I believe the role of the Texas Legislature, in it's most simplistic terms, is to set rules, establish priorities and provide some funding for policies and programs deemed in the common good for the citizens of Texas. Along the way, I try to balance the competing interests of legitimate needs, my belief in the right of tax payers to keep the fruits of their labors (it's your money not the government's) and maximum enjoyment of their personal freedom. I hope the following highlights are informative on a few of the issues we wrestled with in the recently completed 76th legislative session. Thank you for showing an interest in your state's government.
A combination of explosive economic growth, creating an unexpected increase in tax revenue, plus a decrease in cost of some programs produced what some call a budget surplus. (Remembering it's your money; I call it excessive taxation!) For the 2000-2001 biennium, we adopted a $98.1 billion budget. Overall, education was the big winner this session with 75% of the total increase in general revenue funding going to public and higher education.
School Finance Victories. As I have repeatedly said since the day I announced my candidacy for office and throughout the 140 days of this session, school finance would be my major focus. It will be again, should you allow me to return in 2001. Even though I wasn't appointed to the education committee, like Texas A&M's 12th man, I became the 10th man on the 9 member Public Education Committee and considered it my fourth committee assignment. The 76th Legislature made significant progress in changing the landscape regarding the inequities of the Robin Hood tax scheme foisted upon the taxpayers of District 108 and other Chapter 41 schools. During the last few days of the session, after a brutal 135 days, our hard work paid off with some important success. The equalized wealth level was raised, for the first time ever, from $280,000 to $295,000. Following much heated debate, the "hold harmless" provision was made permanent. A new provision I introduced was inserted into the code, which allows our school districts to appropriately utilize the optional homestead exemption in calculating our weighted average wealth per student (WADA), a key number in determining the amount of our property tax money sent to Austin as "Robin Hood' funds. Only time will tell, but if the stars line up right and our school boards hold the line and don't increase our tax rate, we will see our first Robin Hood tax reduction. Otherwise, we will get that old line "Well our taxes would have been higher without it, so we did save you money!" . . . one of the rationalizations that causes the voting public to mistrust the political process and office holders in general. It is kind of like going broke saving money at the fire sale! Finally, we diffused an attempt to force us to raise taxes or cut programs in order to pay for the state mandated teacher pay raise.
Teachers' Pay Raises. A fully funded $1.7 billion was allotted so school teachers, nurses, librarians, and counselors will see their pay rise by at least $3,000, across the board, next year under S.B. 4.
Social Promotion Stopped. Also under S.B. 4, the school finance bill, the Legislature adopted Governor George Bush's plan to curb the morally corrupt practice of social promotion. The plan aims to ensure that students have the necessary academic skills before being promoted to the next level. The plan will begin in the next school year. Funding was provided for reading instruction to address deficiencies of students who are determined to be at risk for reading difficulties. The bill also provides a new $300 million for expansion of kindergarten education and "second-chance" high school programs for at risk 9th graders.
All told, $4.4 billion was added to the previous school funding formulas, making the state's portion of public school funding over $24 billion for the biennium.
Taxes Cut. A broad array of tax cuts was passed allowing individual citizens & corporations to keep some of their own money. The largest amount dedicated to tax relief is $1.2 billion, targeted to lowering school district property taxes by an average of about 6 cents per $100 valuation. Some of the tax relief will be provided by sending more state money to school construction, which should directly lower school district debt service taxes. In addition:
Plugging Into Electric Deregulation. Like water is a necessity to sustain life, reliable low cost electricity is a necessity of economic life. Texas has enjoyed some of the lowest cost and most reliable electrical power in the United States. We certainly should not do anything to jeopardize that position. The legislature specifically included provisions in the law to protect consumers, ensure reliability of electric service and require older power plants to reduce air pollution. Consumers should see electric bills drop in the near future. One of the most controversial and wide reaching pieces of legislation was S.B. 7, which allows competition in the $20 billion Texas electric utilities industry by 2002, freezes rates for investor-owned utilities and then lowers rates by 6 percent on January 1, 2002; allows municipal utilities and electric cooperatives to decide if and when to open their markets to competition; authorizes the Public Utility Commission to make rules to protect consumers; and forces older generators to meet current environmental rules by 2003 or be shut down. The bill also allows utilities to charge ratepayers extra for 15 years to recoup stranded costs; large customers will appropriately bear most of that cost.
Phone Fees. Building on the 1995 law that first allowed for competition in the local telephone service, the legislature adopted new provisions to further promote competition. Not to mention causing the most extensive lobbying through T.V. commercials I have ever witnessed! S.B. 560 continues a cap on local, basic phone rates until 2005 and gives Southwestern Bell greater freedom in setting prices for certain services. The 11.6 cents-a-minute access fee that Southwestern Bell charges long-distance companies to connect in-state long distance calls would be cut to 6.27 cents per minute. About half that reduction would be moved to another fee callers pay, but the bill requires long-distance companies to pass on the remaining savings to consumers. The reductions would occur in two phases: the first, by 1 cent per minute on September 1, 1999, and the second, by 2 cents per minute on the earlier of July 1, 2000 or the date of the company's entry into the interLATA long distance market.
Healthcare. Using $180 million from the State's tobacco settlement and over $400 million in federal funds the legislature responded to the federal mandate to provide healthcare to an estimated 450,000 uninsured children in Texas. The Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) has been established to be the safety net for those children who are over-qualified for Medicaid, yet do not have coverage because either it is not provided by their parents' employer or their parents cannot afford the coverage. For a child to qualify to receive CHIP funds, the child must be younger than 19 years of age, and the family income must be at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level. An attempt to streamline the application process for CHIP funds is embedded in the legislation by coordinating the CHIP application process with that of Medicaid and the Texas Healthy Kids Corporation. As a former healthcare professional I know that healthcare dollars spent during early childhood development will save many time the initial expense later in life. I consider this program an investment that should pay large dividends.
Crime. The legislature focused on juvenile crime with a number of new laws. A package of bills addressed gang violence by increasing coordination between local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies. All sexual assaults were classified as "3g" offenses, and offenders would be ineligible for court-ordered probation and would have to serve more of their sentence before being eligible for parole. A repeat sex offender will now be subject to electronic monitoring or a court may require behavioral treatment even upon completion of a prison sentence.
Y2K. Gov. Bush has signed into law S.B. 598, the Y2K law, which encourages users and sellers of computer products to focus resources on solutions. It encourages sellers to provide low-cost or no-cost solutions to Y2K problems, sets a blueprint for resolving Y2K disputes (preferably without litigation), and, if litigation ensues, encourages prompt resolution and discourages speculative litigation. We don't need frivolous lawsuits and do need solutions to the potential Y2K problems.
As always, I encourage you to contact to my office with your thoughts. Please contact my office at P.O. Box 2910, Austin, Texas, 78768-2910, or E-mail me at kenn.george@house.state.tx.us.