DALLAS — Texas lawmakers will have to come back for a special session to complete the state’s next two-year budget unless the House quickly accepts the Senate’s plan to bring in $2.6 billion of new non-tax revenue, leaders from both chambers said Tuesday.
Lieut. Gov. David Dewhurst, the presiding officer in the Senate, said the House must act by Thursday, May 19, if the 140-day session is to end May 30 as scheduled.
House Appropriations Committee chairman Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, told members the budget must be passed in the regular session. That cannot happen unless the House approves the Senate revenue plan, Pitts noted.
The revenue picture brightened somewhat Tuesday when state Comptroller Susan Combs raised by $1.2 billion the official estimate for total general fund collections over the next two years. The revised outlook brings expected general fund collections to almost $78 billion in fiscal 2012-13.
However, budget negotiators resolving the differences between the current Senate budget plan totaling $176.5 billion and the House’s $164.5 billion budget already assumed that $700 million of unexpected revenue would be available and have already included that money in the proposed budget.
Pitts said the 10-member conference committee has agreed on reconciling most of the differences in the budget proposals, except for state aid to public and higher education.
The Senate wants to allocate $4 billion more for local schools than does the House, along with $1 billion more for higher education.
The House version would reduce state aid for public education to $7.8 billion less than required by current funding formulas. The Senate’s plan is $3.8 billion less than the formulas mandate.
“Despite these differences, we are still talking, we are still negotiating,” Pitts said. “We have not given up that we can find resolution to these differences.”
He said the House should approve the Senate revenue measure with few changes.
“The passage of Senate Bill 1811 is vital to completing the conference committee work, especially on education,” Pitts said.
Dewhurst said he is hopeful the financial package will be approved no later than Friday.
In a news conference on Tuesday, Dewhurst said he was “optimistic that we’re going to be able to get our budget concluded, agreed to and passed, and not go into a special session.”
Dewhurst said it was important to maintain the funding to local K-12 education in the Senate plan. The House’s cuts would put pressure on local districts to raise the property tax rates to make up for reduced state aid, he said.
“I don’t want to short public education and create a tax hike for people all around the state of Texas,” Dewhurst said. “We need to come together, Senate and House, and put Texas taxpayers first, put our schoolchildren first and agree on a final budget.”
In her revised revenue outlook, Combs raised the estimate for sales tax revenues by $1 billion. Motor vehicle taxes will bring in an additional $100 million, she said.
The state tax on oil production will generate an additional $400 million over the next two years, Combs said, but $300 million is constitutionally dedicated to the rainy-day fund.
Combs said in January that available general fund revenues would total $76.5 billion in the next biennium, but noted that a $4.3 billion shortfall in fiscal 2011 would reduce available revenues to $72.2 billion.
If a special session is needed to wrap up the budget, it would probably begin in mid-July.
