81st Texas legislative session ends on Monday
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The school finance bill was sent to conference, with teachers hoping language in both the House and Senate versions stays the same. That language includes an $800-per-year increase for each year of the biennium for public school teachers and some other school employees in the state.
With the threat of a special session many said could start as early as Tuesday of next week, the Texas Senate Thursday morning (or Wednesday night, depending on whose clock you were watching) turned a bill addressing the state's windstorm insurance shortfall into an amendment. The amendment was then tacked onto another bill, and passed before the clock (which had been unplugged by a Senate staffer) could strike the midnight deadline for getting the bill off the Senate floor. Gov. Rick Perry has threatened to bring lawmakers back for a special session if the windstorm insurance issue is not resolved. The bill had not made it out of the House as of this morning.
The Senate also passed a $2.4 billion supplemental budget bill to pay for unexpected expenditures among state agencies and that includes an $800 pay increase for state workers who make less than $100,000 and have not received a raise elsewhere in the upcoming biennial budget.
Also before the Wednesday midnight deadline, the Senate approved a tax break from the state's franchise tax for some 40,000 small businesses.
Late Thursday, leaders in the Senate said they would likely concur with the House version of the Top 10 Percent bill, one provision of which would allow The University of Texas at Austin to limit top 10 percent students to 75 percent of Texas freshmen entering their first year at UT.
Many of the bills passed in the mad rush in the Senate Wednesday have found their way to conference committees made up of members of both chambers, seeking to iron out their differences to come up with a bill that will pass muster in both the House and Senate. Bills coming out of conference committees must again be approved by both chambers and then head to the governor's desk for his signature. Other bills are still facing House action.
Sunday is the last day for either chamber to adopt conference committee reports. The session officially ends on Monday.
