The budget allots $213.69 billion total for fiscal years 2018-19 and 2019-20. Approximately $106.31 billion of this comes from the General Revenue fund, which is collected by-and-large from sales taxes, or in-state revenue.
In January, Comptroller Glenn Hegar, Texas' chief financial officer, declared there would only be $104.87 billion to spend in the next biennium from the General Revenue fund, due to slumps in oil and gas prices and a portion of sales that that was already appropriated.
The Senate pulled from these seemingly already appropriated funds by delaying its revenue delivery. The money had been promised to the Texas Department of Transportation after voters overwhelmingly approved the appropriation via a ballot proposition in 2015.
The Senate Finance Committee delayed the funds that would have been delivered to TxDOT in 2019 to the first month of FY 2020-21, freeing up about $2.5 billion to spend in the coming two years.
While the budget is still in the works, as Senate Finance Committee Chairwoman Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, repeated throughout Tuesday afternoon, some of the cuts as they are written could have large implications.
Here are some highlights of the bill that could impact you:
- The committee eliminated all funding to higher education special items. Sen. Larry Taylor, R-Friendswood, said this maneuver cut out roughly $1.1 billion in items that have been around for decades without proper justification. Some universities claim these special items help form their base budgets, and ultimately the budget as it stands cuts funding to higher education institutions anywhere from 6 to 10 percent.
- The amount of funds allotted per student in public schools has not changed from last session or the session before, according to Sen. Jose Rodriguez, D-El Paso. Taylor, who chairs the Senate Public Education Committee, said his group will continue to look at solutions for a broken school finance system in the interim session but does not foresee a fix being implemented in the coming month. Taylor said he believes the entire funding formula will have to be wiped clean and rebuilt.
- The committee allocated $316 million to fund a shortfall in the Teacher Retirement System pension program. At a hearing in January, officials with TRS requested an additional $1.35 billion in state funding and said without some sort of injection of funds, the TRS Care Trust Fund, the medical arm of the fund, could shut down.
- Nelson said Senate Bill 1 provides an additional $300 million for mental health services, including an appropriation of $65 million to end waitlists for community mental health services.
- The Senate draft budget does not pull from the Economic Stabilization Fund. The balance of this fund will likely sit at $11.9 billion at the end of FY 2019-20. The ESF has only been tapped seven times before.
The House budget is also undergoing a committee process in its own chamber. There are two House Appropriations Committee meetings scheduled on House bills 1 and 2 for Wednesday and Thursday.
Still curious about how the budget works? Check out our explainer here.
