Texas State Comptroller of Public Accounts Glenn Hegar is preparing to give his once-every-two-years revenue estimate on Monday, signaling the start to the 85th session and the beginning of the budget debate. The Lone Star State is home to the world's 10th largest economy, but few Texans know how the state formulates its budget.
Here are the answers to all of your most important budget questions, including what a comptroller is, how the state takes budget requests and what the state is looking forward to this year budget-wise:
Who is the comptroller, and what does his office do?
Glenn Hegar was elected to the office of comptroller in November 2014. The comptroller is Texas’ chief financial officer, in charge of the world’s 10
th largest economy.
How does the budgeting process work?
In the spring or summer prior to the start of the session, the governor, speaker of the House and lieutenant governor work together to determine how the budget will have to change.
The state agencies then prepare Legislative Appropriations Requests, or sample budgets for what they would like to do in the next two years.
In the fall prior to the session, the Legislative Budget Board uses the requests to prepare a general appropriations bill draft that is filed in both the House and Senate.
Afterwards, the Senate Committee on Finance and House Committee on Appropriations independently hear testimony from state agencies and adjust their bills accordingly.
Each chamber votes on their respective versions of the bill, the Senate and the House work together to resolve differences, and the bill gets sent to the comptroller to be certified.
Why is the comptroller important to the state budget?
At the beginning of each session, the comptroller is required to make a revenue estimate, which projects how much revenue the state will receive during the next two years. This is important because Texas is constitutionally required to produce a balanced budget—one in which expenditures do not exceed revenue.
After the final budget bill gets sent to the comptroller, he or she must confirm that the projected revenue is enough to compensate for the amount of expenditures.
What happens after the budget bill is passed and signed in by the governor?
After being signed into the law, the budget is implemented on Sept. 1 of each odd-numbered year. The governor and Legislative Budget Board can shift funds between agencies or programs if necessary when the legislature is not in session.
What happened during the last session?
After 140 days in session, the Texas legislature passed a budget of $209.4 billion. The budget contains a $1.5 billion increase in public education funding, $61.2 billion for the state’s Medicaid program and $800 million devoted to border security.
What is this year’s outlook?
On June 30, Gov. Greg Abbott, Speaker Joe Straus and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick wrote to state agencies requesting they prepare budget proposals that cut expenditures by 4 percent (minus some exceptions that take up a large chunk of the state budget including public education, border safety and Child Protective Services).
Since then, several agencies have noted holes in their own budgets. Medicaid is lacking roughly $1.3 billion and the Teacher Retirement System needs $1.35 billion to cover costs for the next two years. The Texas Economic Stabilization Fund or “rainy day fund” contains roughly $10 billion to be used for budget deficits, a projected revenue shortfalls or any other purpose the Legislature deems fitting.
Revenue is expected to face a shortfall as 2016 totals consistently fell under what the revenue estimate initially projected. In 2016, the sales tax revenue fell 3.5 percent below expectations, oil production and regulation tax revenue dropped 7.6 percent below the projection and net revenue available for general purpose spending dipped 1.3 percent below the estimate.