Budget Heads to Conference
April 16th, 2007 at 7:20 pm
The CPPP recently published a handy chart that compares the House and Senate budgets side by side. As is frequently noted, but can’t be understated, these documents are the starting point of negotiations for the closed-door conference committee that really produces the final budget. With the chart’s help, here’s how things shook out on a few contentious issues we previewed last week.
CHIP
House: $2.1 billion All Funds, $630 million in General Revenue.
Senate: $1.8 billion All Funds, $575 million in General Revenue.
The House is at least trying to get CHIP back to where it was before the great slash and burn of the 2003 session. That means removing some of the restrictive eligibility requirements and other restorations, outlined in HB 109, which would at least get enrollment moving back up toward it’s 2003 levels. The Senate, though, seems content with standards enacted during a supposed budget crisis when, today, the state enjoys some of the best budget health its ever seen.
Raises for Teachers
House: Passed an $800 across-the-board raise for all teachers and staff and eliminated the merit-pay program.
Senate: Preserved the state’s $100 million merit-pay program, with no across-the-board raises.
Despite speculation that the Senate might double dip and pony up for both the pay raise and merit pay, in the end only the status quo, merit pay, prevailed — despite the objections of the state’s teachers. For many Republicans, though, fighting the teachers is a good thing. In general, both chambers budgeted $25 billion, all funds, for public education. The Senate did kick in $100 million more in facilities than the House, for a total of $1.7 billion for facilities.
Vouchers
House: Made a big splash when it overwhelmingly voted for an amendment to keep any public money from going to voucher programs.
Senate: No such luck. The Senate, known for being kinder to “school choice” charades, still has several voucher bills that could kick public money to private schools. SB 1000, a voucher program for austistic kids, seems to have the best chance of being the last visible sail of this sinking ship.
While the House voucher revolt and a number of other amendment victories were nice for symblic reasons, the Democratic enthusiasm is tempered. The always vocal Rep. Garnet Coleman told the Austin Chronicle the wins came too easy. The amendments “will be stripped off in conference. Then they’ll bring the conference report back and dare people to vote against the budget,” he predicted.
Prisons
House: Emphasized treatment programs as opposed to more incarceration. Surprisingly, no member even bothered to propose an amendment to build new prisons.
Senate: Actually called for more money for treatment/diversion programs than the House ($201 million to $154 million), but also planned three new prisons, funded by $283 million in bonds.
As Grits for Breakfast notes, “Once constructed these units would cost more than $100 million annually for operations and debt service, but those costs aren’t included in this biennium.” (He also has some good notes in that post on the large differences in spending on Perry’s border security program.)
This is only speculation, but whatever comes out of conference on prisons could be an indicator of how much sway Lite Guv Dewhurst still holds, since the prisons are his priority and the House seems to care for prisons about as much as vouchers at the moment.
April 17th, 2007 at 5:43 am
[…] expected as the House and Senate versions of the budget head to conference committee, as outlined below, is the Senate’s support for building three new prisons, spurred on by Lt. Gov. Dewhurst and […]