The only job the Texas Legislature has to finish every two years is to adopt a state budget.

But lawmakers never are content with just that.

After all, they have less than five months in which to shape and reshape policies that have short- and long-term impact on Texans.

There were already close to 1,200 filed bills -- including 58 proposed amendments to the state constitution -- by the end of the session's first week.

Members of the Star-Telegram Editorial Board have identified nine key issues for 2009 that we'll follow. In print and online, we'll regularly document the progress of relevant bills.

Education

"Texas has been mining its education resources and has not been putting resources back into the education system," either for kindergarten through 12th grade or for higher education, University of Texas President Bill Powers told journalists at an early January legislative preview.

He urged the Legislature to take a "holistic approach" and look at ways of making higher ed more affordable.

Lawmakers will almost certainly grapple with proposals to reregulate college tuition, adjust the top 10 percent rule for automatic admission, provide more financial aid to needy students and underwrite the development of more tier-one research universities.

1. They should start with tuition. Deregulation resulted from a budget-balancing bargain in 2003: Texas' four-year universities could set their own rates to make up for less state funding. Rates that had been extremely low rose quickly, to much public consternation. Any legislatively imposed limits on tuition rates should be paired with more money to cover rising costs associated with enrollment growth and inflation.

2. Texas needs more universities that are considered premier research institutions. Tier-one universities bring in crucial research grants, attract top-flight faculty, prepare graduates for sophisticated jobs and help boost area economies by attracting industry and investment. UT and Texas A&M are the state's only public tier-one universities, a designation based on research spending, extensive doctorate offerings and other factors.

UT-Arlington, UT-Dallas and the University of North Texas are among the campuses aiming to develop into tier-one institutions. But the state doesn't have the millions it takes; lawmakers are more inclined to offer incentives or let schools compete for funds to match money they raise themselves.

3. Public school districts across the state, city and suburban alike, are squeezed so tight that they're clamoring loudly for a comprehensive solution to continuing flaws in the finance system. But lawmakers don't sound inclined to take on more than piecemeal fixes. If that's the case, they should at the very least help with increased costs of utilities, transportation and inflation. (The state's transportation contribution, for instance, hasn't been updated since 1984.)

The high school allotment should be increased to pay for increased math and science requirements, end-of-course exams and new college-readiness standards.

And, if trustees are going to have to ask local taxpayers to vote on tax hikes, districts should be allowed to hold elections in the spring, rather than November, to help with budget planning.

Transportation

4. Hardly anybody likes paying more taxes. But hardly anybody likes sitting constantly in snail-paced traffic on inadequate roads with few better transportation options. Given a choice, between the two, would voters in North Central Texas counties rather pay a little more in taxes or other fees to get on board with regional rail? It's time for the Legislature to let us find out by giving counties the option of taking tax-increase proposals to their voters.

Local officials aren't asking to impose higher costs unilaterally -- they want to know what, if anything, voters would agree to from a menu of options to improve the transportation landscape.

Traffic delays in Dallas-Fort Worth cost about $2.5 billion and an average of 58 hours in delays a year, according to a study by the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University. Not to mention the air pollution and stress. And lawmakers think they're protecting our pocketbooks by not letting us vote on higher taxes?

5. Inflation has greatly eroded the state gasoline tax of 20 cents a gallon, last raised in 1991. A tax increase, with an annual rate adjustment for inflation, would provide sorely needed money for transportation projects. It also would somewhat reduce the need for more toll roads and more state borrowing for roads. And a higher gas tax would encourage people to drive more fuel-efficient, less-polluting vehicles. Watch for Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, to tackle the gas tax, with possible discussion of raising or indexing the state diesel fuel tax, too.

Healthcare

6. With 1.5 million Texas children lacking health insurance, Texas surely needs to make coverage more available. It can start by increasing enrollment in the Children's Health Insurance Program, which covers children whose parents make too much to qualify for Medicaid but too little to afford private insurance.

Texas currently limits CHIP to children whose parents earn up to 200 percent of the federal poverty limit, or $42,400 for a family of four. The Legislature should consider expanding access so that parents making up to 300 percent of the poverty limit ($63,600 for a family of four) can buy CHIP coverage by paying the premiums. Lawmakers can discourage parents from dropping private coverage by making this option available only to those without access to similar employer-based plans.

Natural gas regulation

7. With Barnett Shale natural gas drilling still going hot and heavy in North Texas, and more gas pipelines being built, expect a flurry of bills related to gas drilling, production and distribution. Residents of urban neighborhoods have been shocked to learn that a gas company -- through power of eminent domain -- can lay a sizable pipeline under their property whether they like it or not.

Fort Worth and other cities want more control over the routing of pipelines, and they support more Texas Railroad Commission funding for inspecting wells and minimizing drilling's pollution to groundwater and air.

Stricter regulation is needed, but it shouldn't become so restrictive that it significantly discourages drilling.

Property tax restrictions

8. Every legislative session, some lawmakers propose politically inspired and generally ill-conceived caps on property value appraisals for tax purposes or other measures that would limit property tax revenues. But these restrictions don't lower the cost of paying a police officer or filling a pothole by a single penny. The limits often just shift more tax burden from one group to another. Somebody ends up paying higher taxes. And the restrictions crimp revenues, actually boosting the chances that a city, county or school district will raise the property tax rate to compensate -- or opt against a tax-rate cut it otherwise would have approved .

Redistricting

9. With the House closely divided between the two political parties, it's time to hand the drawing of congressional districts to a nonpartisan redistricting commission that would put voters' interests ahead of protecting incumbents and power bases.

Sen. Jeff Wentworth, a San Antonio Republican who got a commission bill through the Senate in 2005 and 2007, has introduced a bill for a nine-member panel that would meet only during a two-year window following the Census. (No elected officials, candidates or lobbyists allowed.) That would prevent the kind of mid-decade redistricting that tore the Legislature apart in 2003.

A commission bill by Rep. Mark Strama, D-Austin, has some attractive details Wentworth's doesn't, but it also contains questionable elements: It would require a constitutional amendment and let senior Senate and House members appoint commissioners, and it would let counties switch to electing judges from single-member districts.