2022-23 Texas Budget Below TPPF’s Conservative Texas Budget

​This table provides a comparison of initial appropriations for the 2020-21 budget from the Legislative Budget Board’s (LBB) Fiscal Size-Up and for the 2022-23 budget as noted in the conference committee report for SB 1 General Appropriations Act. We compare the budget with the Foundation’s Conservative Texas Budget (CTB) limits based on on a 5% increase in population growth plus inflation.

We exclude from the 2020-21 budget the $8.3 billion in mostly federal funds for one-time Hurricane Harvey recovery expenses and the $5 billion in general revenue funds for a 7-cent tax rate compression of school district M&O property taxes in HB 3 from the 2019 session. Likewise, we exclude from the 2022-23 budget the $6.1 billion in general revenue funds to maintain last session’s property tax relief—which without this allocation would result in a 7-cent tax rate hike in those property taxes and likely more spending. And we will exclude one-time distributions of federal funds related to the pandemic. Not including these types of one-time funds is necessary for budget transparency and for not inappropriately inflating the baseline budget allowing excessive appropriations later. We also exclude the $410.2 million in all funds for Article X that Gov. Greg Abbott vetoed, and he will likely include in a special session.

The 2022-23 Texas budget is well below the CTB limits in state funds and all funds, and leaves $11.6 billion in the rainy day fund. Excluding the $6.1 billion to stop a massive property tax hike, general revenue funds decline by 3.1% and state funds are up by only 0.7%. Including it, state funds are about $725 million below the CTB. And all funds, which is the full footprint of the taxpayer’s burden to fund state government appropriations, is up 3% to $242 billion, which compared with population growth plus inflation is 2-percentage points lower and $4.8 billion less.

The growth of initial appropriations, on average, has now been well below the average taxpayer’s ability to pay for them over the last four budgets, which was directly after the Foundation created the CTB in 2015.

The Texas Legislature’s practice of fiscal restraint while meeting the needs of the state is good news for Texans. And much of the CTB was passed into statute as the Legislature strengthened the state’s spending limit by expanding the base to all general revenue funds and changed the growth limit to population growth times inflation while increasing the threshold to exceed it to a three-fifths majority in each chamber. After the Foundation has worked toward this statutory change for multiple sessions, this is a huge feat that will have long-lasting benefits to Texans.

We encourage Gov. Greg Abbott to build on these policy wins and more by providing paths for more fiscal gains—such as substantial property tax reductions and improved local revenue limitations—in a special session.

Full article with figures.