Budget deal doesn’t end debate

Lawmakers, advocacy groups begin skirmishing over spending decisions

AUSTIN — With a newly forged agreement on a state budget apparently poised for final approval, skirmishing began Sunday between lawmakers and advocacy groups over whether the proposed $218 billion spending blueprint shortchanges schools, cuts many programs and stiff-arms reforms.

Even the property-tax reform bill that was approved the day before to keep the final days of the session moving ahead became a target.

Still, legislative leaders remained confident that the session can end as scheduled next Monday as property-tax reform, the two-year budget and other key issues appear to be on a glide path to approval.

Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick hinted Sunday at a bill-signing event in The Woodlands that more work remains before legislators can go home. They appeared at Grace Church together so Abbott could publicly sign into law a bill that protects pastors’ sermons from government subpoenas, sparked by a case in Houston.

While Abbott told a reporter at one point things in Austin are “looking great,” he suggested that the property-tax reform measure might still need work.

“As you know, I want to see the rate rollback part of property taxes achieved,” Abbott told the Texas Tribune. “And so we still have more work to do on property taxes. The session is not yet over.”

While he would not discuss specific issues, Patrick told the churchgoers he wants the House to pass a “bathroom bill” before he’s willing to go home. “I’m willing to stay as long and until the place we’re staying in ... freezes over, until we get that bill” passed,

Patrick said during the ceremony. The proposal would require transgender people to use bathrooms in public schools and colleges and government buildings that correspond to their “biological sex” as listed on their birth certificate.

In Austin, Senate leaders hinted they might be as stubborn about getting automatic property tax rollback elections reinstated in the bill, after the House dropped them.

“Without Senate Bill 2 as passed by the Senate being considered by the full House, there will be no property tax relief coming out of the 85th regular session,” said Houston Sen. Paul Bettencourt, the Senate’s Republican leader and a Patrick lieutenant.

While the House-passed bill contains “useful transparency and taxpayer tools, they are not property tax relief,” said Bettencourt, echoing grumbling among other GOP senators.

House leaders indicated no interest in scheduling a vote on SB 2.

‘Works out fine’

Within hours after Senate Finance Committee Chair Jane Nelson confirmed the budget deal by announcing, “White smoke has emerged from our conclave, and we have reached a consensus,” the first skirmish erupted between Abbott and the budget panel.

The budget agreement gave Abbott $10 million of the $110 million he had sought for economic development programs in his office. When the shortage was discovered early Sunday, the governor dispatched a top aide to get it fixed.

Some Senate and House members on the budget-negotiations committee complained publicly that Abbott had come in with an 11th-hour demand for an additional $100 million, which his aides blamed on an error in final tallies.

The money was for the Enterprise Technology Fund, used to lure businesses to Texas, and the Governor’s University Research Initiative, used to attract top researchers.

“He clearly felt that he needed more in the area of his trusteed funds in order carry out some of the economic development,” House Appropriations Committee Chairman John Zerwas, R-Richmond, told reporters after the committee adjourned about 1 a.m. Sunday “If we had had a little bit more of a heads-up, we might have been able to make the accommodations. But it works out fine.”

On Sunday, legislative leaders said the additional funding will be added as a technical correction to the budget in coming days.

Sullivan speaks out

As that dispute was worked out, public education advocates on Sunday decried an announced move in the compromise budget to put more than $200 million into highquality pre-K programs as deceptive, since much of the funding appears to be coming from existing programs.

They called it an unfunded mandate. They said the latest compromise keeps traditional pre-K funding consistent with past years, but the budget document directs all pre-K programs to adhere to higher standards used in the grant program without any money to pay for it.

“There’s no way to enforce that and it’s going to be very hard to track,” said Chandra Villanueva, a senior policy analyst for the left-leaning Center for Public Policy Priorities.

Abbott, who had sought an additional $236 million for his high-quality prekindergarten initiative, received that funding in the budget, and he is satisfied, his aides said Sunday. Started two years ago, Abbott’s initiative this year awarded grants of $734 for each of about 190,000 students, representing about 86 percent of the state’s preschoolers.

Then, as the House was poised to take up the final round of key bills on Sunday to ensure no special session, Michael Quinn Sullivan, the president of Empower Texans and Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, blasted legislative leaders — especially House Speaker Joe Straus and his leadership team — for not passing a fiscally conservative agenda.

“Whether or not the Legislature is headed for a special session, too many reforms are being left behind or watered down in the regular session,” said Sullivan, often characterized as the most powerful non-elected political activist in Texas because of his clout among ultra-right conservatives who carry GOP primary elections. “All the ‘compromising’ seems to be away from the state’s conservative majority positions.”

Sullivan said the key to holding the line on conservatives’ agenda is the Senate.

“How firmly the Senate will hold to their conservative budget remains to be seen,” Sullivan said in an online fundraising message. He is a longtime critic of Straus and House leaders.

Jason Embry, Straus’ press secretary, said the speaker “is proud of the way that the House is working to finish the work of this legislative session.”