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It won鈥檛 be the budget that sends the Texas Legislature into a special session, if there is one. This weekend the two chambers approved a $217 billion, two-year budget.
The budget is the one piece of legislation that lawmakers are required to pass before the close of each legislative session.
鈥淚t grows overall spending by less than 1 percent. [It鈥檚 a] pretty tight budget,鈥� says Bob Garrett, an Austin bureau reporter for The Dallas Morning News.
About $1 billion of the budget comes from the Rainy Day Fund, the state鈥檚 savings account.
Garrett says that using a small portion of the nearly $12 billion in available Rainy Day money marked a compromise between the House and Senate.
The budget boosts funding to Child Protective Services.
鈥淸CPS] was one of the clear winners,鈥� Garrett says of the more than $500 million in additional funds to the agency, which will allow it to hire 600 employees.
鈥淭hey have a new lease on life to try and get turnover down and improve investigations on the front-end and improve foster care on the back-end,鈥� he says.
Democrats criticized the budget as a missed opportunity to fund public schools.
鈥淸Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick] and the Senate demanded a school voucher-type experiment and the House said no,鈥� Garrett says. 鈥淭he Senate and Patrick made extra school funding the price of that.鈥�
While the budget includes funding to cover growing public school enrollment across the state, it reduces state school funding by nearly $1 billion, which will be offset by local property taxes.
鈥淸Lawmakers] are shifting the burden increasingly to local property taxpayers for schools and that鈥檚 the real driver for unhappiness about property taxes,鈥� Garrett says.
Written by Molly Smith.
