DALLAS - Facing little opposition, the Texas Senate joined the House in approving $3.02 billion of tuition revenue bonds for the state's colleges and universities on May 19.
House Bill 100 by Rep. John Zerwas, R-Richmond, now goes to a conference committee for resolution of minor differences before the legislature sends it to Gov. Greg Abbott. Although passage appeared likely this time, a similar measure failed to clear the legislature in 2013. Lawmakers have not approved TRB's in more than nine years.
The bill would authorize construction projects at 64 colleges, universities and technical schools statewide.
"We have not authorized major capital construction projects at public universities since 2006," said Senate sponsor Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo. "Since that time, enrollment has grown 22.9%."
Sen. Kevin Eltife, R-Tyler, withdrew an amendment that would have required the state to spend cash for the projects instead of issuing bonds, though he said he remains skeptical of the need to borrow in this situation.
"It just makes no sense to me that we are going to borrow $3 billion and pay it out over the next 25 years when we have cash sitting in the bank," Eltife said. "Do you realize that we're going to pay about $1.5 billion in interest on these bonds?"
Seliger said the use of debt was dictated by the structure of the state budget and constitution. To pay cash for the projects would have caused the legislature to exceed a state constitutional spending cap.
"The limitation that we have is that we have an allocation in the budget that will only pay debt service," Seliger said.
Agreeing that the projects were "desperately needed," Eltife said he would support the measure but would have preferred to eliminate the spending cap and to use cash.
New buildings funded in the bill include a biocontainment research facility at Texas A&M University, a biomedical sciences center at the University of Houston and renovations to Robert Welch Hall Hall at the University of Texas at Austin. The University of North Texas' new law school in downtown Dallas would also be funded.
