March 28, 2007

Democrats Say State Budget Shortchanges
Schools and Kids and Ignores TYC Scandal

By Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside Editor

A group of Texas House Democrats delivered a blistering assessment Wednesday of the Republican leadership's proposed state budget as a plan that would cut funding for the scandal-plagued Texas Youth Commission while shortchanging public school teachers, college students, senior citizens and children whose families can't afford health insurance.

On the eve of the House floor debate on a $150 billion two-year state spending plan, Democratic leaders said they have no plans to offer a full floor substitute like they did in the school finance battle in special session two years ago. But the Democrats indicated that they'd be giving their colleagues substantial opportunity to shift funds to items they see as higher priorities within the parameters of a Calendars Committee rule that prohibits the bill's bottom line from growing beyond the total amount approved by the Appropriations Committee.

State Rep. Pete Gallego, an Alpine Democrat who chairs the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, said House Bill 1 in its current form would leave TYC spending at 2003 despite a sexual abuse scandal that has rocked the juvenile corrections agency and sent shock waves through the Texas Capitol.

State Rep. Ana Hernandez of Houston accused Republican budget-writers of essentially ignoring the explosive situation at the youth commission at a time when it's quickly become the biggest crisis facing the state. Hernandez called the proposed spending on TYC "inexcusable" and "unconscionable."

The spending bill that's being sponsored by State Rep. Warren Chisum, a Pampa Republican in his first year as the Appropriations Committee chairman, would leave fewer Texas children with Medicaid and CHIP benefits instead of boosting the number of kids who have health coverage, State Rep. Garnet Coleman of Houston asserted. Coleman said health and human services spending in 2008 and 2009 would be about the same as it had been in the last budget that the Legislature approved when Democrats still controlled the lower chamber in 2001.

Coleman said that Republicans had found a way to spend a record amount of money without getting more in return than the state had received in exchange for the funds that it had been spending before deep cuts were enacted in the face of a record deficit in 2003.

According to State Rep. Abel Herrero of Corpus Christi, the House will be debating a state budget with $8.5 billion more available but out of reach despite a need for more funds for essential services. Republicans are putting some of a current surplus in reserve for property tax cuts while proposing to keep more than $4 billion in the rainy day fund.

Chisum and other members of the leadership team have been reluctant to earmark all of the funds that are available in anticipation of an upcoming federal court ruling in Medicaid suit that could cost the state billions of dollars.

more to come ...