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September 29, 2016 5:41 PM
Commissioner Morath says TEA is making a choice to support strategies that benefit the most kids rather than support the schools that struggle most
Speakers
who followed Education Commissioner Mike
Morath’s presentation of Texas Education Agency proposed
budget at the Capitol this week revealed more about the budget fights ahead
next session beyond the looming battle over school finance.
State
leadership requested that agencies outline 4 percent cuts in legislative
appropriations requests, apart from the foundation school program. That
resulted in cuts at the agency and education service centers, plus zeroing out
some of the smaller programs supported by the agency. The agency made a choice,
Morath said, to support strategies that supported the
most children, rather than a choice to support the most struggling schools.
TEA is
forced to make tough choices it considers to be the best direction for
children, Morath told the Legislative Budget Board.
That meant prioritizing research-based strategies with strong results over
other expenditures.
The rest of the story, subscribers only
By Kimberly Reeves
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Copyright September 29, 2016, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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September 29, 2016 5:39 PM
In advance of the Annual Cash Report and the Annual Financial Report, our resident number cruncher Dr. Stuart Greenfield offers his take on expenditures for the fiscal year
State
Comptroller Glenn Hegar recently announced that state tax collections
came in below estimates. He did not comment on total state revenue, which
increased more than had been estimated, nor has his office or the LBB
commented on state expenditures for FY16.
In
a few months, Hegar’s office will release the Annual Cash Report and Annual
Financial Report, which documents state revenue and expenditure for
FY16. Before that time, this article will hopefully provide an overview of
state expenditures for this fiscal year.
In
FY16, state expenditures increased by 7.7 percent to $114.6 billion. As total
state revenue was $111.3 billion, net cash flow (revenue – expenditures) was
-$3.3 billion. While total net cash flow was -$3.3 billion, according to the
Comptroller’s office, the impact on state cash balances for FY16 in various
state funds were more substantial. The state’s General Revenue Fund 0001
declined by $5.1 billion to $530.1 million, while Total Consolidated General
Revenue declined by $5.0 billion to $6.1 billion. These declines will adversely
impact the beginning cash balance in the forthcoming Biennial Revenue Estimate.
The full column from Dr. Stuart Greenfield is in the R&D Department.
By Dr. Stuart Greenfield
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Copyright September 29, 2016, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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September 29, 2016 5:32 PM
Click the Press Releases button above for all the latest
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Copyright September 29, 2016, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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September 29, 2016 10:12 AM
"TLRPAC supports principled candidates up and down the ballot who understand the importance of a fair civil justice system as a pillar of our society and economy"
The
full list
of endorsees is here.
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Copyright September 29, 2016, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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September 28, 2016 5:43 PM
Membership of the council is a who's who of Democratic Party players across the state
The
full list of council members is in the DNC’s announcement, which you can download
here.
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Copyright September 28, 2016, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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September 28, 2016 5:42 PM
For HISD voters to defy the state in November implies the state of Texas should view the children of Houston as more worthy of tax dollars than a child in any other party of the state
A growing number of voices in Houston ISD are
encouraging voters to reject recapture payments in an effort to force lawmakers
to resolve the Texas school finance crisis.
The logic is voters would reject the idea of sending $162
million back to the state on the November ballot and force the Texas
Education Agency to detach $18 billion in taxable value and the
district’s tax roll, starting with the biggest taxpayer. Even Mayor Sylvester Turner is urging voters to
get on board with the idea of rejecting the measure.
Unfortunately, such a move conveys a lot more than a wish
lawmakers address school finance. It implies that Houston ISD, by its sheer
force and might, expects to get special treatment. That the school districts
that have respected Robin Hood, and sent payments back to the state, were some kind
of mindless buffoons. And that Houston voters have no respect for the most
important decision the Texas Supreme Court has made in the
last generation: That every child, irrespective of zip code, has the right to an
equitable public education in this state.
So let’s clarify what this vote means, why we have Robin
Hood and, just to spice things up, we’ll bring in some talk about how this puts
charter schools, and soon vouchers, right in the mix.
To correct some reports, the recapture of property
taxes under the so-called Robin Hood provision is not technically about “equity
of school funding” across the state. The Texas Supreme Court’s opinion in Edgewood
v Kirby in 1984 was that every school district in the state should be
able to raise roughly the same amount of revenue for a penny of tax effort.
