Grading Texas

Here’s some more information on the futility of proposing a $10,000 pricetag (including books) for a bachelor’s degree in Texas without raising taxes or increasing higher education funding, as Gov. Rick Perry is advocating.

State Rep. Mike Villarreal, DSan Antonio, today released data he obtained from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, showing the potential realworld implications of cuts in the higher education budget, as laid out in the House budget plan. This is the proposed budget that would cure the state’s revenue shortfall without raising taxes or spending any of the Rainy Day Fund, per Perry’s wishes.

If that budget were passed as is, and universities made up the cuts in appropriations with tuition increases alone, average tuition for a fulltime resident undergraduate student at a statesupported university would increase by $1,023 a year, Villarreal said. If universities passed through only half of the cuts in the form of higher tuition, tuition for the same student would increase, on average, by $511 a year.

According to the Coordinating Board, the starting House budget proposal, or House Bill 1, would reduce general revenue appropriations for higher education by $898 million over the next two years.

“The Coordinating Board cannot say how much, if any, decrease in state funding would be passed on by institutions as increases in designated tuition,” the Coordinating Board noted. “This would also likely vary significantly among institutions.”

But tuition is a likely source, Villarreal believes, because universities’ ability to absorb budget cuts without passing them on to students will be limited.

“The data demonstrate that Gov. Rick Perry’s recent call for making colleges more affordable, including a fouryear degree that costs $2,500 per year, is in conflict with his own budget proposal,” Villarreal said.

In the fall of 2003, just after the Legislature and Perry deregulated university tuition, the average tuition and fees for a fulltime undergraduate Texas resident at a statesupported university was $1,934 per semester. At UTAustin, the comparable figure was $2,721, and at the main Texas A&M campus, $2,357.

In the fall of 2009, after six years of repeated tuition increases from boards of regents, the statewide tuition and fees average was $3,323 per semester. At UTAustin, it was $4,468, and at the main A&M campus, $4,343.

Is it starting to sprinkle on the governor?

I’m not sure, and it is risky to mine political statements for nuances. But, hey, there is little point in writing a blog without occasionally engaging in speculation. So, here goes.

On Jan. 11, the day he was sworn in to begin his new term, Gov. Rick Perry, in an interview with the Houston Chronicle, strongly repeated his opposition to spending any of the state’s $9.4 billion Rainy Day Fund to help bridge the huge revenue shortfall.

“We will craft a budget that meets those revenue projections and not raise taxes nor get into the Rainy Day Fund,” he said.

The governor also addressed the Rainy Day issue during his State of the State speech earlier this week.

He said then: “Setting aside resources for a rainy day has given us a resource that other states would love to have, and some in our state would love for us to spend dry. Emptying the savings account to pay for recurring expenses is a bad idea, whether it happens at home, the workplace or in our state budget. That approach would not only postpone tough, necessary decisions, but also leave us illequipped to handle bigger emergencies in the future. Therefore, we must protect the Rainy Day Fund.”

Now, if you are still with me after that long discourse, there are some subtle differences between the two statements. In the first, the governor pretty flatly says he doesn’t want any Rainy Day money spent to balance a new budget. In the second, longer statement, he tries to convey the same message, but he dances a bit, which is why the quote is so long.

The bottom line of the morerecent statement is that Perry wants to “protect” the Rainy Day Fund, which could be setting the stage for an amended, followup position sometime this spring that the Legislature can “protect” the fund as long as it doesn’t spend all of it.

Or, this may simply mean that I don’t know how to read.

In any event, thanks to the devastating cuts laid out in the initial budgetary proposals, the pressure is building to spend at least part of the $9.4 billion tucked away in the savings account. The Texas Association of Business, one of the governor’s major supporters, supports spending $6 billion of the total. And Republican budgetwriters are openly calling for Rainy Day expenditures.

The mostoutspoken so far has been state Sen. Kevin Eltife, RTyler, who bluntly said yesterday: “It’s insane not to use the Rainy Day Fund. We also have to find additional revenue.”

TSTA urges the Legislature to spend all $9.4 billion in the Rainy Day Fund (at least part of that will automatically be replenished in time for the next budget cycle). But this would only begin to take care of a shortfall as deep as $27 billion.

The Legislature also must enact a new, equitable source of revenue that not only will cure the $10 billion, biennial deficit in the school funding system but also provide future, adequate support for public education and other state services.

Speak up! Tell the governor and your legislators that you and your children can’t afford the alternative.

Make some noise!

I have read several Facebook postings and letters to the editor recently indicating that many people think that we pay members of the Texas Legislature a lot more than we do. Each member of the Texas House and the state Senate is paid a base salary of $7,200 a year. That’s $600 a month.

During the 140 days they are in session this year, each will be paid an additional per diem for living expenses. The Texas Ethics Commission, which sets that allowance, is considering $150 a day for this session. If adopted, that would be another $21,000 per legislator, but that supplement will end when the session adjourns.

For some legislators, we can consider the low pay a bargain. Even at bargain basement prices, however, others still are ripping us off.

The governor, by comparison, is paid $150,000 a year plus housing. Members of Congress, both U.S. senators and U.S. representatives, are paid $174,000 a year.

The governor and members of Congress are paid more because their jobs are fulltime. Members of the Texas Legislature are considered parttime state workers because they are in regular session for only five months every other year, although they spend some time on state business when they aren’t in session. And, this year, they may even be called back to Austin for a special session or two to finish work on the budget.

The per diem supplement – which is based on economic factors changes from session to session, but the base legislative pay is set in the Texas Constitution and can be changed only with voter approval. It hasn’t been increased since 1975, when voters approved an increase from $4,800 a year to the current $7,200.

That’s a long time between pay raises, and it is likely to become much longer.

The low legislative pay pretty well restricts the pool of lawmakers to lawyers, retirees, wealthy individuals or people who own their own businesses and can afford to take the time off for frequent trips to Austin. Most everyday, working people, including teachers, can’t afford to disrupt their careers for the low pay. You can make an argument that higher legislative pay would broaden the pool of potential lawmakers and make the Legislature more representative of all Texans. But that change isn’t going to happen anytime soon.

Meanwhile, there has been talk around the Capitol that a couple of the newly elected, slashthebudget Republican members of the Texas House thought they would get paid more. According to this scuttlebutt, they thought they would be paid like kings (or at least, congressmen) while they hacked state government into oblivion.

I emphasize that all that talk is unconfirmed, but it is fun to think that it may be true.

First, Gov. Rick Perry and the Legislature cut higher education funding. Then, they passed the buck to university regents by removing caps on tuition, starting in 2003, and tuition started rocketing ever upward.

Now, Perry is telling universities to brace for more budget cuts.

So, imagine how thrilled college administrators must have been today to hear Perry, in his State of the State speech, call for a fouryear tuition freeze for entering freshmen and then top that off by “challenging” them to develop bachelor’s degree programs costing no more than $10,000, including books.

“Let’s leverage webbased instruction, innovative teaching techniques and aggressive efficiency measures to reach that goal,” he said.

Aggressive efficiency measures? That could mean things like cramming even more students into megasized classes, letting seniors (instead of tenured faculty) teach freshmen and using labs with outdated or imaginary equipment.

Mary Aldridge Dean, executive director of the Texas Faculty Association, said Perry’s $10,000 dream was a “statement out of fantasy land.”

“With increased student populations and cuts in funding, the numbers simply do not add up to quality education for Texas students,” she said.