The States Budget: Facts to Consider on HB 1

• The HB 1 Conference Committee’s budget is keeping up with inflation and population growth.

• The Legislature is to be congratulated for producing a responsible budget that keeps budget growth in line with population growth and inflation.

• The Legislative Budget Board understates budget growth by comparing current spending to HB 1. The LBB’s 7 percent growth rate is based on the All Funds spending-to-budget standard whereas this table reflects only state funds.

• The table below accurately reflects budget-to-budget changes between the budget of the 79th Legislature and the conference report for HB 1.

• This comparison nets out the $1.1 billion in past deferred payments brought forward in Article 3.

• Also netted out is approximately $1.4 billion in new Fund 6 bonding authority in Article 7.

• Most articles of the budget and the budget itself increase more than the 8 percent inflation and population projection of the Comptroller; the overall increase is only slightly more than the 9 percent population growth plus inflation projection of TPPF.

"Based on our preliminary analysis the proposed 2008-09 budget agreement would increase state spending by 9.3 percent over the next two years.  This is a dramatic improvement from the previous session’s budget growth” said Byron Schlomach PhD Chief Economist for the Texas Public Policy Foundation

"A responsible budget process should not increase the cost of government per person.  Since we expect population growth plus inflation will grow by about 9 percent the cost to the taxpayers of this budget will remain largely stable” he said.

"The budget is a massive document and will take some time to fully analyze.  Nevertheless we applaud the conference committee for its overall product and we urge its approval by both houses.  For those legislators who have been concerned about the future revenue picture the best solution is to control spending now" said Schlomach.