The rest of the story, subscribers only
By Kimberly Reeves
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Copyright September 28, 2016, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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September 28, 2016 5:33 PM
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September 27, 2016 5:57 PM
The state sits on a $4.1 billion cushion between revenue and appropriations, most of it in general revenue-dedicated funds…but that budget will be constrained to $2 billion due to constitutional budget spending limits, according to the Comptroller and LBB
The
revenue picture for next session is tightening quickly given the choices
lawmakers made last session to obligate future revenue to address ongoing
needs, budget writers were told this week.
Tom Currah with the Comptroller’s Office and Ursula Parks of the Legislative
Budget Board presented current revenue, and its constraints, in an overview
before Rep. Dennis Bonnen’s,
R-Angleton, House Ways and Means Committee. The outline of the picture
includes funds gathered, revenue obligated and an anticipated supplemental
budget that must draw down the balance of current biennial revenues.
Currah, the chief revenue estimator in Glenn Hegar’s
office, noted the slowdown in oil and gas severance taxes, which will bring in
about $1 billion less than last fall’s revenue forecast. When combined with a
$350 million bump in franchise taxes, that brings the final tally to about
$50.8 billion in revenue, which would be $650 million under projections.
As Bonnen pointed out, some of that $350 million bump is based
on revenue from a tax rate that was reduced last session. That means some of
that revenue will go back out to business owners in the form of refunds,
although Currah expects to keep some of that excess.
The rest of the story, subscribers only
By Kimberly Reeves
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Copyright September 27, 2016, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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September 27, 2016 5:50 PM
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Copyright September 27, 2016, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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September 27, 2016 5:48 PM
New data for employment, business outlook on upswing
The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas,
pointing to improving business data in Texas, says the state might have
weathered the worst of the oil bust.
Even oil and gas jobs are returning, the data show.
“We saw increased job growth in the service sector, we saw a
decline in the pace of losses in the goods-producing sector, and most
remarkably, we saw an increase in oil and gas employment in August that we hadn’t
seen since 2014,” said Dallas Fed
Economist Pia Orrenius in a video released Tuesday.
The story is in the Texas
Energy Report.
By Polly Ross Hughes
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Copyright September 27, 2016, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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September 27, 2016 3:54 PM
Former RPT Chair Pauken: “An executive in venture capital once told me, ‘After I realize I’ve made a bad deal, I don’t even want the cheese anymore just get me out of the trap.’”
Ted Cruz’s endorsement of Donald Trump for President last week is
good news for the Trump campaign and a huge setback for the GOP “nevertrumpers”
like Bill Kristol, Glenn Beck, Jonah Goldberg, Erick
Erickson, et al., who have been trying to persuade conservatives to vote
against Trump in November.
Cruz’s
support may push some of holdouts into voting for Trump in November. It also
sends a signal that, more and more, Republicans (even those who don’t
personally care for Donald Trump) are uniting behind his candidacy over fears
of a Hillary Clinton presidency. I
doubt, however, that the Cruz endorsement will have any impact on John Kasich and Jeb Bush, who once pledged to support the GOP nominee only to
renege on that promise once Trump became the nominee.
A
number of Cruz’s former allies were dismayed by his decision to support Donald
Trump. Some even claimed that it was the end of Ted Cruz’s career as a
conservative leader.
The full column by former
RPT Chairman Tom Pauken can be found
in the R&D Department.
By Tom Pauken
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Copyright September 27, 2016, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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September 26, 2016 4:44 PM
Trump state Chairman Dan Patrick unveils list of those helping Trump cross the finish line in Texas, which doesn’t include Sen. Cruz
Here’s
the full announcement.
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Copyright September 26, 2016, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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September 26, 2016 4:41 PM
Dallas attorney will replace Paul Hobby as Democratic member from House; former Rep served with distinction from 1981-2005
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Copyright September 26, 2016, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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September 26, 2016 4:40 PM
Not always giving Tea Partiers everything they want: Lt. Gov. Patrick and Sen. Cruz share the constituency of voters who demand unbending leaders, but Cruz is sidelined while Patrick is on top thanks to his ability to adapt to the political environment
A clear-eyed assessment of
the long-term strength and influence of the Tea Party in Texas – the
actual movement, not Astroturf groups funded by a handful of wealthy contributors – is naturally reliant on the durability of the officeholders
who credit those voters for their success at the ballot box.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Sen. Ted Cruz, and to a lesser extent Gov. Greg Abbott all embrace self-identified Tea Party supporters and each
has worked to promote the policies they want from government.
Given that Gov. Abbott has
largely been missing in action when it comes to the Republican Party of Texas’ current
quandary, the race for the White House,
Patrick and Cruz deserve a review of their performances. Patrick was on board
with nominee Donald Trump from the
moment Cruz was no longer an option. Cruz, not so much.
