual orientation or perceived sexual orientation — the cause of some of the recent suicides. HB 1942 from Rep. Diane Patrick, R-Arlington, does add cyberbullying to the books, however, and gives school districts more flexibility in how they address aggressive behavior in the classroom.
As of Saturday morning, chief negotiators from both chambers had reached agreement on school financing formulas. The plan, which awaits approval from the full Legislature, avoids any extensive policy overhaul, leaving that for lawmakers to study over the interim and take up during the 83rd Legislature.
Higher Education
Members of the state’s higher education community grappled with how to raise productivity — higher graduation rates, more efficiency in teaching — while cutting their budgets as a result of reductions in state financing.
The cuts, though not quite as deep as originally proposed, still sting. A 25 percent reduction in money for special items not contained within basic financing formulas hit the state’s smaller universities particularly hard. Lawmakers tried to provide relief by eliminating some unfunded mandates.
Additionally, they approved the development of a financing system for colleges and universities that rewards outcomes like higher graduation rates. They also consented to giving high-achieving students priority access to the state’s primary need-based grant program, which will be available to nearly 29,000 fewer would-be students in the next two years.
But the real excitement occurred outside the legislative chambers. Actions by the chairman of the University of Texas System Board of Regents, Gene Powell, unexpectedly provoked an intense statewide examination into the behind-the-scenes influence of a small group of individuals — Gov. Rick Perry and his allies at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative research organization, who have pushed the state’s public university systems to embrace a set of proposals that they say would increase transparency, efficiency and accountability.
Critics of the proposals say they are anti-intellectual and would be especially damaging to the state’s flagship institutions. The controversy prompted the formation of a new Joint Oversight Committee on Higher Education Governance, Excellence and Transparency led by Rep. Dan Branch, R-Dallas, and Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo.
— Reeve Hamilton
