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By R.G. RATCLIFFE
Houston Chronicle
April 7, 2005
Budget priorities debated, $140.9 billion would be spent in 2 House bills
AUSTIN - Texas House members wrangled Wednesday about priorities in two bills that would spend $140.9 billion in state and federal money to cover shortfalls in the current budget and establish the size of state government for 2006-07.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jim Pitts, R-Waco, extolled the budget for the next two years, saying it is a measure that meets Texas' needs without needing to raise taxes.
"Some Texans will think we're not spending enough. Some Texans will think we're spending too much," Pitts said. "The Appropriations Committee believes this budget is just right, reflecting our priorities, our needs and our revenues."
The House tentatively approved an emergency spending bill of $3.4 billion and began debate on a $137.5 billion budget for 2006-07.
Republicans said the budget plans increased state spending to cover population growth in health and human services programs as well as an increase in the number of students in public schools.
Democrats said the budget proposal falls short of restoring program cuts that occurred in 2003 when lawmakers slashed programs to balance the budget in the face of a $10 billion deficit.
The debate two years ago about whether to make those cuts or raise taxes was an emotionally charged affair and full of vitriolic rhetoric, but the fight Wednesday was a generally passionless battle.
In one of the few Democratic victories, the House agreed to Houstonian Senfronia Thompson's amendment to take $6.4 million a year from the state lottery marketing department and give it to poor people in nursing homes to buy supplies such as toothbrushes.
Rep. Jessica Farrar, D-Houston, failed in two attempts to take funding away from Gov. Rick Perry's economic development fund to pay for air-quality testing in Houston.
Farrar said she was reacting to a Houston Chronicle series on declining air quality in the city.
Farrar said improving air quality is important to Houston's economic future, but the House voted her amendments down by 104-32 and 107-34. Most Republicans and some Democrats voted against the proposals.
CHIP amendment rejected
Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, lost 83-58 on an amendment to add $140 million from Perry's economic development fund to the $1 billion Children's Health Insurance Program to restore enrollment rates.
Republicans saved money in the budget two years ago by changing eligibility periods for the program, causing participation to decline from 506,000 children in 2003 to 331,132 this year.
This year, the House leadership has put additional funding for CHIP in a budget wish list if additional state funding becomes available.
Coleman said his amendment would put a priority on children's health care over economic incentives for "Fortune 500 companies" to move to Texas.
"Let the children have the money," Coleman implored the House in vain.
The Senate has approved a $139.3 billion budget for 2006-07 but has not yet taken up an emergency appropriations bill for the current budget.
The House and Senate budgets are not directly comparable because the Senate includes public school enrollment growth and a child protective services overhaul in its budget while the House includes those spending items in its emergency spending bill.
The House budget also includes $3 billion for public school finance reform, which the Senate does not. The House and Senate are working on separate tax and school finance legislation to cut property taxes and provide state funding for public schools to eliminate or diminish the "Robin Hood" system of financial sharing among school districts.
Differences in the bills will be worked out in a conference committee once the House has given final approval to its legislation.
Dipped into special fundDespite complaints from Democrats during debate on the emergency spending bill, most voted for it in the end. The measure received tentative approval 137-8.
The $3.4 billion emergency spending bill is dedicated to covering shortfalls in the 2005 budget, as well as financing child protective services changes and public school enrollment growth for the next two years. The legislation was paid for in part with the state's so-called rainy day fund, an account of excess tax collections.
The emergency bill included $256 million for child protective services reform, and $1.1 billion for enrollment increase. It also covers a $463 million shortfall in the state Medicaid program and a $65.7 million shortfall in the Children's Health Insurance Program.
Democrats questioned putting some of the spending for the next budget cycle into the emergency appropriations bill, claiming it was a shell game to hide a level of total spending that exceeds available state revenues by $1 billion to $1.7 billion.
"You can't have a budget that you don't have the money to pay for," Coleman said.
House budget writers say the budgets will balance when other pieces of contingent legislation have passed.