THE 3rd CALLED SPECIAL SESSION OF THE 79th LEGISLATURE

May 9th - Tick, Tock, Tick, Tock - Same Song - Second Verse

Dear Friends,

The clock continues to tick but the optimism seems to be growing here in the Capitol. I have talked to a lot of people today and the general consensus is that the Senate is getting closer to having a meeting of the minds on HB1. When they reach a consensus we will be like the football field architect. We will have put in place the two goal posts for the bill and will then meet to see if the kicker either hits one of the posts, kicks it somewhere between the posts or in the worst case the kick is blocked but at least for future games the goal posts are built. Hopefully the kick sailing through the goal post is a good metaphor for what will happen with the school bill.

If the ball is kicked through the goal posts will everyone be happy, of course not. We can pass many bills and I can guarantee you not everyone will be happy with any of them. You can be assured that at least 3 candidates for Governor will find faults with the bills; you can be assured that any candidate running against a sitting legislator will bemoan some segment of the bill, and you can be assured those groups getting higher taxes will not all be ecstatic. But the ultimate judge will be the general public, the average taxpayer like the reader of this report. We will ask your opinion at some time hopefully soon when the final goal posts are up and the kick is on its way what you think of the final score. History will be the final judge and that will take years to determine. A good measuring stick would be does the new system last at least a decade and if so it has been as effective as one could ask.

What has happened today? First of all I along with Representative McCall have filed three of the most important resolutions of the session. We have filed resolutions commending the Plano Academic Decathlon team for its national success, another resolution commending the Plano West Girls Basketball team on their state championship, and a resolution commending the Plano Senior High Boys Basketball team on their state championship. Our praise and congratulations go out to all these fine students, coaches, support staff, and fans on their outstanding success. These three resolutions show the great strength of our fine programs and great students in the Plano School District. We wish all these students great success as they move either to higher education, the work force, or into their next school year. We are proud of all of you. There will be special resolution parchments prepared and we will try to get them to all team members within the next week or two.

Today the house had no calendar since the Governor has not opened up the call because he is waiting on the Senate to deal with HB1 and HB5.
The House did take up some resolutions but all meaningful legislation on our calendar was postponed since the Governor has not opened up the call to any legislation other that the school finance bills. We would expect him to do this probably as soon as he feels comfortable with the status of HB1. That will probably be in a couple of days if things go as I would now expect.

The Senate had hearings on SB6 which is their additions to the HB3 tax bill. We would expect this bill to move to the Senate floor but I do not have much feeling for it’s possibility of success. The contents of the bill are still being determined.

The critical work in the Senate is going on behind the scenes and in individual offices as Senators, the Governor, staff and others are working on compromises to HB1 Senator Shapiro clearly has enough votes to keep her bill from coming to the floor until the Senators have a compromise on the recapture and equity language. We do know those are the major items being worked. There is a serious concern about future year costs for the requirements of HB1 as substituted in the Senate Committee. It will be interesting to see the Comptrollers estimates of the cost of this bill. There are also ongoing discussions about the recapture language and particularly how it would work with some chapter 41 districts that are not taxing at the cap. The bill creates what appears to be a new tier of funding for those districts. Plano is a chapter 41 and is at the cap so it would not fit in this new tier and would be able to get local enrichment without worry about the cap. However there are some districts that this would affect very adversely. We still have not seen district runs on the legislation and that will be very important.

The Senate also took up HB2 again and struck the amendment that had caused it to fail on a point of order in the house. They then amended it with a new amendment. You can expect the House to bring it up tomorrow and I would expect we would send the bill to a conference committee to work out the differences. It is also possible we might accept the amendment and send the bill to the Governor.

There was no action today on HB5 in the Senate. It is still probable that bill does not have the 21 votes required to bring it up on the floor of the Senate. I still think this bill will pass in some form but it might take more amendments to get it to the Senate floor. Expect action on this bill either tomorrow or Thursday in the Senate.

The night is getting late and tomorrow is another day. I will keep everyone updated on actions and if some spectacular things happen may get out some quick updates if they are timely tomorrow.

Jerry