Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

Rodger and I were talking last week about how boring the state budget can sound to readers, but let's face it: The state's spending over the next two years matters immensely to classrooms, universities, roads, students, the environment and pretty much every aspect of Texas' life.

So, with apologies to those who think of this as boring stuff, here's a look at the two-year budget that House and Senate conferees voted unanimously yesterday to support. For the record, I would vote for this budget if I were the deciding vote, but I would vote against it if I were not. There are too many important items left unfunded, which the state could have done if it had borrowed just some from the nearly $7 billion Rainy Day Fund.

First, the positive side:

1. The effort to fund more Tier One universities is going to get a serious boost.

2. Texas Grant, the state's leading financial aid program, will reach 17,000 more students next year and 8,000 the year after that.

3. Texas elementary and secondary schools will receive $1.9 billion, which Florence Shapiro rightly said is not what they all wanted but is more than was expected as the session began.

4. The University of North Texas Law School will receive $5 million.

5. Affordable housing efforts in Dallas and elsewhere could receive cash from the $20 million appropriated for fighting homelessness.

6. The state should see more nurses over the next few years because of an increase of $35 million to nursing education.

7. Money is set aside to let families earning up to 300 percent of poverty qualify for the state's Children's Health Insurance Program. If an authorizing bill is passed, a family of four earning about $60,000 could join the program. They and the state would split the premiums.

We have advocated for most of these policies as a way to improve the quality of life across the state and here in Dallas. So, this is good stuff, not just boring numbers.

But here's where the budget really falls short:

1. Only $25 million is set aside for an effort to expand pre-K offerings across Texas. The effort needs more like $300 million.

2. The University of North Texas' southern Dallas campus will not get all the money it needs to construct a second building. The school will get $25 million in bonding authority,but it won't get the $18 million in appropriated funds it also needs for a new building. Guess UNT will have to get out the tin cup and start asking the private sector.

3. Budget writers gave into those who wanted to exempt more businesses from the state's school tax. Before this session, firms with less than $300,000 in gross receipts didn't have to pay the tax. Now, firms with less than $1,000,000 in gross receipts will be exempted. So much for everyone paying to help schools.

4. The budget would effectively close a state home for the mentally disabled, despite the fact that legislation aimed at closing one or more of the dozen schools failed. The budget accomplishes the same means by limiting funding in state homes to 3,000 folks. That's down from about 4,500 today. Those folks are going to have to go someplace. I sure hope we have enough qualified smaller group homes to care for them.

5. Money's included for the next two years of the state's water plan, but, once again, no revenue stream was created to fund the plan over the next 50 years. The Lege spent a lot of time trying to create a new way to fund roads and rail. I hope next session they realize the importance of providing enough water supplies for the future.

6. No money was set aside to allow eligible families to enroll in Medicaid yearly, instead of every six months. The six-month enrollment is the state's way of being cinchy about Medicaid. Appropriators know some eligible families won't go through the hassle of re-applying every six months.

Votes on all budgets are judgment calls. There's no way anyone can expect to get all they want. You have to figure out whether the pros outweigh the cons. In this case, they do, but just barely.