After Din Of Chaos Subsides, Texas Passes Austere $217 Billion Budget (VIDEO)

AUSTIN, TX — Even by Texas budget-setting standards marked by division and even chaos, the budget has been certified by the state comptroller, signing off on $216.8 billion in total spending during the 2018-19 biennium.

"The 2017 regular session of the Texas Legislature was contentious and occasionally chaotic — but then, they often are," state comptroller Glenn Hegar said in a prepared statement. "As a former legislator myself, I know how hard preparing the state’s biennial budget can be, and how thankless the job can feel at times."

That said, Hegar on Friday certified Senate Bill 1—the two-year budget that is the only bill lawmakers are required to pass—providing for roughly $107 billion in certification-related funds for fiscal 2018 and 2019. Hegar said the amount is "well within" his Biennial Revenue Estimate, while honoring the ideal of limited government espoused (at least in theory) by the conservative legislative majority.

"It’s a conservative budget that maintains our traditional support for limited government,'' Hegar said. "I certified the budget on June 1 and sent it to Governor Abbott for his consideration."

The budget is an austere one, a manifestation of Hegar's earlier suggestions. Still, me lauded legislators for having risen to the occasion to pass it.

"At the beginning of this session, I advised the members of the 85th Texas Legislature that the next budget would be tight, meaning the pressure to weigh and compromise on hundreds of competing needs would be particularly tough," Hegar said. "But they rose to the challenge and met it."

But while Hegar and conservative members of the state Legislature lauded the budget, the devil, as they say, is in the details. Not lost on observers is that the state budget was made whole by dipping into the state's savings account—the so-called Rainy Day Fund—that has long been viewed as sacrosanct and accessible only in a true emergency. The budget was shored up with $1 billion from that fund amid declining oil and gas prices that in the past have saved the day in terms of a reliable revenue stream.

Something of an accounting trick that uses nearly $2 billion from another pot of money intended for highway projects to meet shortfalls also raised some eyebrows.

The elephants in the chamber room that gained funding sustenance reflect the current priorities, with increased funding for the state's troubled child welfare agency and more state troopers along the Texas-Mexico border.

Conservative rhetoric after the budget was hammered out reflected Hegar's rosy synospis.

"The budget today is a product of what is a true compromise" between the Texas House and Senate, said state Rep. John Zerwas, a Republican from Richmond, Texas, and the lower chamber's lead budget writer, as quoted by the Texas Tribune. Zerwas referred to the level of compromise involved, after the two legislative chambers originally unveiled competing budgets that were nearly $8 billion apart.

Senate Finance Chairwoman Jane Nelson, a Flower Mound, Texas, Republican, also touted the final balance sheet: “This budget is smart. This budget is compassionate. It makes huge advances in several of our priority areas,” Nelson said.

Not everyone agreed. "This budget is more of the same and fails Texas families," State Sen. Sylvia Garcia, a Houston Democrat, said in a prepared statement. "There's no new money for pre-k, there's continued spending on more border militarization, and it continues to shortchange education and healthcare."

Garcia noted that while the budget includes funding to cover growing enrollment at public schools, it shrinks state funding for schools by about $1.1 billion—a total offset largely by local property taxes increases.

Zerwas said state officials anticipated a shortfall of roughly $1 billion lawmakers will need to address upon returning to the state Capitol for the next regular session in 2019, the Tribune reported. The budget does not fully fund expected cost growth in certain programs, most notably Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance program for the poor and disabled, Zerwas acknowledged.

More than $500 million in additional funds was set aside for the state’s child welfare system, which faces a critical shortage of foster homes and front-line Child Protective Services workers, as the Tribune reported. Additionally, lawmakers used funding from the Rainy Day Fund to pay for repairs to various state buildings—mental hospitals, state-supported living centers for residents with disabilities, the historic Alamo and others.

At a time of such austerity and tension in meeting budget needs, Gov. Greg Abbott raised more eyebrows when, mid-budget-setting, he approved a measure drastically reducing licensing fees associated with buying guns. Abbott is the state's most prominent cheerleader as it relates to gun ownership, the force behind recent passage of "open carry" and "campus carry" that allows gun owners to walk around with their weapons in tow.

Senate Bill 16 slashes licensing fees associated with purchasing a gun, making it easier for residents to secure firearms, calling for: Cutting the first-time license to carry a handgun fee from $140 to $40; lowering the renewal fee from $70 to $40 and waiving the fee for peace officers and members of the Texas military forces.

Amid a $6 billion budget shortfall in the wake of declining oil prices — a deficit that had lawmakers scrambling to emerge from the red — the reduction of such fees (now the nation's lowest) is expected to cost the state from up to $22 million in its 2018-19 budget, according to some estimates.

A drop in the bucket? Sure. But certainly the gun licensing fee measure ran counter to the tactics of purse-tightening austerity seen at the Capitol this go-around (see: Texas Governor Signs Law Cutting Gun License Fees, Jokes About Shooting Journalists, May 26). But in a state where "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition" is something of an unofficial state song, it somehow made sense even amid lawmakers' scrambling to avoid red ink.

In a short two years, the contentious chaos of budget-setting will undoubtedly return. And, at least by the measure of sheer entertainment value, Texas legislators will not disappoint.

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