The House Committee on Appropriations met on October 12 to take up ARPA funding bills SB 8 (Nelson), HB 160 (Wilson), and HB 161 (Capriglione). All bills were voted out during the hearing.
This report is intended to give you an overview and highlight of the discussions on the various topics taken up. It is not a verbatim transcript of the discussions but is based upon what was audible or understandable to the observer and the desire to get details out as quickly as possible with few errors or omissions.
SB 8 (Nelson) Relating to making appropriations of certain federal coronavirus relief money.
- Bonnen – Lays out CS, Capriglione will be speaking on health care portion and Wilson will be speaking on education
- $7.2b for unemployment insurance costs, $500.5m for COVID capital projects fund, $75m for broadband expansion
- $100m Dept. of Ag foodbanks
- $160m for Office of Governor Victims of Crime Program
- $200m for DIR cybersecurity
- $112m for agency shortfall
- $52.3m for sexual assault victims program
- $54.8m for crime victim compensation
- $150m for next-gen 911 service
- CS adopted
CSSB 8 voted out to full House (25-0)
HB 160 (Wilson) Relating to making supplemental appropriations for education initiatives, institutions, and related agencies and giving direction regarding appropriations.
- Wilson – Appropriating federal funds for educational purposes, intent is to support TRS and provide funding for Higher Education
- $286m for TRS-Care and ActiveCare
- $113.1m for THECB for expansion of mental health services through Consortium, via TCHATT
- $1b to National Research University fund
- Includes contingency rider for capital construction project bill, $325m for TRBs if a bill passes
- Toth – Why no support for junior colleges instead of universities
- Need to give Texas Commission on Community College Finance an opportunity to meet
- Toth – Better place to send funding
- Agree, but about timing and placing dollars at the right time in the right place; Gov. and Lt. Gov. have or are expected to provide selectees soon
- Toth – Even a 4-year liberal arts degree would give these colleges an opportunity to expand
- Yes, saw $25m for grant program
- Wu – During times of economic downturn, people tend to flock to 2-year schools; discussion revolved around expecting a bubble of enrollment in the Fall
- This was the discussion, but have seen mostly flat enrollment, opposite of what we saw in the 70s
- Holland – 3 items identical to SB 8, incl. TDEM, mental health funding, etc.
- Wanted to make sure we had a focus on those items, subject of bill is constrained
- Holland – Pot of money you’re taking from is same as in SB 8?
- Chair Bonnen – To clarify, CSSB 8 does not include those dollars, so no duplication
- Stucky – In the TRB portion, flagship institutions are receiving $75m aside from TWU; TWU is growing and provides needed nursing instruction
- TRB language is contingent on passage of a separate bill that would list which universities would receive which appropriation
- Howard – National Research University Fund states that methodology would be reset, could you explain?
- Chair Bonnen calls LBB staff up as a resource witness
- Wilson – When you look at $1b it added to an existing $800m balance, looked at per capita and resources available, want to ensure there isn’t duplication of effort
- Howard – Wondering what the change in methodology will be
- Jordan Smith, LBB – Not changing methodology for awards, just recognizing that $1b will increase $800m corpus
- Jarvis Johnson – How many universities will be able to take advantage of NRUF?
- Have 2 universities who have received and passed metrics
- Other universities will be able to take advantage of emerging universities, 8 total, 6 in emerging and 2 outside
- Jarvis Johnson – Other 6 will be able to follow the criteria? How do we know what the qualification is? Are there federal funds made available for national research?
- Yes, when we discussed the Article one of the topics was finding out what is available
- Jarvis Johnson – Room to add more universities to this? Many small universities that don’t fit criteria are hurting because of COVID
- Jarvis Johnson – Room to bolster?
