A Capitol Review of the Now Completed 82nd Session

The Challenge? A $20 billion shortfall due to the national economy & balancing the budget without raising taxes. By Sen. Dan Patrick Senate Dist. 7 Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN Texas Because of a very long regular Session & Special Session I want to be thorough and hope you will take a few minutes to read here at your leisure. As a member of the Senate Finance Education and Healthcare Committees as well as five other major committees and sub-committees it was non-stop work for me. After nearly six full months work the 82nd Session & Special Session finally came to an end on June 29th.   Because of my assignments and the legislation our office carried I was involved in virtually all of the major decisions made this session. As always I view my job as being your voice in these decisions. Together we had a major seat at the table to fight for our conservative principles.   The Challenge We began the session with the challenge of a $20 billion shortfall due to the national economys impact on Texas. Our goal was to balance the budget without raising taxes while still meeting the needs of our most important programs. I believe we accomplished those goals.  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Budget We balanced the budget without raising taxes. I was the only Republican of ten on the Finance Committee who voted against using the Rainy Day Fund (RDF) in the 2012-13 budget. I believed we should preserve most of the RDF for the future. I expect we will face another major shortfall in 2013 as property values continue to be flat and the economy sluggishly improves. I was able to find other Republican senators not on Finance to join with me to hold the line on our reserve fund. The final budget did not use the RDF for 2012-13. Instead we required further spending cuts if the budget falls short of projected revenues. Once that goal was achieved I supported the final budget that cut $15 billion in spending didnt raise taxes met our obligations while saving our RDF for the future. There has been a lot of misinformation distributed by those who never want to cut any dollars for any program. The headlines predicting 100000 teachers being fired and nursing homes being closed never materialized. Cuts to local school districts were restrained to an average of five percent. We funded our nursing homes at almost 100 of current levels. We also fully funded public safety and even added over $100 million to border security. While healthcare the fastest growing segment of our budget is still a major challenge we passed legislation with the intention of saving billions moving forward. Depending on the future of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act commonly known as Obamacare we will have to revisit Medicaid again in 2013. That was another important reason to save the RDF from depletion. In the end we cut $15 billion from the budget and we focused our money where it is needed most. Our budget even with the $15 billion in cuts is still a whopping $172.5 billion over two years. Education healthcare and public safety make up over 85 of all state spending. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prioritizing Classroom Funding As a member of the Senate Finance Committee as well as the Education Finance Sub-Committee I spent a lot of time ensuring that classroom funding was prioritized. Education almost half of our entire budget was funded at levels insisted on by the Senate. The final budget added almost $6 billion back to education from the original proposed budget. The total cut will see district budgets decreased somewhere between 3 and 8. Superintendents from across the state supported the Senate plan over the House plan because while they realized that some cuts were inevitable the Senate plan placed a priority on the classroom and teachers. The districts by and large have done a good job of focusing their cuts on non-classroom areas where possible. One of my key goals was to protect teacher jobs and the classrooms even while cutting 5 from the education budget. The vast majority of teachers that were terminated in the spring will return. Class sizes have not changed and textbooks have been fully funded. We also passed major legislation supported overwhelmingly by school districts that provides them needed flexibility in controlling their budgets.  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Transportation Transportation funding continues to be a challenge. Our gas tax revenues are nearly flat despite having millions of additional cars on the road. Cars today on average get much better gas mileage than a decade ago. Even with higher gas prices the state tax is flat at $.20 per gallon. Though weve added cars it is because of better gas mileage that our total collections have been kept at a relatively flat level for a decade. In spite of this budgetary challenge working with Representative Fletcher and Senator Williams we were able to push TxDOT to place a priority on building out the Grand Parkway finishing 249 and continuing the planning to expand 290. These projects will all be a combination of toll lanes and free lanes and take many years to complete but work is to begin in the next year. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Other Major Legislation As stated previously I was proud to be heavily involved in virtually every major piece of legislation passed this session. I was a co-author of the Photo Voter I.D. bill that finally passed. I co-authored and authored major healthcare reform including the Healthcare Compact which will give Texas the option to join other states in opting out of federal healthcare. I authored the Sonogram Bill that finally passed after I first introduced it in 2007. It requires a sonogram 24 hours before an abortion. We have 80000 abortions each year in Texas. This bill will improve informed consent and could save 15000 lives a year if just 20 of women see the sonogram and choose not to have the abortion. I also passed legislation to protect our 100 disabled veterans property tax exemption so it can be passed on to their spouse upon their death. This legislation was the number one priority for many veterans groups across the state and I was happy to join Representative Fletcher in delivering this to them. I passed nearly a dozen local" bills that will have a positive impact on our senate district. I joined with Representative Bohac to pass the bill that says HOAs cannot prevent homeowners from flying a U.S. Texas or military flag. Click to visit my senate website for a more comprehensive review of the bills that I passed. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Criminal Justice On Criminal Justice I passed legislation to increase penalties for drunk drivers who are twice the legal limit. I also passed legislation increasing penalties for smuggling illegal aliens into Texas and co-authored legislation to address human trafficking. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unfinished Work There were several disappointments. Every Republican senator signed onto the Sanctuary City bill in the special session. The Senate passed it to the House with two weeks remaining in the special session. Unexplainably it was stuck in a House committee and never was voted out. It did not pass in the special session. Also after I passed the anti-groping" TSA Bill out of the Senate it failed to pass the House on the last day of session. However the TSA has begun to change their invasive pat-down policies. I believe that change was in part due to the focus the Texas legislature put on this issue. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Future As mentioned 2013 promises to offer significant financial challenges once again. We are a fast growing state. Senate District 7 was the fastest growing district in the last decade and will continue to grow at a rapid rate. We are going to have to begin finding long-term solutions to funding education transportation and healthcare. We have to lower property taxes and resolve the business tax issue. I will be sending out my plan for the future in upcoming e-blasts. It is truly an honor to serve you in the Texas Senate. I hope you can see from my volume of work that I did my very best to represent you this session speak on your behalf and fight for the issues important to all Conservatives. Empower Texas one of the leading conservative legislative watchdog groups rated me as an A for my voting record. Only two others Senator Birdwell & Senator Huffman received an A conservative rating of the 31 senate members. Click here to see their ratings of the Senate & House.