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5 Document(s) [ Subject: Tax%20and%20expenditure%20limits ]

Committee: Senate Finance
Title: Interim Report
Subjects: Bail | Border security | Coronavirus | Economy | Employees Retirement System of Texas | Federal funds | Harris County | Homestead exemptions | Hospitals | Inflation | Investment of public funds | Long-term care | Medicaid | Mental health services | Nursing homes | Operation Lone Star (Border security) | Property tax exemptions | Property taxes | Public retirement systems | Recidivism | Retirees | Russia | School finance | State employee salaries | State employee turnover | Tax and expenditure limits | Tax revenue | Teacher Retirement System of Texas |
Library Call Number: L1836.87 F49
Session: 87th R.S. (2021)
Online version: View report [108 pages  File size: 4,001 kb]
Charges: This report should address the charges below.
1. Federal Funds: Report on the state use of federal COVID-19 relief funds provided under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act, the American Rescue Plan Act, Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Acts, and similar federal legislation. Examine local use of federal relief funding, including funding provided to school districts through the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund. Evaluate the overall fiscal impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on state agencies, including costs incurred due to federal mandates. Identify barriers to the effective utilization of funds and make recommendations on the expenditure of unappropriated funds. In addition, evaluate and report on the spending by state agencies that have been utilizing "one-time" federal funding (temporary enhancements, e.g. FMAP and ESSER) sources, where federal funding will likely be significantly reduced in future biennia.
2. Property Tax Relief: Examine and recommend ways to reduce Texans' property tax burden. Review and report on proposals to use or dedicate state revenues in excess of the state spending limit to eliminate the school district maintenance and operations property tax.
3. Inflation: Review and report on the effect inflation is having on the business community and state government, including state salaries, retiree benefits, the state economy, and cost of state services.
4. Inflation: Review and report on the impact of inflation on units of local governments' revenue collections and property taxpayers' tax bills, including the homestead exemption.
5. Tax Exemptions: Examine Texans' current tax exemptions and report on whether adjustments are merited because of inflation or any other factors.
6. Russia Divestiture: Examine and report on options for state asset owners to divest their positions in companies that invest in the Russian Federation.
7. State Pension Reforms: Monitor the implementation of recent statewide pension reforms to the Employees Retirement System of Texas and the Teacher Retirement System of Texas.
8. Bail Bond Reform: Monitor the implementation of recent bail bond reform legislation along with its economic impact on the judicial and correctional system. Assess any barriers to implementation, the law’s effect on pretrial release and jail populations, and ways to further promote public safety and efficiency.
9. Operation Lone Star: Monitor appropriations and spending supporting Operation Lone Star. Evaluate and report on the effectiveness of spending to secure the southern border. Identify and report on resources needed to ensure support for the State National Guard, as well as overall resources necessary for border security for future legislative consideration.
10. Long-term Care Funding: Examine state investments in the long-term nursing home care system. Study nursing facility funding issues and the impact of the pandemic on capacity and delivery of care. Explore nursing facility quality metrics and recommend strategies to improve the sustainability of the long-term care workforce.
11. Medicaid: Monitor the financial impact of federal decision-making affecting supplemental Medicaid funding for Texas hospitals and health care systems, including negotiations between the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Texas Medicaid agency regarding the state's 1115 Medicaid waiver and other federal proposals reducing supplemental funding streams for Texas.
12. Mental Health Delivery: Examine the state mental health service delivery system. Study the state's Comprehensive Plan for State-Funded Inpatient Mental Health Services and the Statewide Behavioral Health Strategic Plan and evaluate the existing state investments in mental health services and state hospital capacity. Review current forensic and civil mental health service waitlists, and recommend ways to improve coordination and outcomes to reduce waitlists. Explore and report on options for additional mental health service capacity, including building state hospitals in the Panhandle and Rio Grande Valley areas.
Committee: Senate Finance
Title: Interim Report
Subjects: Business taxes | Community Development Block Grants | Computer networks | Disaster relief | Investment of public funds | Property taxes | State government contracts | Tax and expenditure limits | University finance | University research |
Library Call Number: L1836.86 F49
Session: 86th R.S. (2019)
Online version: View report [41 pages  File size: 3,210 kb]
Charges: This report should address the charges below.
