Weekly Summary
Legislators have been filing less bills compared to last year, but the ones that have gotten through are overhauling everything from water access to education. The Texas budget is in better shape than 2 years ago but lawmakers are trying to stay within the conservative spending limits prescribed by Texas leadership. Many are criticizing Gov. Perry and Comptroller Combs’ remarks about tax relief, arguing that legislators ought to be restoring funding to social services that were gutted during the last session. Still, others worry that the new agencies and programs proposed to tackle water and infrastructure issues will end up like the embattled CPRIT.
The House Appropriations Committee met this week and reviewed the state economy and budget. Ursula Parks, Director of the Legislative Budget Board gave an overview of the House appropriations bill (HB 1) and provided information on items in the supplemental appropriations bill (HB 10), which total $6,784 million including:
- Medicaid and CHIP: fully fund 24 months of payments – $4,523 million
- Foundation School Program: reverse deferral – $1,750 million
- Foundation School Program: fully fund FY 2013 – $317 million
- Texas A&M Forest Service: wildfire costs – $155 million
- Department of Criminal Justice: correctional managed care – $39 million
In healthcare news, the tug-of-war between opponents and advocates of Medicaid expansion continues. $100 billion and millions of low-income residents have stakes in how the state handles the Affordable Care Act. CPRIT has come under attack again as an investigative committee found that $1.3 million was improperly spent by the top grantee. Other state funds, like the Emerging Technology Fund, are also under scrutiny as investments have not been paying out as predicted.
The 15% rule in Texas high schools nears the end of its life. Public Education Committee Chairman Rep. Aycock has filed HB 5: a comprehensive bill that overhauls assessment, graduation requirements, and state accountability. The law would eliminate three different graduation programs (minimum, recommended, advanced) for one diploma called the foundation high school program. Students would need 24 credits and could specialize in humanities, STEM, business, or public services.
Judge Dietz, presiding over the state education finance lawsuits, made a quick decision this week. He ruled the state’s formula of funding schools to be unconstitutional. By making a judgment in favor of over 700 school districts, Dietz called the system inadequate and inequitable. The state will appeal the decision and the last words will be had by the Texas Supreme Court.
News of the Week
Good Times or Bad, the Texas Budget is Tight
Two years ago, Texas lawmakers didn’t have enough money to spend. Now, it seems, they can’t spend all the money they have.
Watson Criticizes Combs, Tax Subsidy Programs
State Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, criticized Republican Comptroller Susan Combs on Wednesday, saying she had a “cavalier” approach to doling out millions of dollars in tax incentives, including the award eventually granted to the promoters of F1 auto racing.
Rick Perry Calls for More Funds for I-69 Project
State transportation officials and advocates stood with Gov. Rick Perry at a news conference Wednesday to tout the early progress in developing the Texas portion of a new interstate highway system while warning that more funding was needed for the $16 billion project to continue.
Groups Bank on United Front in Gambling Push
Despite persistent political resistance inside and outside the Legislature, the push to expand gambling options in the state is back on this legislative session, and the various gaming interests — which have often competed against one another in previous sessions — say a renewed focus on collaboration should help in their goal of expanding gambling for the first time in more than two decades.
Preventing the Texas Water Plan From Becoming a Boondoggle
Texas lawmakers appear to be ready to start seriously funding water development and conservation in the state. They’re looking at creating a state-run program, with billions of dollars.
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Medicaid Expansion in Spotlight as Session Heats Up
Will Texas expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act? That’s the $100 billion question at the Capitol this session. The state’s Republican leadership says no, but supporters of federal health care reform may be gaining traction.
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Bill is a step back from rigorous public schools in Texas
Two decades of student assessment and school performance standards in Texas have slowly but steadily raised the bar for educational achievement. A step back may now be necessary, but not without calling it what it is. It’s a decision to make schoolwork easier. Those who say education systems in other countries have surpassed those here should take notice.
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House education leaders call for sharp reduction in STAAR tests
Under legislation introduced Wednesday by the new chairman of the state House Public Education Committee, the number of exams required to graduate from high school would drop from 15 to 5.
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Reset state’s testing system
The widely dreaded and despised 15 percent rule, the high-stakes standardized testing reform designed to have 15 end-of-course exams count 15 percent toward a student’s final grade, is dead in the Texas Senate. On Wednesday, senators approved Senate Bill 135, the first bill of the 2013 Legislature to pass either chamber, killing the rule.
