Lens on the Legislature: The Appropriations Process

The January 7th and January 21st articles in the Lens on the Legislature series described some of the initial issues related to development of the state budget. This week was an important milestone in that process.

On Monday, Lieutenant Governor Dewhurst appointed Finance Chairman Ogden, Vice Chairman Zaffirini and Senators Averitt, Duncan and Whitmire to the appropriations conference committee. On Wednesday, Speaker Craddick appointed Appropriations Chairman Pitts, Vice Chairman Luna and Representatives Gattis, Kolkhorst and Turner as conferees. The role of conference committees was explained in the March 31st article.

By tradition, the general appropriations bills are numbered HB1 and SB1 in the House and Senate respectively. The basic structure of the two bills is identical and the Legislative Budget Board (LBB) provides expertise and drafting support for both chambers. Next week's article will describe the structure in more detail.

Because of the physical heft of these bills and because the LBB rather than the Texas Legislative Council (TLC) provides the drafting support, the texts of these bills are not accessible by the online inquiries described previously in this column. They are available on the LBB's Web site, however. All of the other previously described inquiries (e.g. actions, votes) can be used for these bills.

Throughout the session, the House Appropriations Committee and Senate Finance Committee have held hearings nearly daily, reviewing every agency and state university and hearing the views of many experts and advocates. Few would question that these are the busiest committees in their respective chambers. House Appropriations also has six subcommittees to allow more detailed reviews.

By tradition, the chambers alternate whose bill will be the lead bill. Two years ago, HB1 (78th) was the basis for the General Appropriations Act, so the GAA coming out of the 79th session will be based on SB1.

On March 23rd the Senate passed SB1 and sent it to the House. It was referred to House Appropriations the same day. Since Appropriations had already developed their own budget proposal using HB1 as the vehicle, in a single hearing on SB1, they proposed a substitute on March 29th. After many hours of debate involving over two hundred proposed amendments, the full House approved a substitute to SB1 in the wee hours of April 7th. Thus, the stage was set (as is always the case) for a conference committee to be appointed.

Unlike other conference committees which virtually never hold further hearings, this conference committee will likely re-summon every agency for which the House substitute differs from the Senate bill. That is likely to take several weeks with the conference report coming out some time in May. To accomplish that, yesterday (as is customary) Chairman Pitts formally requested a suspension of House rules to allow the five House conferees to meet with the conference committee while the full House is meeting.

Such key issues as money spent on education and pay raises for state employees will be determined in the next few weeks as the ten conferees hammer out the final shape of what will be about a $140 billion biennial budget.