1. Investment of State Funds: Review the investment strategies and performance of funds invested through the Teacher Retirement System, the Permanent School Fund, and university funds. Make recommendations to better coordinate and leverage Texas' purchasing power to maximize investment income to the state.
2. Agency Technology: Review current and prospective technology related purchases and upgrades in state agencies. Identify areas of overlap and make recommendations to eliminate duplication, improve efficiency, save costs, and improve performance.
3. Spending Limit: Examine options and make recommendations for strengthening restrictions on appropriations established in Article VIII, Section 22, of the Texas Constitution, including related procedures defined in statute. Consider options for ensuring available revenues above spending limit are reserved for tax relief.
4. Higher Education Research Programs: Create a comprehensive list of research projects conducted by higher education institutions that are funded by state expenditures, including an inventory of funding streams and programs supporting identified research projects. Identify best practice methods to improve efficiency and coordination of research among university systems, eliminate duplication, and align research projects with the goals of the state.
5. Business Personal Property Tax: Study the economic dynamics of the current business personal property tax. Consider the economic and fiscal effects of increased exemptions to the business personal property tax, versus its elimination. Following such study, make recommended changes to law.
6. Natural Disaster Funding: Review federal, state, and local eligibility and receipt of disaster funds from Community Development Block Grants -Disaster Relief and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Identify any barriers to the effective utilization of those funds and recommend any changes to statute, rule, or practice to promote the efficient deployment of those funds and expedite recovery by affected citizens, businesses, and communities.
Committee: Senate Finance
Title: Interim Report
Subjects: Franchise taxes | Information Resources, Texas Department of | Local government debt | Medical education | Mental health services | Pension liabilities | Property taxes | Sales taxes | State budgets | State government debt | State purchasing | Tax and expenditure limits | Tax holidays |
Library Call Number: L1836.84 F49
Session: 84th R.S. (2015)
Online version: View report [86 pages]
Charges: This report should address the charges below.
1. Property Tax Process: Study the property tax process, including the appraisal system, and recommend ways to promote transparency, simplicity, and accountability by all taxing entities. (Charge to a select subcommittee on Property Tax Reform and Relief)
2. Reduce Tax Burden: Examine and develop options to further reduce the tax burden on property owners. (Charge to a select subcommittee on Property Tax Reform and Relief)
3. Franchise Tax: Study the benefits, including the dynamic effects, of continuing to phase out the franchise tax. Consider alternate approaches to funding the Property Tax Relief Fund.
4. Spending Limit: Examine options and make recommendations for strengthening restriction on appropriations established in Article VIII Section 22 of the state constitution, including related procedures defined in statute. Consider options for ensuring available revenues above spending limit are reserved for tax relief.
5. Fiscal Responsibility: Review the budgeting format of other states, such as whether they use strategy-based budgeting, program-based budgeting, or some other approach and discuss the level of transparency with each approach. Review and make recommendations to reduce state debt liabilities, including state pension liability. Consider how to incentivize state agencies, boards, and commissions to identify and realize savings to taxpayers.
6. Coordinating Behavioral Health Services and Expenditures: Monitor the state's progress in coordinating behavioral health services and expenditures across state government, pursuant to Article IX Sec. 10.04. Identify ways state agencies that provide mental health services are collaborating and taking steps to eliminate redundancy, create efficiency, utilize best practices, ensure optimal service delivery, and demonstrate expenditures are coordinated and in furtherance of a behavioral health statewide strategic plan. Identify barriers that prevent the coordination of behavioral health services. Make recommendations to maximize use of state funding for mental health.
7. Sales Tax Holiday: Review the state's current sales tax holiday structure and determine its economic benefit to the state. Evaluate and consider the merits of any potential expansion of the tax holiday either in the application of the sales tax exemption or the timing of the holiday.
8. Monitoring Charge: Monitor the implementation of legislation addressed by the Senate Finance Committee during the 84th R.S. and make recommendations for any legislation needed to improve, enhance, and/or complete implementation. Specifically, monitor the following: 1) Tax relief provided to property owners; 2) The gradual phase out of the franchise tax; 3) Support for and the enhancement of graduate medical education; 4) Efforts of the Department of Information Resources (DIR) to modernize the technology of state agencies; 5) The implementation of required changes to state agency contracting, purchasing, and accounting procedures; and 6) Monitor the implementation of Health and Human Services Commission Rider 50.
