This report focuses on Senate Finance discussion of HB 1 and SB 1013.
CSHB 1 – Nelson, general appropriations bill
- Wanted to pass a “responsible budget” that met the needs of the legislature
- $107.4 billion total for General Revenue
- $4.5 billion in various tax relief
- $1.3 billion in additional transportation funding to end highway funding diversions, including $1.2 billion one time dedication from motor vehicle sales tax to highway fund
- Fully covered education enrollment growth, increased formulas by $1.2 billion by increasing basic allotment from $5,040 to $5,130 in 2016, $5,140 in 2017, $60 million dollars in math and reading training, $25 million for career counseling for students
- Fully funded Medicaid caseload and cost growth, $260 million increase for mental health programs over last biennium ($2.8 billion total), $50 million for women’s health, $60 million for medical education
- $811 million for border security
- $271 million for deferred maintenance
- $458 million increase for employee retirement system pension fund, including increasing state contribution to constitutional maximum of 10%
- Nelson’s goal is to have the bill out on the floor probably next Tuesday and then the bill will go to conference
John McGeady, LBB, on HB 1
- Introduces tables and graphs detailing substitute changes, contains percentage changes, will be available on the internet when HB 1 is voted out
- Nelson – Mentions 3 technical adjustments; method adjustment for Foundation School Program (GR increase and property tax relief fund decrease), Art. 9 allocations of $23.6 mil in GR and $24.7 in All Funds, Art. 11 represented in HB 1 with short caption and GR and All Funds mentioned
Substitute voted out, 15 ayes
- Sen. Chuy Hinojosa comments on the rarity of unanimous vote
SB 1013 – Bettencourt, relating to periodic zero-based budgeting for certain political subdivisions
- Substitute sets up a zero-based budgeting cycle for counties, school districts etc. every 12 years
James Quintero, Texas Public Policy Foundation, for SB 1013
- Very concerned with local public finance
- $205 billion in local debt outstanding, interest included is $330 billion, $12,500 per capita
- Texas is the 14th worst state in the US for property taxes
Dan Casey, Texas School Alliance, against SB 1013
- Concern about SB 1013 is cost and impact, very expensive to review budgets for school districts and schools will have difficulty zeroing spending
- Bettencourt – Could you repeat the statistics on property tax increase versus population increase
- Quintero – Property tax levies 188% percent, population increased 40%
- Bettencourt – What is the total property tax levy from the 18 school districts?
- Does not know
- Bettencourt – It’s “tens of billions of dollars,” spending is very significant and cost to review does not outweigh benefit
- Bettencourt – Many organizations are lean already, may not be as many savings as expected
- “Costly and time-consuming process,” zero-based budgeting is not a “huge success” at federal level and nearly impossible to zero-based budget for large organizations
- Bettencourt – Did you say you “did not find it to be unhelpful”?
- At times, but unsure that much money was saved
- Bettencourt – Texas did this in 2003, and the fact that any organization does not check line items for a dozen years breeds fraud, “budget scrubbing” will lead to definite savings
- Did not mean to give impression that process would be unhelpful
Patti Jones, Lubbock County Commissioner
- Lubbock county has a 5 year plan and has cleaned the budget regularly, has received awards for the cleanliness of budget
- Bettencourt – Lubbock seems to be “almost there” in terms of zero-based budget goal
Jim Allison, County Judges and Commissioners Assoc of Texas, against SB 1013
- Support the efforts to lower taxes, but mandatory bill that would effectively create a “separate” budget would not work to do this
- Suggestion is to review budgets through comptroller’s office and target much of the same review areas
- Bettencourt – Do you think there is a better way of doing this?
- There is a better way of doing this, better to have the cooperation of a county or local government and access to comptroller’s staff would be a more efficient and cost-effective route to go
- Found it more efficient to pick certain departments rather than blanket review at a scheduled period
SB 1013 pending