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April 20, 2001

TFB identifies legislative
appropriations priorities...

Both the Texas Senate and Texas House have approved their own version of the state's budget for FY 2002-2003. A joint Senate-House conference committee will now work to resolve differences between the two plans in the next two or three weeks.

Texas Farm Bureau has five legislative priorities involving appropriations this session. We thought it might be a good time to update the status of these five important items.

•Boll Weevil Funding—Obtain additional state funding for boll weevil eradication program.

There is definitely good news here. The Senate and House both passed state budget plans with $50 million targeted to the Texas Department of Agriculture for the continuation and expansion of statewide boll weevil eradication. The work of the Senate-House conference committee should not impact the $50 million appropriation for the biennium.

•Quail Decline Initiative—Obtain funding for bobwhite and blue quail recovery program by Texas Cooperative Extension, including cost-share dollars for landowners.

The $3.7 million appropriation request by the Texas Cooperative Extension for this program is included in the House budget plan as part of its Article 11 budget consider ations. Article 11 items are those "wish list" items that are addressed by the Senate-House conference committee if additional budget surplus dollars are announced by the state Comptroller in late April. The Senate did not include the Quail Decline Initiative in its budget. We are hopeful a modest level of start-up funds will be allocated by the conference committee so that program biologists can begin working with landowners to recover quail populations.

•Brush Control Funding—Obtain state funding for a brush control cost-share program. Funds to be used on acreage that will most increase water quantity.

The House-approved budget contains $9 million to continue brush control programs in the North Concho River watershed in the San Angelo area during the biennium. The money is appropriated as part of the proposed budget for the Texas State Soil & Water Conservation Board. The Senate-passed budget did not contain any specifics appropriation for brush control. Specific funding levels for brush control will be determined by the conference committee.

•Texas Rural Policy Initiative—Obtain funding for Texas Agricultural Experiment Station to create a local economic modeling program to measure impacts of federal farm programs and state policies by major production regions in Texas.

This legislative priority was approved by the TFB State Board of Directors after the start of the session. The program would have three major components: assessment of the implications for Texas agriculture resulting from changes in federal farm programs; assessment of the economic feasibility of value-added proposals for Texas farmers, ranches and agribus-iness; and assessment of the economic status of costs, revenues, and development opportunities as inputs into strategic planning for rural com-munities.The program would mirror the successful national economic modeling program developed by researchers at the Agriculture Food Policy Center in College Station. The $3 million request for the biennium has been placed by the House in its Article 11 budget considerations.

•Dairy Demonstration Barn_Obtain funding for construction of Dairy Demonstration Barn at Tarleton State University.

This $4 million request is tied to a funding mechanism called a "tuition revenue bond," whereby state universities borrow money for building construction by using projected income from student tuition as a source of repayment. Unfortunately, this specific proposal is not likely to be funded. House budget leaders allowed each state university to propose only one tuition revenue bond item, and Tarleton State University did not include the Dairy Demonstration Barn in its request.

The only hope is that the Comptroller announces additional state dollars and Senate-House conferees choose to earmark additional money towards tuition revenue bonds. At that point, the project would be eligible for consideration.