“Governor, we’ve done it again—[a] three-peat,” Patrick said in his inaugural address.
Both speeches highlighted recent successes in Texas, including economic development, job growth and the unprecedented $32.7 billion budget surplus.
“Make no mistake, that surplus does not belong to the government,” Abbott said. “It belongs to the taxpayers. And we will use that budget surplus to provide the largest property tax cut in the history of the state of Texas.”
The Senate will release a budget this week, Patrick said, that would increase the state’s homestead exemption from $40,000 to $70,000. He said lawmakers will also consider increasing the property exemptions that small and midsize businesses receive.
“[We] will come together and will find a way that's long-term property tax relief with billions of dollars from this surplus because you come first; it's your money,” Patrick said.
Texas has one of the highest property tax rates in the nation. The state does not charge an income tax, so local property taxes are used to fund schools, city infrastructure, emergency services and more. A homestead exemption is a reduction in a portion of a home’s value for tax purposes.
“To ensure that our booming state can meet the needs of our future, we must work this session to bolster our infrastructure, including the roads that we drive on, the water that we use at home and in our fields, and the ports that we use to ship products around the entire globe,” Abbott said.
He also highlighted recent reforms to the state power grid. During the 2021 legislative session, lawmakers passed Senate Bills 2 and 3, which mandated a bulk of changes to the grid and its leadership, including the weatherization of power generation facilities.
“Since our bipartisan reforms, no Texan has lost power because of our grid,” Abbott said. “But we all know that increased demand is going to be placed on the grid as Texas continues to grow. So this session, we will build a grid that powers our state not for the next four years, but for the next 40 years.”
Patrick said strengthening the power grid is “the most important thing we can do.” He promised Texans that state leaders will create more capacity for natural gas and thermal energy this session.
Education and school choice
Patrick said lawmakers will increase salaries for teachers “because it should be a profession and not a job.”
According to a recent survey by the Texas State Teachers Association, the average annual salary for Texas teachers was $59,000 during the 2021-22 school year. This was roughly $7,000 below the national average of $66,397, according to the National Education Association. The TSTA reported a record 70% of teachers were seriously considering quitting their jobs after the last school year.
Abbott also discussed schools, stating they should be “for education, not indoctrination.”
“Schools should not be pushing social agendas,” Abbott said. “Our schools must get back to teaching our students the fundamentals.”
He pushed for school choice programs, under which parents could receive state money to help send their children to private or charter schools. Lawmakers have not successfully passed legislation for vouchers and other school choice programs in recent years despite support from state leaders.
“The governor and I are all in on school choice,” Patrick said.
Patrick said he will work with Abbott to “protect [rural] schools financially” and ensure they are not hurt by school choice programs.
Patrick suggested he would support legislation limiting the tenure of college professors who teach critical race theory. In 2021, lawmakers banned the teaching of critical race theory in K-12 schools under House Bill 3979.
“For those professors in the classroom every day, I don't want them teaching [that] if you're white, you're a racist, and if you're [a person] of color, you're a victim,” Patrick said. “I don't want teachers in our colleges saying America is evil and capitalism is bad and socialism is better. And if that means some of those professors who want to teach that don't come to Texas, I'm OK with that.”
School and public safety
Abbott said lawmakers will prioritize protecting students and staff and increasing access to mental health services in schools.
“Parents must know that their children are going to be safe when they drop them off at school every single morning,” Abbott said. “We will not end this session without making our schools safer.”
Since the deadly school shooting at Uvalde’s Robb Elementary School in May, Abbott and other state leaders have allocated funds to make schools more safe and secure, including $100 million for safety and mental health programs both in and outside of schools.
On June 1, one week after the shooting, Abbott ordered Patrick and House Speaker Dade Phelan to create special legislative committees that investigated school safety and mass violence.
Abbott did not mention the Uvalde shooting, which was the deadliest school shooting in Texas history, during his speech.
On public safety, Patrick said lawmakers will “spend hundreds of millions of dollars” to support rural law enforcement.
“We’ve got sheriffs [in rural counties] making $35,000 a year and deputies making $28,000, and people in rural Texas deserve the same law enforcement protection as we do anywhere else,” Patrick said.
Abbott said he would work with lawmakers to tighten bail policies and “impose mandatory sentences on criminals caught with guns.”
He also called for mandatory sentences for people caught smuggling illegal immigrants across the Texas-Mexico border. Abbott has signaled one of his major priorities is border security.
The governor’s office launched Operation Lone Star, a mission that aims to counter illegal immigration and the drug trade, in March 2021.
“Over the past two years, more illegal immigrants crossed our border than the populations of Austin, El Paso and Houston combined,” Abbott said.
He blamed the Biden administration for high levels of illegal immigration and the smuggling of fentanyl, a deadly opioid, into the United States. In October, Abbott launched the statewide “One Pill Kills” campaign, which focuses on the dangers of fentanyl poisoning. At the time, he told reporters that the Legislature would provide funding for Narcan, a medication used to reverse the effects of an opioid overdose.
Abbott said in his inauguration speech that lawmakers will take action to protect families from losing their loved ones to the drug.
The 88th Texas Legislature convened Jan. 10 and runs for 140 days through May 29.
