Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

A Texas Senate bill that would have done away with the long-divisive idea of “proportionality” in state funding for community colleges not only was not passed before the Senate adjourned Monday night, it was ignored.

Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, tried to bring the bill — a House-amended version of a Senate bill she sponsored — up for debate and a possible vote, but Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst instead recognized a motion to adjourn.

The bill would have allowed Texas community college employees whose salaries are not paid by the state to be eligible for state-funded health insurance, the main point of contention in the proportionality debate.

Two years ago, the issue led to a Gov. Rick Perry line-item veto of $154 million in statewide community college funding, money that later was restored to community college coffers.

Zaffirini said there was not only plenty of Senate support to pass the measure but also that officials in the governor’s office said they would support it, effectively ending the argument over proportionality. The House already had passed the bill, 142-0.

McLennan Community College President Dennis Michaelis, who for years has been back and forth between Waco and Austin, waging war on proportionality when the Legislature has been in session, said it won’t immediately affect community college funding. However, Michaelis expressed dissatisfaction with the Senate’s lack of action.

“(The bill) was trying to set the issue at rest, so the college’s don’t have to go down there every session and fight this same issue every session,” Michaelis said.

He added, “I’m extremely disappointed in the Legislature’s performance, particularly in regard to this bill. The governor vetoed the bill last time because of this issue, but he was supporting it and said he would sign it if the bill were passed.”

Michaelis said he was also “extremely disappointed in Sen. (Robert) Duncan (R-Lubbock), Sen. (Steve) Ogden (R-Bryan) and the lieutenant governor, because the three of them simply ignored the will of the Senate.”

Duncan has openly resisted the idea of the state paying benefits for community college employees whose salaries are not state-funded, Michaelis said. Ogden, chairman of the finance committee, “set (the bill) aside and wasn’t going to let it out of committee,” he said.

Zaffirini told the Tribune-Herald on Tuesday evening that “Duncan and Ogden were the main ones who killed it. Ogden, first of all, refused to give me a hearing for SB 41, which was my anti-proportionality bill. . . . He wouldn’t set a hearing for it.”

Ogden did not return a message left with his office Tuesday.

Zaffirini said she polled and re-polled the Senate. “I definitely had the votes,” she said.

She said not being recognized by Dewhurst before he recognized the motion to adjourn came as a surprise.

“I expected to be recognized Friday, then Saturday and Sunday, then he told me to be prepared on Monday to be recognized. The next thing I knew, I wasn’t and (Senate had adjourned),” Zaffirini said.

Zaffirini called Gov. Perry’s chief of staff Tuesday and asked for the item to be considered if a special session is called in the fall but said she is leaving this legislative session with a bitter taste in her mouth.

“I thought it was irresponsible to adjourn before we finished our work,” she said.

Though Michaelis said he is unhappy with the Legislature’s handling of the issue, he said he was pleased by the actions of local elected officials Reps. Jim Dunnam, D-Waco, and Charles “Doc” Anderson, R-Waco, as well as Sen. Kip Averitt, R-Waco. All three supported community colleges’ position, he said.

“I think our local representatives understood the issue and understood the colleges’ needs,” Michaelis said. “Sen. Averitt has more than one community college in his district, we asked for his support, and he gave it to us. The sad thing is he never had a chance to vote because Dewhurst wouldn’t bring it up.”

As recently as early April, Averitt, Anderson and Dunnam told the Tribune-Herald that they supported community colleges’ position in the proportionality debate.

“I can’t complain about any of our three legislators on the proportionality issue,” Michaelis said. “They listened, they understood, and they gave us their support. I can’t ask for any more than that.”