Committee: Senate Finance
Title: Interim Report
Library Catalog Title: Interim charge recommendations to the 82nd Legislature
Subjects: Affordable housing | Aging and Disability Services, Texas Department of | Border security | Business taxes | Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas | Disaster relief | Economic stabilization | Federal aid | Highway finance | Hospitals | Mineral rights | Nursing education | Prepaid tuition plans | Property tax exemptions | Property taxes | Rural health care | State budgets | Tax and expenditure limits | Tax appraisals | Tax incentives | Tax revenue | Tobacco taxes | Traffic | Transportation, Texas Department of | Tropical storms | University finance | University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston |
Library Call Number: L1836.81 F49
Session: 81st R.S. (2009)
Online version: View report [158 pages  File size: 7,366 kb]
Charges: This report should address the charges below.
1. Review and make recommendations regarding existing and future public debt at all levels of government in Texas, including independent school districts, cities, other local governments and the Texas Guaranteed Tuition Plan.
2. Study the impact of recent hurricanes for which a federal disaster declaration was issued on local economies. Examine the basis for the distribution of federal dollars for hurricane cleanup across the state. Review past methods of distribution, including those involving the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs and the Office of Rural Community Affairs. Develop policy and statutory recommendations to ensure that the system of distribution is effective to address needs of the various regions of the state in the event of future disasters. Provide effective budget oversight of state agencies that received appropriations as a result of hurricane damage. Examine the rebuilding of University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and the collection and proper deposit of federal reimbursements.
3. Review the effect that Texas Business Tax credits, such as a research and development credit, have on economic development in Texas. Determine whether the costs of various tax credits would be adequately offset by the net increase in state sales tax and other revenues and jobs produced by each credit. Focus on businesses relocating to or from the State of Texas, the impact on the tax base, employment, and the overall economic condition of the state.
4. Identify and evaluate potential improvements to the property tax system. Consider and make recommendations relating to the following:
  • Methods to increase public participation in the tax rate-setting process and ensure fairness in appraisal protests and appeals;
  • Requirement that property appraisal values may not increase by more than inflation and/or population growth, or another amount to be determined by local taxing authorities, with a maximum cap of 10 percent;
  • Exemptions provided to community housing development organizations to determine if changes are needed to ensure that the public benefits outweigh the revenue loss;
  • Methods and procedures for determining a real property interest in oil or gas in place, as contained in Texas Tax Code Sec. 23.175, including how market-based data and market-based methodology could possibly be used to ensure fair, reliable, and equitable price forecasts of oil and gas interests. Analyze the need for the creation of an Oil and Gas Valuation Advisory Committee to assist in forecasting current calendar year statewide average prices for oil and gas; and
  • the constitutional constraints and fiscal implications of exempting real property, leased to a school, as defined by Section 11.21 of the Tax Code, from ad valorem taxation.
5. Examine the Texas Tomorrow Fund and its impact on institutions of higher education. Assess current and future costs, the ability of institutions to absorb the costs, and make recommendations for ensuring a sound fiscal approach to managing the fund for the future.
6. Study the impact of changing the constitutional and statutory spending limit based on the sum of the rate of population growth and the rate of inflation. Examine what past biennial spending limits would have been, and what the next biennium's limit might be, under a new definition. Consider the impact of exempting growth from federally mandated programs.
7. Study and make recommendations regarding formula funding and its impact on the cost of attendance and methods of financing higher education institutions, including funding differences for pharmacy and nursing programs; research funding; performance funding; and funding for institutions that face capacity student enrollment. Specifically address the following:
  • Methods of financing capital projects at higher education institutions, including the levels of deferred maintenance, the impact of deferred maintenance on the ability to offer basic instructional services, and the methods used to finance deferred maintenance projects. Recommend alternatives for providing a structured and recurring funding mechanism more suited to the state's fiscal capacity and institutional needs
  • Supplemental funding for structured programs that are essential for student success and for meeting the goals of Closing the Gaps, including those that provide concentrated student academic and personal support services for universities that enroll a high proportion of non-traditional or at-risk students. Study and make recommendations regarding the quality and effectiveness of academic advising, focusing on resources, staff development, and impact on time­ to-degree.
