Proposed Budget - Fiscal Years 2024-2025
On February 16, Governor Greg Abbott released his budget priorities for the fiscal 2024-2025 biennium. Funds available for general-purpose spending for the fiscal 2024-2025 biennium are estimated at $188.2 billion, a 26.3 percent increase from the 2022-2023 biennium. General revenue-related funds are estimated at $165.9 billion for the fiscal 2024-2025 biennium. Revenue from all state funds is estimated to total $342.3 billion for the 2024-2025 biennium. The Economic Stabilization Fund (ESF) is projected to be $27.1 billion at the end of the fiscal 2024-2025 biennium.
Proposed Budget Highlights
The governor’s budget priorities center around providing property tax relief, investing in education, helping build stronger families, funding infrastructure improvements, continuing to attract new business investments, and ensuring the safety of citizens. Recommendations include the following:
Property Tax Relief
- Utilize $15 billion to strengthen the statutory compression mechanism and further compress tax rates in a sustainable manner.
- Automatically enroll senior citizens in the additional $10,000 homestead exemption on school property taxes and freeze their county property taxes.
- Provide targeted relief to small businesses with an increased exemption for business personal property.
Public Education
- Establish an Education Savings Account program.
- Invest in school safety in the following ways:
- $600 million to make necessary school safety improvements including technology upgrades, hardening equipment, and expanded mental health resources as well as other school safety needs.
- $6.6 million for officer Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training.
- $142 million to sustain the statewide implementation of Texas Child Health Access Through Telemedicine.
- Increase pay and supports for current teachers, expand access to high-quality educator preparation programs, and improve teacher supports in the classrooms.
- Provide a benefit enhancement for retired teachers in the Teacher Retirement System.
Higher Education
- Provide resources to fully implement the Texas Commission on Community College Finance recommendations.
- Directs $20 million be provided to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to further expand My Texas Future toll and other advising services to reach all Texas students.
- Bolster the healthcare workforce and increase investment in new and existing programs.
- Create permanent endowments for the emerging research universities that do not currently have access to the Permanent University Fund, including $1 billion each for the University of Houston and Texas Tech University.
Building Stronger Families
- Extend postpartum coverage up to 12 months and continue the Healthy Texas Women program.
- Create a paid parental leave program for state employees.
- Recommends $450 million to increase nursing home rates to allow facilities to hire and retain the staff needed and provide the safe facilities senior citizens deserve.
- Modernize and expand the state and community behavioral health system, prioritizing a Regional Behavioral Health Campus in Uvalde and supporting behavioral health workforce initiatives.
Investments in Infrastructure
- Fund the Ship Channel Improvement Revolving Fund which will provide low-cost loans to non-federal sponsors of Texas’ waterways to deliver these critical channel deepening and widening projects.
- Recommends $500 million to protect millions of residents, businesses, and critical ports and refineries along the Gulf Coast from catastrophic storms.
- Fully fund the Broadband Development Office to continue expansion of broadband across the state.
Economic Development
- Replenish the Texas Enterprise Fund, provide adequate funding to the Texas Moving Image Industry Incentive Program, and appropriate all hotel and motel occupancy taxes dedicated for Texas’ tourism promotion programs.
- Develop necessary economic incentives to continue attracting major capital investment and manufacturing to Texas while also incentivizing the creation of new energy production.
- Provide $350 million for the creation of The Texas Space Commission to support the development of a coordinated strategic plan that will position Texas as a global leader in space travel, research, and technology.
Public Safety
- Maintain funding for Border Security.
- Provide $120 million to sustain vital victim assistance services in Texas.
- Provide $5 million to establish the Elder Abuse Grant Program.
- Provide $350 million for rural law enforcement grants.
General Budget
- Continue to address long-term investment needs and solutions for cyber security enhancements and technology modernization.
- Ensure the continued integrity of Texas elections by fully funding the Secretary of State’s Forensic Audit and Election Division.
- Review programs created by the IIJA, CHIPS Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act to determine which, if any, programs may be beneficial for Texas to pursue and provide any necessary non-federal matching dollars in the General Appropriations Act.