Straus: Education, water, jobs among priorities
By: Guillermo Contreras
Improving public and higher education, providing for reliable water resources and addressing transportation infrastructure, budget transparency and job creation are top priorities for this legislative session, Texas House Speaker Joe Straus said Thursday.
“I don’t know if we’re going to have time to address much of anything else,” Straus, R-San Antonio, said during a luncheon at the Plaza Club in his hometown.
Addressing members of the San Antonio Bar Association, Straus said the session that begins Jan. 8 means a full plate for lawmakers as they try to make Texas more competitive and add jobs.
“It’s not like I’m monitoring for bills that we might want to give a particular emphasis to,” Straus said. “What I’m trying to do is set a general expectation for the session that we are going to deal with serious issues that affect people’s daily lives.
“There will be a lot of bills filed under those topics, and we’ll have a good discussion and 140 days of debate and, I hope, good legislation,” he said.
Straus said the state has nearly $5 billion in so-called “dedicated accounts” that aren’t being used for their intended purposes.
“We need to begin to straighten that up,” he said.
He also said there will be a major effort to create more manufacturing jobs, but noted that people will need to be trained to fill them.
Accordingly, education will get plenty of attention this session, he said.
Citing demographers’ projections, Straus said the state will have an estimated 33 million people by 2030, and “we need to provide for that growth.”
“I think you’ll see a lot of policies in education promoted that may rebalance, for instance, the assessment and accountability in the standardized testing in our schools,” Straus said. “I think you’ll also see a recommitment to try to keep up with enrollment growth and maybe help in other areas of public education, which we have not been able to do in very tight fiscal times.
“The last session, we had a $27 billion budget shortfall. It was almost impossible to balance our budget without raising taxes, which we were committed to do. The economy has recovered since then, so hopefully we’ll be able to do more to help educators.”
gcontreras@express-news.net Twitter: @gmaninfedland