These two statewide
Republicans both won office principally by defeating the same man, former Lt.
Gov. David Dewhurst, in GOP runoff
elections with small electorates dominated by voters demanding politicians who
will commit to “doing what they said they would do.” In considering which has
the more durable career, the difference may well be that Patrick does what he
said he would do while Cruz merely says what he said he would say.
The rest of the story, subscribers only
By Scott Braddock
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Copyright September 26, 2016, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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September 26, 2016 4:36 PM
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Copyright September 26, 2016, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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September 26, 2016 6:10 AM
“…in light of my ongoing health issues and concerns, I find that I can no longer provide the active, effective leadership that is needed to continue my sworn duties."
Eleven-term State Rep. Dawnna Dukes, D-Austin, tells Quorum Report that due to persistent
issues related to her August, 2013 car accident, she will be resigning her Texas
House seat effective January 10, 2017.
Although her name remains on the 2016
ballot, the resignation will require the Governor to call a special election to
fill the seat for the next session.
Dukes told QR that multiple recent visits
to the emergency room combined with a more serious evaluation of her condition
from physicians has forced her to re-evaluate her situation. Dukes said this
was going to be her last session in any case but concerns over her caring for
her nine-year-old daughter prompted the decision.
The rest of the story, subscribers only
By Harvey Kronberg
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Copyright September 26, 2016, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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September 23, 2016 6:33 PM
In letter to Abbott, Patrick, and Straus, the Republican members of the Texas Ethics Commission outline "blatantly false" accusations made by Tim Dunn's group Empower Texans and affiliated organizations
All
the Republican members of the Texas Ethics Commission have now
told Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, and Speaker Joe Straus that an effort led by Midland
oilman Tim Dunn’s group Empower
Texans to change the direction of the agency is based on claims that
are “so blatantly false that we feel duty bound to respond to them
directly."
In
a letter to the big three dated September 16 and obtained by Quorum
Report on Friday through an open records request, Chairman Chase Untermeyer along with Commissioners Hugh Akin, Jim Clancy, and Robert Long
said they had no choice but to respond to a letter sent to all Republican
lawmakers by Dunn’s Empower Texans and co-signed by other groups including Texas
Right to Life, the Texas Home School Coalition, and the
Northeast Tarrant Tea Party.
In
the Empower Texans letter sent last month, which you can read here,
the professional activists made many claims about the Ethics Commission
including that the “process is the punishment.” The commission has, QR readers are
aware, been investigating Empower Texans for years leading to a maximum fine
for illegal lobbying and protracted
court battles on multiple fronts.
Lawmakers
should “investigate the commissioners and staff at the TEC for their
inexcusable and inexplicable actions,” the paid activists wrote. “All of the
commissioners need to be replaced, and the agency needs to be fundamentally
reformed or abolished,” argued Dunn’s spokesman Michael Quinn Sullivan.
After
Dunn’s group demanded TEC commissioners be replaced, Lt. Gov. Patrick did his best.
The rest of the story, subscribers only
By Scott Braddock
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Copyright September 23, 2016, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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September 23, 2016 6:32 PM
Fast-tracking Railroad Commission Sunset, tapping $10 billion Rainy Day Fund and more
HOUSTON – A long-elusive sunset bill to reauthorize the
oil-and-gas regulating Texas Railroad Commission for 12
more years will be fast-tracked next spring and stripped clean of such
controversies as replacing the agency’s outdated name or moving certain
functions elsewhere, a key lawmaker said Friday.
Rep. Larry
Gonzales, R-Round Rock, chair of the Sunset
Advisory Committee, promised members of the state’s leading oil and gas
lobby that the RRC’s sunset bill will contain what members of his committee
deem necessary instead of the traditional recommendations of the Sunset
Advisory Commission staff.
“The idea is the (sunset) staff won’t write the bill. We
the committee will write the bill. I would like to see the sunset legislation
in the first 60 days. We’re going to take the Railroad Commission up early on
the House
side so it is not changed so much in May and becomes this terrible
thing that won’t pass anymore,” said Gonzales, referring to the legislature’s
practice of tagging otherwise dead or “zombie” bills on to sunset legislation.
In the Senate, “We will pass a Railroad Commission Sunset
bill, and it will be a clean bill,” added Sen.
Craig Estes, incoming chairman of the Senate Natural Resources and Economic
Development Committee. “It won’t have any bells or whistles on it to
drag it down.”
The full story is in the Texas Energy Report.
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Copyright September 23, 2016, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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September 23, 2016 5:56 PM
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Copyright September 23, 2016, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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September 23, 2016 5:27 PM
LBB: “… we have a responsibility to do our best to protect the treasury, to ensure the proper use of taxpayer dollars, and also to ensure your directives, as legislators, are being carried out by state agencies.”
