Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

AUSTIN — When Texas lawmakers met in 1963, former state legislator Carl Parker of Beaumont had no office of his own and kept files under his desk on the chamber floor.

The cost of a legislative session in 1963: $2.9 million.

Forty-six years later, the Legislature is big business. The 81st Texas Legislature, which adjourned earlier this month, runs on a year-round support staff of more than 1,800 workers.

The cost per year: $171.5 million.

The cost of the 140-day session that ended June 1: $9.1 million.

The result was 1,459 bills sent to Gov. Rick Perry — though it did not include a critical bill to keep alive the Texas Department of Transportation, Department of Insurance, Office of Public Insurance Counsel, the Texas Racing Commission or the State Affordable Housing Corporation.

The biggest cost of the session: $4.9 million spent to hire 402 House and Senate sergeants at arms, clerks, researchers, proofreaders and staff photographers.

Following closely was the $4.2 million paid to the 181 legislators as living expenses on top of the $1.3 million spent on their annual salaries.

Cost vs. size of state

When Perry calls the anticipated special session to extend the life of the five agencies, it will cost taxpayers another $30,408 a day for lawmakers to finish their incomplete business.

But the cost of an actual session is small compared to the Legislature’s year-round operations.

In fact, if the Legislature was subject to the state’s franchise tax, it would be in the top two percent of Texas’ businesses.

Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, chairman of the Senate administration committee, said the size of the Legislature reflects the size of state government and its $182.3 billion two-year budget.

“There’s 24 million people in the state. It’s a $180 billion operation. We couldn’t do it without the staff we have,” Williams said. “We do it relatively inexpensively compared to the states that are comparable to us.”

California has 2,300 full-time staff, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, and a lawmaker’s annual pay is $116,208 compared to the $7,200 of the Texas legislator.

Need for support staff

Williams said a large legislative support staff is needed because Texas has a part-time Legislature. The staff are the people who handle constituent services and keep up with what is happening in government during his absence.

Michael Quinn Sullivan, president of the conservative Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, said given the size of state government overall when Texas is compared to other states, he is not disturbed by how much the Legislature spends on itself.

“In a sense, you could say we’re getting a pretty good bang for the buck,” Sullivan said.