Services for poor at risk as state eyes cuts
Three GOP leaders steer trimming $1 billion from budget without Legislature’s approval
AUSTIN — As the Texas fiscal year closes amid the coronavirus pandemic, state agencies are quietly moving forward with budget cuts through a process controlled entirely by top Republicans, putting services for low-income Texans in jeopardy at a time advocates and some lawmakers say they are needed most.
More than $380 million in cuts were set for the fiscal year that ends today, without formal input from the Legislature, which negotiates the state budget. An additional $670 million is scheduled for the coming fiscal year, and nearly 5,000 full-time jobs are at risk over the biennium, according to a recent budget document obtained by the Chronicle.
The largest agencies, including the Texas Education Agency and the Health and Human Services Commission, have declined to say whether all the cuts for this fiscal year went into effect or exactly what’s on the table for 2021.
That lack of transparency has left providers and advocates in the dark about cuts to programs used by millions of vulnerable Texans — including specialized health care programs, oversight of child care facilities and the state’s system for enrolling children and families in services such as food stamps and Medicaid.
Under the proposals, donations to food banks and meal deliveries to senior citizens would be slashed through cuts to the Department of Agriculture. Rural hospitals would receive less money to make capital improvements and purchase updated medical equipment.
The University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University would downsize by more than $61 million, cutting hundreds of faculty and staff and scaling back research funding. Thousands of students would lose state-granted financial aid.
Rep. Sarah Davis, R-Houston and a member of the House Appropriations Committee, has repeatedly opposed cuts to health programs but says she hasn’t been able to get any firm answers
from top leaders or agency officials about the status of the reductions.
Some of the proposals — including cuts to services that help domestic violence survivors, child advocacy programs and adult care facilities — are “horrifying” in light of the pandemic, she said. Davis said she is unsure how some agencies are already planning to slash funds without lawmakers’ approval.
“There is a lot of grumbling that is taking place because the Legislature has historically held the power of the purse,” Davis said. “So, for changes to be made to a budget … without our input, it’s not the process that we’re used to.”
House Speaker Dennis Bonnen, Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick had asked agencies to submit proposals for 5 percent budget cuts in May as the coronavirus ravaged economic activity. Bonnen said officials asked agencies to present budget plans early on to allow them to cut from either fiscal year, possibly lessening the effect on fiscal year 2021.
Fall hearings
Typically, agencies move forward with cuts unless informally directed not to by top officials. Bonnen said some have already enacted “prudence cuts” in the current fiscal year — such as reductions to capital spending projects.
Under a statutory provision passed amid a 2011 budget crisis, the 10-member Legislative Budget Board is required to hold a public hearing to discuss interim cuts before they can be implemented. Bonnen’s staff indicated that such hearings will be held this fall.
Bonnen, who chairs the board alongside Patrick, noted that in-person hearings have been difficult because of the pandemic, though agencies have been holding virtual meetings for other issues.
Aides for Patrick and Abbott did not respond to requests for comment.
Bonnen said some of the most hot-button proposals are not yet finalized, including cuts to women’s health programs, which have elicited the most outcry from advocates. The reductions are “all being discussed,” he said, while warning that the 5 percent cuts are likely only the beginning as the state faces an increasingly grim financial picture.
The Department of Public Safety, the Texas Military Department and the Department of State Health Services, which is managing the pandemic response, are among the entities exempted from cuts.
$4.6B deficit
In July, the state comptroller estimated an $11 billion loss in revenue attributable to the pandemic, creating a deficit of roughly $4.6 billion. That could grow even bigger as the pandemic plays out in the coming months. Infections have slowed after a summer surge, but public health experts worry they could grow as schools reopen for the fall.
“I recommend everyone quit losing their minds because that number — they’re going to wish that’s all they had to cut,” Bonnen said.
The Health and Human Services Commission said in a statement that its reductions are not final and that it is working closely with “the governor, the Legislature and stakeholders to make sure all budget decisions put Texans first.”
The Texas Supreme Court plans to slash $1.2 million from legal aid for low-income families, $900,000 of which is slated for 2021. The Department of Criminal Justice is considering laying off hundreds of parole officers and support staff to save more than $7 million next fiscal year.
While most of the $3.8 million in cuts to women’s health programs are scheduled to begin during or after November, providers have not heard how much funding they’ll have until then to spend on critical services such as contraception and cancer screenings. By the fall, the funding for some could be eliminated entirely.
“It would be extremely devastating to our entire community,” said Martha Zuniga, who manages a network of family planning clinics in and around Corpus Christi. Since March, her staff has taken in an influx of patients as county health departments and other entities have become overwhelmed by the pandemic response. About 70 percent of their revenue comes from the state, she said.
“If I lose funding, I’ll probably have to cut several clinics,” Zuniga said.
Some family planning providers are still rebuilding from funding cuts during the 2011 crisis, which resulted in 84 clinics closing. Evelyn Delgado, a former state health official who now heads advocacy group Healthy Futures of Texas, said women who don’t have access to effective contraception are 38 percent more likely to have an unplanned pregnancy. And of those, more than half end up being paid for by the state.
“Not only is it an impact for that woman’s future, but also to the state financial impact,” she said.
$434M cut to education
Rep. Donna Howard, DAustin, a nurse and vocal family planning advocate who sits on the appropriations committee, said she and others have asked Bonnen to include them in the budget discussions, to no avail.
“The response we got was we could do whatever we wanted in our committee hearings, which there have been none,” she said.
The appropriations committee has not met, and its chair, Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, R-Southlake, declined to comment.
Though public education was spared from the 5 percent rollbacks, higher education took one of the largest hits in the proposed budget adjustments.
More than $250 million in cuts are proposed to come directly from higher education institutions, more than half of the $434 million slashed from education programs statewide.
“These are substantial cuts, and the result is that you see many institutions, unfortunately, implementing layoffs, not filling vacant positions and in some cases mandatory furloughs for staff,” said Rep. Chris Turner, D-Grand Prairie, chair of the House Education Committee. “All of those things compound to create a very challenging budget environment for our colleges and universities.”
Bonnen said the budget planning is “being done exactly as it always is — it’s being done transparently and openly.” He said activists, who lobby for the same causes year after year, “pretend to somehow not understand the process when they don’t like it.”
Eva DeLuna, a budget analyst with left-leaning think tank Every Texan, said the slew of cuts in 2011, which followed the Great Recession, were “pretty publicly understood.” This time, though, “nobody knows what’s being cut or if it already happened.”
“The everyday person has trouble understanding the budget in normal times,” DeLuna said. “It’s just kind of closed, generally, even to legislators who are on the budget committees. This just makes it even more difficult to advocate.”
In practice, advocates and lawmakers say the reductions will undercut essential programs at a critical time, as unemployment is high and many Texans are newly uninsured. That includes programs such as “respite services” for lowincome families who need help caring for children with complex medical needs.
Jolene Sanders, the advocacy director for the Coalition of Texans with Disabilities, said the program is a last resort for many struggling families and indirectly helps prevent against child neglect and abuse. It stands to lose all its annual funding — $400,000.
“These families are particularly now under enormous amounts of stress. They’ve either lost their jobs or have children with complex medical needs,” Sanders said, adding, “It’s not this nice thing where mom goes to the spa. This is a critical piece of this system to prevent abuse and neglect of children.”