There are only 24 more days left in the 86th legislative session and budget conferees are already meeting on House Bill 1, the state’s biennial budget, and negotiating which public programs will receive state funding over the next two years. The House budget proposes $251 billion and includes a $2.3 billion withdrawal from the state’s Rainy Day fund. The Senate proposes $248 billion, about $3 billion less, but doesn’t include tapping the state’s savings account,
Your Chamber CEO Richard Perez was in Austin Wednesday meeting with conferees to highlight the Chamber’s top budget priorities, including tuition revenue bonds, the Defense Economic Adjustment Assistance Grant (DEAAG), the Texas Emissions Reduction Plan, public education, transportation and the Texas Enterprise Fund.
Tuition Revenue Bonds
The Chamber supports authorization of the issuance of revenue bonds at Texas institutions of higher education, specifically:
- Texas A&M University San Antonio (TAMU-SA) - $53 million for a new Academic and Library building.
- The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) - $126 million to expand the College of Business in the heart of downtown Bexar County.
- The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UTHSC-SA) - $82 million for a new Institute for Alzheimer's and Neurodegenerative Diseases building.
Collectively, these three universities enroll more than 42,000 students (UTSA 32,600; UT Health 3,000; TAMU-SA 6,500). Each has a unique contribution to our County and to the State of Texas, and they all have a common need to provide more services to our growing population. Therefore, Tuition Revenue Bonds are crucial to ensure that students have the needed classrooms and instructional and research labs and that patients have access to the best medical facilities and medical personnel.
Defense Economic Adjustment Assistance Grant
The Chamber strongly supports an appropriation of $50 million for the Fiscal 2020-2021 biennium for the DEAAG program administered by the Governor's Texas Military Preparedness Commission (TMPC). We advocate for continued access to the program for Defense Base Development Authorities (DBDAs) for base redevelopment activities. This invaluable investment allows our community to utilize the DEAAG to further economic growth and development of our region, as well as to benefit our critical Military missions.
HB 1 authorizes an appropriation of $50 million for DEEAG to be funded from the Rainy Day Fund. We asked budget conferees to instead make a direct $50 million stand-alone appropriation to DEAAG in the General Appropriations Act for FY 2020-2021. Additionally, we recommended placing the program as a line-item for continued funding in the future, so that it will not compete internally with tourism promotion, moving image industry incentives, economic development incentives, and university research initiatives.
Texas Emissions Reduction Plan
The Chamber supports the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) Rider 7 language providing funding for local air quality in 10 regions of the State. The San Antonio region has received funding for these activities since the inception of the program. Bexar County has now been designated by EPA to be in non-attainment and is, therefore, not eligible for the funds. However, the remaining seven counties in the San Antonio MSA remain in near non-attainment and would continue to greatly benefit from the allowable activities. Those counties are Atascosa, Bandera, Comal, Guadalupe, Kendall, Medina, and Wilson, and they are at risk of increasing ozone levels with the significant population growth and continued economic development activity. The Senate Bill does not include funding for the additional seven counties in the San Antonio MSA, so we urged conferees to adopt the House language.
Public Education
The Chamber supports substantially increasing state funding for a strong Texas public education system that sustains the Texas economy, workforce needs, and equity in educational excellence for all Texas students. We support the $9 billion allocation supported by both the Senate and the House even though the mechanics and distribution of funds vary greatly. We support the increased funding to provide the maximum amount of resources available to the basic allotment, full-day prekindergarten, student-specific allotments, and recapture reduction. This will have a lasting impact on our future generations.
Transportation
The Chamber supports the funding and implementation of Propositions 1 and 7, as well as continued policy of non-diversion of revenue from the State Highway Fund. We asked conferees to support an increase in the TxDOT biennial budget, an estimated $26.5 billion (2018-2019) to $32.2 billion (2020-2021).
Texas Enterprise Fund
The Chamber supports funding the TEF at an increased level for the 2018-2019 biennium and efforts to improve transparency in the program. We oppose elimination of the fund and/or legislation that imposes mandatory funding set aside for certain geographic regions or industries. We stressed to conferees just how important a deal-closing tool the TEF is for San Antonio and for Texas.
You can count on your Chamber to keep you informed on the Texas Legislative Session. Contact Stephanie Reyes, VP of Public Policy, at sreyes@sachamber.org for more information.