- Yes, a lot of aspects not where we wanted them to be, as Chair of Article III, plans are off track; important to drive enrollment, but research within institutions is important to attract students and need ability to get federal fund and corporate investment
- Leveraging NRUF to give hope and incite students
- Jarvis Johnson – How do we get resources to universities that can’t already leverage these dollars? Hope is that we can bolster community colleges and others as COVID has ravaged these universities
- M Gonzalez – More than two universities that will receive NRUF
- Smith, LBB – Yes, there are 8, there are possibilities for others to be considered within the emerging
- Jarvis Johnson – Can you tell me those 8
- Texas Tech, University of Houston, UTD, UTA
- 4 more that haven’t met criteria yet: Texas State, UTEP, UTSA, and UNT
- Walle – Where would Hispanic serving universities and HBCUs be in this?
- Would be in a different cohort
- Walle – What is the criteria to meet NRUF?
- $45m in restricted funds, must demonstrate 4 additional optional criteria on academic status
- Walle – Could take years for schools like TSU to meet these criteria; very difficult to lift all boats when only some will benefit
- Walle – $286m for TRS-Care and ActiveCare, what would happen to retired teachers if we don’t?
- Wilson – Premium increases
- Walle – Do we have an idea of when that would happen?
- Brian Guthrie, TRS – Money set aside for TRS-Care would be used to provide a premium holiday, haven’t increased premiums
- Walle – What do you mean by a holiday?
- Not charging retirees for a number of months
- Reviewing premiums in April 2022, anticipating these will go up
- Dominguez – You would anticipate premiums increasing in 2023
- During review, expecting at least a 5% increase due to COVID expenses
- Dominguez – Amount to ActiveCare?
- $203m to TRS-ActiveCare
- Dominguez – How many months will teachers not have to pay? Savings to average teacher?
- Still calculating, $100-$150 per month for average teacher
- Dominguez – Trying to find language under which junior and community colleges are included?
- Wilson – Associated with TRBs if legislation passed
- Dominguez – Is any assistance going to junior or community colleges from this bill?
- No
- Dominguez – TRB bill subject to call for this special session?
- No
- Dominguez – Money then goes to treasury to be allocated in future?
- Correct
- Sherman – Anticipating lag in student enrollment; HBCUs make up 3% of universities in the US, 10% of African Americans attend HBCUs, but none of the listed universities are HBCUs
- Sherman – We have made it so these listed universities are recipients of these funds, often don’t consider HBCUs
- Wilson – Work hard to make sure research universities have coalition with HBCUs, seeing more endowments for research in partnership with flagship institutions; Prairieview is doing a great job
- Sherman – They are doing a great job with less
- Bell – There is a roadmap in place for partnerships that is already moving forward
- UTSA on cyber and UTEP in other areas did this as a coalition
- Toth – How long has it been since premiums went up?
- Guthrie, TRS – Since 2017
- Toth – Out of pocket expenses?
- Varies by member
- Toth – At the end of the day, money comes from the same place, raising out of pocket expenses to keep premiums down
- Yes
- Toth – So we’re not really keeping faith with retired teachers?
- Providing the best health care system we can with the resources available
- Morrison – Sen. Creighton had $20m for comprehensive regional universities, included HBCUs, not in here?
- Wilson – 27 regional universities have a lot of needs, but HB 160 doesn’t address this
- Minjarez – Need to think about roles community colleges play, concerning they are not included
HB 160 voted out to full House (22-3)
HB 161 (Capriglione) Relating to making supplemental appropriations relating to health and human services and giving direction regarding appropriations.
- Capriglione – $2b for hospital staffing at DSHS, $230m for Dallas State Hospital construction, $300m for frontline health worker grants, $75m for rural hospital grants, $20m for FQHC incubator
- Julie Johnson – Commends inclusion of full funding for Dallas State Hospital; concerned about funding for home health piece, necessary part of health care system
- Capriglione – Want to help home health, nursing homes, IDD providers, etc.
- Have a lot of priorities, but a limited amount of available dollars
- Julie Johnson – Do we have funds still available in ARPA to boost this line item
- Could take money from other allocations, but no more money available
- Rose – Senate put $200m into nursing homes, but we lowered to $150m?
