Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

Members of the Senate Finance Committee field reporters' questions in 2001

AUSTIN — Senate budget-writers voted Tuesday to spend more on parks, prisons and human services than the House but didn't follow its lead in draining teacher incentive pay for an across-the-board educator pay raise.

The $152.2 billion, two-year state budget approved 15-0 by the Senate Finance Committee represents a 6.8 percent increase in state and federal funds compared with current spending.

It includes a big boost for Medicaid services to children to settle a court case, a move it would partly fund with an across-the-board cut of just over one-half of 1 percent in state spending on other services.

The settlement didn't come in time to be part of the $150.1 billion House budget, but House leaders OK'd it.

Like the House, Senate budget-writers would keep $4.3 billion untouched in the state rainy day fund and leave billions more on the table to be sure they can subsidize local school property tax relief in future years. In addition, budget totals don't include another $14.2 billion to be separately spent over the next two years to cut local school property tax rates.

"We tried very hard to pay for what we're supposed to do and what we promised we would do," said Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, Senate Finance Committee chairman. "It's an honest budget and ... there's between $2 (billion) and $3 billion left for property tax relief in the future."

The proposal is expected to hit the Senate floor Thursday. Legislative negotiators then will begin working to iron out House and Senate differences.

Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, Senate Finance Committee vice chairman, would have preferred to see spending to settle the lawsuit over children's Medicaid come from the money left on the table.

"We can afford it. But if we cannot secure the votes to appropriate additional funds, then the next best alternative is to cut across-the-board," said Zaffirini, who with other Democrats said this is preferable to a previous proposal to shift money first from other areas of Medicaid.

She said this appeared the most that could be done at this point in the majority-GOP Legislature.

Besides the battle over the teacher pay raise versus incentive pay — or the chance that both could be funded — other items to be worked out include differing approaches to border security.

The House approved $101 million for a border security plan pushed by GOP Gov. Rick Perry, while Senate budget-writers provided $56 million in direct spending on border security, with changes from the plan pushed by Perry.

The Senate committee would authorize bonds to build more prisons, while the House would not, and spend more on prison diversion and treatment programs. In addition, Senate budget-writers would spend more on parks, with some money contingent on legislative and voter approval of bonds.

Ogden said he made a conservative estimate of the money left unspent after paying for the Senate proposal, aside from the rainy day fund meant to be a cushion for hard times, because of possible changes in the state's financial picture and new spending demands.

"Republican senators feel very strongly that we need to set aside some money to guarantee future tax cuts and not spend every last dime that we have," he said, a view shared by House leaders.

"We have all these needs. If I were governor of Texas, which I'm not, I would say 'Let's invest it. ... Let's invest it in higher education. Let's invest it in prevention and health and human services," Zaffirini said. "But I'm not governor, and given the makeup of this Legislature — actually, given the makeup of this Senate — I think at this point in time it's the best we can do and secure the votes."