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COMPTROLLER REJECTS TWO-YEAR STATE BUDGET
BREAKING NEWS: State Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn held a press conference Thursday, June 19, to state that she will not certify the legislature’s budget. Below is an Associated Press report on the matter.
06/19/2003
Associated Press
AUSTIN - Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn rejected the state’s $117.4 billion budget on Thursday, sending the two-year spending plan back to the House of Representatives to rewrite before the end of the current fiscal year on August 31.
"This is the first time a Legislature has sent the comptroller a budget that is not balanced," Strayhorn said. "I cannot certify this budget because it is $185,900,000 short."
The state constitution requires that the Legislature pass a balanced budget and it cannot be sent to the governor’s desk to sign into law without the comptroller’s OK.
Gov. Rick Perry already has called a special legislative session for June 30 on redistricting and other issues.
Budget-writing lawmakers worked grueling hours during the 140-day legislative session, slashing programs and services in an effort to overcome a $9.9 billion revenue shortfall. The final proposal was approved with just three hours left to legally pass legislation.
Most Republicans, who control the Capitol for the first time in more than 130 years, touted the budget as historic because it reins in spending in Texas for the first time since World War II.
But Strayhorn has said she opposes some of the tactics they used, like using the $1 billion emergency Rainy Day Fund to fill some of the gaps.
The 2004-2005, two-year state spending plan depends on $58.2 billion in state general revenue, a 10 % decline from the current budget. The rest of the budget depends on federal and other funds.
Forty-three percent of the budget proposal, $50.1 billion, was to be spent on public and higher education, more than any other area. Health and human services was second at 33.9 %, or $39.8 billion. That’s up $1.1 billion from the current budget.
Strayhorn has said her office would examine hundreds of bills passed this session to determine their fiscal impact.
She also questioned provisions that call for additional cuts in areas such as public safety, prisons and higher education.
And lawmakers added a new provision allowing the governor and the Legislative Budget Board to reallocate any money freed up by the governor’s line-item veto power. Strayhorn has hired a constitutional scholar to assist her staff.
Strayhorn also questioned whether $127 million lawmakers decided to spend on overall budget balancing should have been used to qualify for federal matching money for Medicaid, the state and federal health care program for the poor.
That move cost the state more than $200 million in federal matching money Strayhorn said could have been spent on medically needy children and the frail elderly. Cuts in the social services and health care were among the most controversial issues of the session.