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Aycock Proposes New Testing, Graduation Requirements
Aycock’s proposal, House Bill 5, would move public schools to an accountability system with grades of A through F, a concept that has drawn support from Sen. Dan Patrick and Texas Education Commissioner Michael Williams. It would also significantly reduce the number of standardized tests students must pass to graduate.
School Finance Ruling Favors Districts
In a decision certain to be appealed to the Texas Supreme Court, state district Judge John Dietz ruled Monday in favor of more than 600 school districts on all of their major claims against the state’s school finance system. With a swift ruling issued from the bench shortly after the state finished its closing arguments, Dietz said that the state does not adequately or efficiently fund public schools — and that it has created an unconstitutional de-facto property tax in shifting the burden of paying for them to the local level.
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CPRIT’S top grantee improperly spent $1.3 million, legislators told
The recipient of the biggest grant given by the state’s cancer-fighting agency had spent $1.3 million — or one-sixth of its taxpayer money — on nonallowable costs such as bonuses, moving expenses and honorariums for board members before it ceased operations, Texas lawmakers were told Wednesday.
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Perry’s tech fund faces $6 million in potential losses
An annual report released last week shows that unless the state somehow gets its money back from failed projects, the Emerging Technology Fund now stands at $2.4 million above what the state has put in — down from $4.6 million a year ago.
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Soda tax would sweeten education budget
A San Antonio lawmaker has filed a bill that would levy a penny-per-ounce tax on sugary drinks, a move he says would raise up to $2 billion in public education funding.
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Is there a win-win for Perry-Abbott?
But one GOP official floated the possibility of a “bizarre” twist — “that Perry indeed runs again (for governor) but has a ‘wink-wink’ with Abbott that he’ll step down to seek the presidency in 2016, thus elevating the lieutenant governor.”
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Immigration bills dwindle at Texas Legislature
Two years ago, state lawmakers filed about six dozen bills dealing with illegal immigration. So far this year, the count is in the single digits.
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Texas Ethics Reform: A Long, Tortured History
As the Sharpstown scandal unfolded, a harsh light exposed some of the darkest corners of state government, where lobbyists doled out money in exchange for legislative action, lawmakers enriched themselves with tax dollars and weak disclosure rules ensured the public did not know about it.
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Dallas state Rep. Jason Villalba draws fire from conservatives over health care law
Rep. Jason Villalba recently got a lesson about softening on the issue of Obamacare: Never, ever do it.
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As Turner bemoans structural deficit, Pitts says amen (sort of)
Past is prologue, and the tax cuts of 2006 keep haunting state budget writers, House Appropriations Committee Vice Chairman Sylvester Turner said Monday.
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Despite Reforms, Some Elected Officials Still Lobby
In some cases, legislators have worked to help clients gain favorable outcomes from elected bodies in their legislative districts. In others, an elected official’s work as a lawyer has blurred the line between lobbying and legal advocacy.
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Feds enter investigation into Dewhurst campaign embezzlement case
Federal authorities are investigating whether Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst’s former campaign manager stole at least $1 million from political accounts in Dewhurst’s unsuccessful run for U.S. Senate, on top of an ongoing state inquiry into missing state campaign money, officials revealed Thursday.
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Two Bills, Two Different Futures For the System Benefit Fund
State Senator John Carona (R-Dallas) filed two bills recently related to the massive, unused benefit fund. One of those bills would realign the fund with its originally intended purpose, to help low income and senior citizens pay their utility bills.
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Texas consumer advocate moves to block State Farm homeowner rate hike
The state consumer advocate for insurance moved Wednesday to block State Farm’s 20 percent increase in homeowners premiums, calling the new rates by the state’s largest insurer excessive and unreasonable.
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Speaker Joe Straus warns school voucher proposals might not see House vote
House Speaker Joe Straus warned the Senate on Wednesday that if it passes a divisive school voucher bill, the measure might not reach a vote in the House.
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Legislators filing fewer bills this session
So far this year, state senators have filed 33 percent fewer bills and joint resolutions, and House members about 15 percent fewer, than during the same time period last session, according to the respective chambers’ clerks.
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