- Comes down to priorities
- Dean – Passed a lot of items into Article XI in the hopes of funding in the future; need to look at SB 8 and bringing amounts up
- Wu – $3b in bill, roughly $20m for FQHCs; rural hospitals are getting slammed, sending more money to FQHCs could mean a larger overall cost savings than sending it somewhere else
- Top line/bottom line issue, $2b of the $2.6b is going to immediate hospital staffing needs
- Walle – $300m for one-time grants to frontline workers, $150m for nursing facility grants, $150m in grants for assisted living, home health, etc.; how do these work together?
- Victoria Grady, HHSC – Would seek legislative intent, but as we understand there would be distinct grant programs under the overall funding umbrella
- Don’t imagine there would be a single penny unspent as needs are significant
- Walle – $150m for nursing facilities and $150m for assisted living & home health?
- Typically set up an application process, different needs across different provider types
- Focused on one-time needs, COVID-related
- Walle – We’re still trying to figure out how we’re issuing, criteria, and amounts?
- Correct, 1.2k nursing facilities, pro rata allocation would be $125k per
- But part of grant dev will be determining if we should consider size of facility, staff employed, residents served; would look to legislature for intent
- Howard – Bill talks about reimbursement received from FEMA going to GR and not being appropriated until the 88th Legislature; don’t see surge staffing required for other hospitals that aren’t listed in the bill
- Howard – Wondering if there is a way to account for this in the interim considering potential for COVID surge
- Chair Bonnen calls up DSHS and LBB to speak on surge staffing and FEMA reimbursement
- Kirk Cole, DSHS – Bill is written as cashflow for DSHS, would be reimbursed by FEMA and then money would be returned to the state; provides for expenses through December
- Would need some adjustment to have this available to expend beyond December
- Howard – Is any funding available for alternative care sites?
- DSHS have been evaluating alternate care sites, not well used during pandemic overall; would depend on what the use is, e.g. not necessarily appropriate for ICUs
- Howard – Understand they weren’t utilized well in the past, possibly different with flu coming; could funding for these sites be possible?
- Possible, depending on needs, would cut into staffing funding or other DSHS funds like CRF, Medicaid, etc.
- Howard – Understands the priorities, other support is needed so Travis County isn’t funding the entire response; want to make sure there are options available to address needs
- Toth – Of the $2b, how much is going to regional infusion centers?
- Capriglione – Primarily hospital staffing
- Cole, DSHS – Roughly $80m for those infusion centers, TDEM also contracting for some as well, have some money for purchasing therapeutics
- Toth – What is DSHS doing to measure efficacy of these infusion centers?
- Looking at usage, have very high usage, not looking at treatment
- Toth – Have had 3.1k people go through Montgomery infusion center, many from Harris because they don’t want one; none of the people have gone to the hospital, this works & don’t understand why DSHS isn’t talking about
- We are, have opened centers and are working with TDEM to open more
- Providing staffing for the Houston Methodist in Harris County
- Antibodies, prevention activities, vaccines, all work together to
- Toth – Do these facilities require doctor’s recommendation?
- Yes
- Toth – Ours doesn’t, difficult to get a doctor’s referral in the 3-day time; why don’t we have Nurses giving referrals on site?
- Those provided by contractor have walk-in capability, also have a telemedicine option
- Ann Johnson – What is the cost for a vaccination?
- Nothing
- Ann Johnson – What is the cost to the state for someone to get vaccinated?
- Just cost for staffing contracts, divided by vaccines given
- Ann Johnson – Do you have cost for providing infusions?
- Could break that down by infusion center cost divided by infusions provided; actual antibodies are free
- Ann Johnson – So we don’t have indication on which is cheaper?
- Would need to run numbers, vaccination would be based on numbers alone
- Toth – Also seeing many in Montgomery that have been vaccinated
HB 161 voted out to full House (26-0)