8. Review the capacity of rural hospitals, rural hospital infrastructure, and the statewide impact of services provided by rural hospitals. Make recommendations for funding options to help communities that do not have adequate resources to replace aging infrastructure and consider the creation ofa rural hospital infrastructure support program similar to the courthouse preservations fund.
9. Examine transportation funding concepts contained in legislation considered during the 81 st Legislature, Regular and Special Sessions. Analyze options and make recommendations relating to historical funding strategies, including prioritization of existing revenues, as well as alternative state and local transportation funding concepts. (Joint charge with Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee)
  • Ensure that the pass-through program reimbursements to contractors and local public entities are based on actual project costs and not cost estimates.
  • Prioritize necessary road construction projects and target financing to those segments that affect the largest number of Texans through congestion mitigation.
  • Ensure that Texas receives the best value for its investment. (Subcharges added pursuant to Dewhurst letter dated 4/8/2010.)
10. Monitor the implementation of legislation addressed by the Senate Committee on Finance, 81 st Legislature, Regular and Called Sessions, and make recommendations for any legislation needed to improve, enhance, and/or complete implementation. Specifically, monitor the following:
  • The Legislative Budget Board effectiveness and efficiency review of Chapter 313, Tax Code. Consider whether tax provisions provide a net benefit to the state.
  • Monitor ongoing faculty recruitment and retention for Texas nursing schools, and assess the impact ofincreased state funds to nursing schools to increase faculty salaries and add new teaching schools.
  • Monitor the use of Byrne Grant Border security funds, including whether additional funds need to be spent on communications interoperability.
  • Monitor the Department of Aging and Disability Services (DADS) implementation of SB 643, emergency legislation relating to Texas' state supported living centers (SSLCs), implementation of Special Provisions relating to All Health and Human Services Agencies, Section 48, Contingency Appropriation for the Reshaping of the System for Providing Services to Individuals with Developmental Disabilities, and implementation of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) Settlement Agreement terms.
  • Provide effective budget oversight of Texas Department of Transportation's implementation of Riders 55 and 56, appropriations from State Highway Fund No. 006 and Proposition 12 General Obligation Bonds for reducing congested road segments.
  • Monitor the revenue receipts associated with the weight-based tobacco tax.
  • Monitor the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas grant making process to ensure that funds are spent efficiently and effectively.
  • Monitor the expenditure of federal American Resource and Recovery Act funds. Review the extent to which federal stimulus funds affected each agency's ability to meet or surpass its Performance Measure Targets. Consider the effect that delays in federal approvals have had on funding for public education and weatherization programs.
Committee: Senate Finance Subcommittee on Property Appraisal and Revenue Caps
Title: Interim Report
Library Catalog Title: Interim report
Subjects: Appraisal districts | School budgets | School finance | Tax and expenditure limits | Tax appraisals | Tax rollback elections | Texas Economic Development Act |
Library Call Number: L1836.80 F49pa
Session: 80th R.S. (2007)
Online version: View report [46 pages  File size: 3,312 kb]
Charges: This report should address the charges below.
1. Review the property tax appraisal system, including the following:
  • the duties and responsibilities of chief appraisers and appraisal districts;
  • any abuses that occur in the appraisal process;
  • the process of appointing the members of boards of directors of appraisal districts;
  • the impact of adding members to the boards of directors of appraisal districts who are not appointed by the taxing jurisdictions of the district and methods for appointing these additional directors;
  • the usefulness of information provided in a notice of appraised value;
  • the impact of HB 1010, 80th R.S., relating to appraisal districts crossing county lines;
  • any benefit from requiring more uniformity in appraisal standards used by appraisal districts;
  • any revisions to the property valuation appeal system that could reduce the cost of dispute resolution;
  • the likelihood of, and any associated benefit from, increased compliance with the existing business personal property rendition law if chief appraisers are given limited audit authority.
2. Study the benefits and limitations of property tax appraisal caps compared to a limit on revenue a local jurisdiction can receive without the approval of the voters in the locality. Consider alternative sources of funding to replace property tax revenues.
3. Study the cost and benefit to the state of projects approved by school districts limiting the value of business investment under the Texas Economic Development Act (Ch 313, Tax Code), and the funding impact on public schools.
4. Review the practice of school districts approving budgets contingent on the passage of a rate-rollback election.

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