By Peggy Fikac
San Antonio Express-News
AUSTIN — House budget-writers put the finishing touches Thursday on a spending plan that would put $1.5 billion more into transportation than their starting-point proposal, target state pension problems and add a pay raise for state correctional officers.
The budget builds on an initial plan filed by House leaders for the next two years that would spend about $202.4 billion in state and federal money combined, about the same as the current budget.
How much that initial spending plan has grown through weeks of budget hearings wasn’t immediately available, said House Appropriations Committee Chair John Otto, R-Dayton.
Thursday’s action by the Appropriations Committee means budget staff will work to crunch numbers before bringing the plan back to the panel for a formal vote next week. The next stop will be the full House. The Senate is developing its own budget plan, and differences between the chambers ultimately will be worked out by legislative negotiators.
The House spending plan still includes an additional $2.2 billion for public education that was in its starting-point bill, due to increases in local school property tax revenue increases. Schools are funded by local, state and federal funds.
House budget-writers added an extra $1.5 billion in state general revenue for transportation to their starting point plan -- on top of more than $1 billion that would come from ending the expenditure of highway fund money for entities other than the Texas Department of
Transportation. Both House and Senate leaders support ending so-called diversions from the highway fund.
The House plan doesn’t address a Senate proposal to add more money to highways by dedicating $2.5 billion collected through motor vehicles sales taxes to that purpose.
“I think it means we’re going to have a conversation” about how to pay for transportation, Otto said.
Among other initiatives, House budget writers upped funding for border security and for emerging research universities; addressed problems in state employee pensions; added a 10 percent raise for correctional officers, citing numerous vacancies; and added money to prevent Medicaid rates for doctors from dropping due to the loss of federal money.