AUSTIN — A Brownsville legislator recently learned that competing with other border lawmakers for scarce dollars to shore up their long-neglected region isn't as bad as it could get.

Sen. Eddie Lucio, D-Brownsville, went scrounging for $400,000 to save a medical residency program at Valley Baptist Medical Center that helps produce doctors for a part of Texas that is chronically underserved.

At first, Lucio had to compete with himself for funding.

Senate leaders suggested Lucio take the money from a $3 million state appropriation for a birding center on South Padre Island that is expected to stimulate tourism dollars and jobs.

In short, Lucio faced a Hobson's choice of taking money from one worthy project in his South Texas district to fund an essential health care program.

Lucio averted such a difficult choice when his Senate colleagues agreed on legislation directing a state agency to find the money for the doctor's residency program.

For some border lawmakers, however, Lucio's dilemma underscored their difficulty in transforming the state's poorest region, which continues to struggle with employment, transportation, health and education problems.

"The border members are forced to loot the school to pay the hospital. That says it all," Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, said of Lucio's search for money to help Valley Baptist.

With another legislative session winding down, border lawmakers are hopeful of securing appropriations to open a pharmacy school in South Texas and to keep a four-year medical school on track in El Paso. They also are pushing several bills that could mean incremental improvement in the lives of border residents.

But there are no breakthrough projects in the legislative pipeline.

"The whole story of the border is being told this session in the education and finance bills with the historic and regressive tax shift to lower and middle income Texas families," Shapleigh said.

Lawmakers are working on legislation that would dramatically reduce the "Robin Hood" share-the-wealth school funding while also cutting property taxes by increasing consumer and business taxes. Nonpartisan studies show only high-income families will get tax breaks. Others will pay more.

"The border is disproportionately low and middle income Texans, so this session will go down historically as the transition from Robin Hood to robber baron," Shapleigh said.

That kind of rhetoric "doesn't solve the problem," said Sen. Robert Deuell, R-Greenville. "Some of that really sounds like class envy."

Some legislators far from the border say they are sensitive to its needs but funding limits dictate how much can be done. And some of the needs fall outside of government's responsibility, Deuell said.

"Government is to help people who are doing all they can to help themselves or can't help themselves," said Deuell, a physician who grew up without a father in modest surroundings.

Efforts to transform the border region have been long and difficult, said Sen. Frank Madla, D-San Antonio.

"Those of us who represent this region still have not been able to convince the rest of our colleagues that these are areas that really need to be looked at," said Madla, a 32-year veteran legislator. "So few resources are targeted for that area south of I-10 and far too frequently those of us who represent those areas end up competing against each other for the few dollars that are available, and nobody gets anything in many cases."

Senate Finance Chairman Steve Ogden embraces "equity" for the border region but said the argument gets more complicated when it shifts to "it's our turn so give us more stuff.'"

The Bryan Republican said he is not aware of anything in the state's new budget proposal "to make things worse" for the border. Because health and human services funding is increasing, the border region will benefit, he said.

"The budget should reduce those inequities, not increase them. So I'm not aware of anything else I can do, frankly," Ogden said.

Education remains the best ticket out of poverty for border residents, and some lawmakers are grousing that the proposed school funding reform plan does little to help schools with large enrollments of low-income children.

A school funding trial last year and the judge's ruling focused in part on the state's unwillingness to increase adjustments for low-income children, who are considered more costly to educate.

Ogden, however, believes recommended spending adjustments for those students are based more on politics than on scientific research.

Last year, school districts in the regional education service centers based in Corpus Christi, San Antonio, Edinburg and El Paso reported 822,388 low-income children in those areas.

But it could cost billions of dollars to make spending adjustments.

"Unfortunately, we don't have the funding available," said Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo.

"I believe that all of the senators from the border would vote for the revenue sources required to funding this program adequately. But we can't do it alone. It's very sad, very sad," said Zaffirini, who also represents part of San Antonio.

Some legislators, she said, lack the courage to properly fund public and higher education.

"They are afraid of the voters, and I think the voters would support any reasonable vote to fund education adequately and to raise the revenue satisfactorily," Zaffirini said.

Education funding levels are probably never sufficient, said Deuell, who represents parts of Dallas and rural counties northeast of Dallas.

"There's also people called 'taxpayers.' Whenever you pay for something else, you are taking money from other people," Deuell said. "We can take only so much money from the taxpayer. We hear from them, too."

Border lawmakers lack the clout of rural communities whose legislators can pass bills — even if they cost money — "without anyone batting an eye," said House Border International Affairs Committee Chair Norma Chavez, D-El Paso.

The border region isn't taken seriously, she said.

"It's political. It's not driven by facts or data," Chavez said. "Rural communities are conservative and vote Republican. And the border communities are predominantly Mexican American and vote Democrat, so the political will is not there — even though the border region has the greatest needs."

But Lucio credits Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst for his support of South Texas and border issues. Still, Lucio concedes border legislators have not yet convinced enough legislators that a lack of investment in the region will cost the state more later for health care, criminal justice and other public services.

"We're fighting a horrible stigma, and it's called 'the border.' Our colleagues are sick and tired of hearing the word 'border.' They won't say it, but I think they feel it," Lucio said.

"We need to erase that stigma."

Sen. Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa, D-McAllen, said border conditions have improved dramatically in the past 25 years — helped in part by a higher education lawsuit that pushed then Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock to create a South Texas Border Initiative. More funding for border universities allowed them to expand graduate degree programs.

Only a few decades ago, "you never say Hispanic lawyers, Hispanic doctors, Hispanic professors," Hinojosa said. "We're making lots of progress."