By Paul Emerson
TAC State Financial Analyst
Based on the Legislative Budget Board’s (LBB) recommendations, the proposed state budget for the upcoming 2012-2013 biennium cuts spending by 16.6 percent and reduces the number of state employees by 9,610 — including vacancies and actual held positions. Included in the LBB’s recommendations is the overall baseline budget for the next two years: $156.4 billion (including federal and state funds). This figure is $31.1 billion less than was budgeted for the current 2010-11 biennium. State funding numbers for the upcoming biennium total $79.3 billion, which reflects a $9.2 billion or 10.4 percent decrease compared to the 2010-2011 budget.
In addition, the LBB’s recommendation shows reductions in each article of the proposed budget. Health and Human Services will be hit the hardest with a 25 percent decrease, while public education—which represents the bulk of state spending—will decrease by 13 percent. The LBB recommends funding for the state prison system decrease by 12.7 percent, which would result in the elimination of 1,562 correctional officer positions. Other preliminary reductions include:
Additional update dates on the proposed budget will be provided.
For more information, contact Paul Emerson, TAC state financial analyst, at (800) 456-5974 or via email at paule@county.org.
By Laura Nicholes
TAC Legislative Staff
Last week the Sunset Commission voted to abolish the Texas Youth Commission (TYC) and the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission (TJPC) and combine the responsibilities for supervising, treating and incarcerating juvenile offenders into one agency — the Texas Juvenile Justice Department. A few key suggestions of the 2011 proposed merger will be:
When presenting this recommendation, the Sunset Commission reinforced the importance of community safety first and foremost. The Texas Association of Counties will closely monitor the progress of this initiative and ensure counties have the information needed and the opportunity to participate in the legislative process.
For additional information on this article, please contact TAC Legislative Staffer Laura Nicholes at (800) 456-5974 or lauran@county.org.
By Laura Nicholes
TAC Legislative Staff
The Legislative Budget Board (LBB) has released its estimates for the 2011 House Appropriations bill, and as anticipated, counties will need to closely monitor several items that could dramatically impact the local criminal justice system.
Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) may receive severe cuts, in the neighborhood of $65.44 million, to the front end of its budget for 2012 in comparison to 2011, specifically, to basic community supervision funding, diversion programs, community corrections and treatment alternatives to incarceration. Each of these four strategies are primarily funded by the state and implemented at the local level as preventative, long term, cost saving measures aimed at reducing recidivism, managing jail populations, providing courts with sentencing options and reducing commitments to state correctional facilities. State funding for each of these strategies is more cost effective and successful than incarceration. The difference between TDCJ’s 2011 budgeted amounts and the 2012 recommendations could result in the following cuts for the first year of the biennium:
County jails could realize an increase in the number of Blue Warrant inmates, parolees who have violated conditions of their parole, due to an approximate $1.13 million reduction in parole revocation processing.
The Texas Commission on Jail Standards (TCJS) budget was proposed to be cut approximately $349,000 from its Inspection and Enforcement line item. The agency requested full funding in the amount of $389,414 for each year of the biennium, keeping within range of amounts appropriated in previous budget cycles. State budget analysts, however, have recommended only $40,470 each year. At the agency’s August 2010 legislative budget hearing, budget and policy analysts openly suggested increasing county inspection and re-inspection fees to help supplement agency expenses — the idea was likened to a “user pays” system. Following the denial of the agency’s request for full funding, the Legislative Budget Board included Rider No. 2 in the agency’s appropriation, directing the commission to collect approximately $288,200 each year of the biennium from counties for the use of agency inspection services and certification of county jails.
The Department of State Health Services (DSHS) is starting out about $228 million short on its total 2012-2013 base budget estimates for community mental health services. Reductions in community mental health care will have a direct impact on local jails, hospitals, emergency rooms and other local resources as local governments and taxpayers are left with the burden of providing needed services and funding for those services to some of the state’s most vulnerable citizens. Total budget reductions recommended for the DSHS 2012-2013 biennium are:
By Tim Brown
CIP Senior Analyst
The Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts released the Annual Property Tax Report for Tax Year 2009 earlier this week. The report is a bit more bare bones than in past years but includes some important information for county officials.
In 2009, local governments collected $40.0 billion in property taxes, which is 47.80 percent of all taxes collected in Texas (not counting federal taxes such as the income tax). Local sales taxes accounted for another $5.9 billion or 7.5 percent of the pot. In addition, $37.8 billion were collected in state taxes. This combination of the state sales tax and other state taxes accounted for 45.16 percent of the taxes collected in Texas.
Of course, property taxes do not tell the whole story. While property taxes are typically the most important revenue source for counties, taxes are far less important to the state. As an example of other state revenue sources, in 2009 Texas had revenue of $126.3 billion from interest and other investment income for the Economic Stabilization Fund according to the state’s Annual Financial Report for the Year Ended August 31, 2009.
To a limited extent, the Annual Property Tax Report also addresses who is collecting the property taxes. As the chart shows, counties collected 16.3 percent of the total statewide property tax levy, slightly less than the 16.5 percent collected by cities. School districts continue to be the primary source of property taxes – in 2009 they collected $21.8 billion or 54.4 percent of the levy.
What the chart does not show is the year over year growth in property taxes. From 2008 to 2009, the total statewide property tax levy grew 2.7 percent. The growth in county property taxes was slightly higher at 2.9 percent. This increase was less than increases in previous years. As the Comptroller points out, the annual compound growth rate in total statewide property taxes was 6.58 percent from 1990 to 2009.
The state’s population growth continued to hover around 2 percent as it has in recent years. From 2008 to 2009 there was a 1.97 percent population increase according to U. S. Census Bureau estimates.
Over the same period, inflation was held in check as prices actually declined 0.4 percent according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index (CPI). This decrease differed greatly from previous years; annual percentage changes had ranged from an increase of 2.8 to 3.8 percent during 2005 to 2008.
If you have any comments or questions about this article, please contact Tim Brown at timb@county.org or call (800) 456-5974.
By Tim Brown
CIP Senior Analyst
As is normally the case, committee assignments have not been released and are not expected for another week or two. As a result, the Legislative Budget Board (LBB) is still in preparation mode; they’re sending us bills that might move during the session but which have not yet been assigned to a committee, much less scheduled for a hearing.
Consequently, while the number of bills for which we have received requests for fiscal information has increased since last week, the real flood has yet to reach us. However, we still need your input. TAC State Financial Analyst Paul Emerson and I are currently working on the following bills:
Emerson:
Brown:
Please send us your fiscal impact information for the above bills so that we can send it to the LBB for inclusion in the fiscal note. Your comments are also very useful for our legislative liaisons. General comments can only get you so far when discussing the impact of a bill; it is always better to have details on hand as to how that bill will affect specific counties. For those following Rep. Solomons’ constitutional amendment bill on unfunded mandates, earlier this week TAC responded to a request for information on the fiscal impact. Here’s what we said:
It is impossible to say what legislative mandates will be passed to counties in future legislative sessions or what costs would be associated with those mandates. As a result, while we can be fairly certain that HJR 56 will not impose significant costs on counties, it is impossible to say what, if any, savings might accrue to counties; although it is likely that cumulative savings would be significant. Because of the effective date, however, we know that any fiscal impact would likely not occur until at least Sept. 1, 2012 — the date most mandates imposed on counties passed during that year’s legislative session would become effective.
To provide fiscal impact information, please contact Tim Brown at timb@county.org or call (800) 456-5974. Send information on Paul Emerson’s bills to paule@county.org or (800) 456-5974.