AUSTIN, Texas — Gov. Greg Abbott and GOP legislative leaders on Thursday shifted nearly $775 million into border security and school safety, plus $100 million to cover bills from Texas’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Paying for National Guard soldiers to help erect fences and apprehend migrants at the Texas-Mexico border requires a $340 million cash infusion, the leaders said.
And Abbott’s busing of migrants to Democratic-led cities in the Northeast needs $20 million more, to continue into next year, according to persons knowledgeable about the fund transfers announced Thursday.
Continuing a break with past practices, the money will be shifted using “budget execution” authority but without the traditional public hearing conducted by the Legislative Budget Board. It’s a group of 10 key lawmakers who keep tabs on fiscal matters while the Legislature is not in session.
The tab for Abbott’s Operation Lone Star now will soar to nearly $4.4 billion for the current two-year budget cycle, or 5.5 times what was spent in the previous cycle.
On Thursday, the two-term Republican governor spoke of “increasing threats pouring across our southern border.” Abbott is up for reelection Nov. 8.
With strokes of their pens on two letters, which an Abbott aide then forwarded to Secretary of State John Scott, the governor and four GOP legislative leaders also transferred $400 million to continue four-year-old efforts to harden public schools against mass shootings.
And they chipped in $15 million to help the shattered community of Uvalde build a new elementary school to replace Robb Elementary, where a shooter took 21 lives on May 24.
The school hardening and Uvalde money doesn’t represent new state commitments to public schools. Because property values this year are increasing by a stunning 17%, according to aides to Comptroller Glenn Hegar, the state’s obligation to fund schools through the main aid program, the Foundation School Program, is plunging by billions. The tab for education keeps shifting to local payers of property tax.
The GOP leaders applauded their generosity to education, though, and Democratic state representatives such as Austin’s Donna Howard, the senior member of the House’s budget-writing panel, and Mary González, who heads the Mexican American Legislative Caucus’ border security task force, did not respond to requests for comment.
“Texas continues providing support to the Uvalde community in the aftermath of tragedy as they rebuild,” Abbott said in a written statement. “I thank my legislative partners for the swift allocation of these additional funds to ensure the ongoing safety and security of all Texans. Working together, we will continue boosting public safety statewide and supporting Uvalde in their efforts to heal and move forward.”
While Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Senate Finance Committee Chairwoman Joan Huffman of Houston both stressed the border situation in their written comments, House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, did not.
Referring to the Uvalde gun massacre as a “devastating tragedy,” Phelan said, “School security will be a priority for the Texas House during the 88th Legislature, and this additional funding is a meaningful step we can take in the meantime.”
Friendswood GOP Rep. Greg Bonnen, who heads House Appropriations, said Thursday’s move “provides essential resources to address the crisis at the border and further protect our schools.”
The $100 million the leaders shifted for leftover COVID response costs is state discretionary funds originally allocated to the Department of State Health Services for public health preparedness and coordinated services. It goes to the Texas Division of Emergency Management, which procured personal protective equipment, antibody treatments and other items needed during the pandemic.
The $339.7 million for National Guard border operations, which goes to the Texas Military Department, and the $20 million for migrant busing costs, which flows through Abbott’s office to the emergency management division, represent the last of some $359.7 million of federal COVID aid that state leaders had parked at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. It runs prisons.
The money came from President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act. In a bill divvying up ARPA money that state lawmakers sent Abbott just more than a year ago, the money was described as “providing compensation for agency employees for the state fiscal year beginning September 1, 2021.”
The fact leaders this week removed the money doesn’t necessarily mean the prison system will absorb cuts, however. Texas is still sitting on billions of unspent federal COVID aid, and enjoys a state general revenue surplus for the current cycle that Hegar has estimated at $27 billion.
Though Operation Lone Star costs are running 50% higher than the $2.93 billion lawmakers approved last year, it’s unclear if state police costs for the border surge also will require more money.
Earlier this month, Department of Public Safety director Col. Steve McCraw appeared to tell executive and legislative branch budget analysts that DPS would run out of Operation Lone Star money next month. However, McCraw aides afterward explained he was referring to a specific pot of money granted DPS during last year’s second special session – and not the entire $942 million allotted for border activities.
Thursday’s release by Abbott and the four GOP leaders said DPS “will continue to perform duties under Operation Lone Star using other agency funds to cover associated costs and will present any supplemental appropriations need to the Legislature to consider during the next legislative session.”
On attempts to harden schools against murderers and other malefactors, lawmakers previously set aside millions for school security after the Santa Fe High shooting, four years before the Uvalde massacre.
In 2019, the Legislature created a $100 million grant program to pay for security upgrades. As of May, almost $85 million had been disbursed, according to the budget board. And a new per-student safety allotment created the same year also funnels $50 million a year to local districts.
But with more than 1,000 school districts, school leaders have worried that the money would only be a drop in the bucket compared with the cost of upgrading their buildings’ safety features and paying for other steep security costs..
Texas has a massive school facility footprint and many campuses were built more than 50 years ago, before features such as security vestibules were considered a best practice.
The safety allotment comes out to only $9.72 per student annually.
In recent years, school leaders have turned to large bond packages to fund their large-scale security upgrades.
On Thursday, Kevin Brown, director of the Texas Association of School Administrators, said it’s hard to put a specific number on the amount of funding districts need for their extensive safety needs.
“This will be an important down payment to help schools pay for needed facility upgrades as soon as possible,” he said. “We’re hopeful the Legislature will provide additional funding during the session and we anticipate that will happen.”
H-E-B and its founding Butt family are donating $10 million to help build a new elementary school in Uvalde to replace Robb Elementary.
The school has been permanently closed, and local officials have decided to demolish the building. It was built in the 1960s and housed 538 students in grades second through fourth.