The
chair of the Texas House budget-writing committee is urging agencies to take
advantage of the contract review functions triggered by the failure of the Attorney
General’s T2 contract.
Of
late, two scenarios have emerged with larger state contracts plagued with
problems: The self-dealing scandals such as the Health and Human Services’
21CT
contract; or, more often, problematic
delivery of a contract such as the AG’s child support overhaul, which is
unlikely to go live before the end of 2017.
Both House
Appropriations and Senate Finance sat down with the
agencies charged with deploying the changes under Senate Bill 20. And while
Chairman Rep. John Otto, R-Dayton, will
soon by ceding his chair because he is retiring, he remained emphatic about
improving contracting processes.
The rest of the story, subscribers only
By Kimberly Reeves
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Copyright September 23, 2016, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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September 23, 2016 2:53 PM
Days after Lt. Gov. Patrick applied pressure, Cruz took to Facebook to give a lengthy explanation and confirmed he will vote for Trump
Here’s
the Facebook post where Sen. Cruz confirms
the endorsement.
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Copyright September 23, 2016, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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September 23, 2016 2:52 PM
When Cruz went after the eventual GOP nominee, Trump called him "the single biggest liar."
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Copyright September 23, 2016, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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September 23, 2016 12:50 PM
QR’s Liberal Columnist Glenn W. Smith previews next week’s Clinton-Trump debate in Hempstead, New York
Is
it just a coincidence that Donald Trump
held a bizarre event with fight promoter Don
King the week before his upcoming bout with Hillary Clinton in the first presidential debate of 2016? King’s
first gig in boxing was the Ali-Foreman “Rumble in the Jungle”
fight of 1974. Is Trump promising “Hostilities at Hofstra?”
The
phrase doesn’t have the punch of “Rumble in the Jungle.” The debate, however,
might match the fight in South Africa in pre-hostilities hype and over-the-top
news coverage. Which, we should agree, is not a good thing.
Presidential
debates are not about awarding a gaudy golden belt to someone. They are about –
or they should be about – the selection of the President of the United States.
Elections past have seen good debates and bad debates. Few challenged the
political media the way the 2016 debates do.
Why
is this?
The full column by Glenn W. Smith is in the R&D Department.
By Glenn W. Smith
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Copyright September 23, 2016, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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September 23, 2016 12:48 PM
“If he announces he endorses, it destroys his political brand,” said someone who had worked for Cruz's campaign.
The
breaking report
from Politico
is here.
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Copyright September 23, 2016, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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September 23, 2016 11:09 AM
The
petition
is here.
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Copyright September 23, 2016, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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September 22, 2016 5:44 PM
Our resident number cruncher writes that “Even with a positive rate of growth for tax revenues in FY17, these growth rates will be applied to a lower base. Unless growth rates are increased substantially, tax collections in FY17 will again be $1 billion less than in the CRE.”
With
the close of Fiscal Year 2016, signers of the Americans for Tax Reform (ATR)
pledge can rejoice. They can genuflect to the statue of Grover Norquist and proclaim that – under their brilliance –
tax revenue declined while maternal mortality increased and special education services
suffered. Is
that not fulfilling the ATR directives of lower taxes, smaller government?
My
sarcasm aside, tax collections at the close of the fiscal year, as Comptroller Hegar stated, were less than the Comptroller estimated in October 2015. While the Comptroller had
estimated that all funds tax collections for FY16 would be $49.7 billion,
actual collections were $48.5 billion, $1.2 billion less than the estimate and
$3.3 billion less than FY15 tax revenue.
Figure 1 shows
the cumulative YTD growth for FY10 through FY16. Only FY09 (-8.5 percent) and FY10
(-6.5 percent) had greater declines in tax collection than FY16 (-6.2
percent). Following the decline in FY10,
tax collections increased by 9.9 percent in FY11.
The full column from Dr. Stuart Greenfield can be found in the R&D Department.
By Dr. Stuart Greenfield
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Copyright September 22, 2016, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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September 22, 2016 5:43 PM
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Copyright September 22, 2016, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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September 22, 2016 1:25 PM
“Clinton’s lead narrows however to only 4 percent (well within the survey’s margin of error) if we restrict the analysis to only those who indicated that they are extremely likely to cast a ballot this fall.”
The
University
of Houston Hobby School of Public Affairs poll results can be read in full here.
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Copyright September 22, 2016, Harvey Kronberg, www.quorumreport.com, All rights are reserved
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