April 29, 2015 4:42 PM

Straus: The Texas House Puts a New Limit on Budget Growth

In a Quorum Report Op-Ed, Speaker Joe Straus says the House has just passed the best proposal on the table this session to keep state government spending in check.

The Texas House has just approved what I believe is this session’s most meaningful and lasting effort to control government spending.

The House gave unanimous passage on Monday to Representative Drew Darby’s House Joint Resolution 111. This proposal would not only help keep spending in check, but it would bring needed transparency to the budget process. And it would do so by enshrining a fairly simple concept in our state Constitution: Legislators shouldn’t spend money that they don’t really have.

Our state budget is full of hundreds of special accounts funded by charges that Texans pay throughout the course of their daily lives. There is the fee tacked onto vehicle emissions tests in order to help reduce air pollution. And the extra amount you pay to get a copy of your birth certificate in order to help the state manage such records. And the fee on renewing a motorcycle license, which is supposed to help pay for safety programs.

But in the early 1990s, legislators decided they could start using that money for something else. Specifically, they found that if they didn’t spend all of those fees on their stated purpose, the money would pile up and they could instead count it to justify spending on other programs. It’s not that the money actually gets spent, but it is counted as General Revenue when the Comptroller certifies the budget. And if the money is counted to, say, justify spending on Medicaid, it can’t actually pay for its original purpose.

The complete column from Speaker Joe Straus can be found in the R&D Department.

By Joe Straus, Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives