Although it’s too soon to know how current global and national events will affect the state budget, the budget-writing process will begin soon as lawmakers prepare to convene in Austin in January 2021 for the next session of the legislature. Texas’ last budget adopted in spring 2019 was balanced with $2.9 billion to spare, comptroller Glenn Hegar said, and the state has about $8 billion in its “rainy day fund” – although lawmakers set a $7.5 billion minimum fund balance last year “in a sign of their bullishness on the economy.”
But Eva De Luna Castro of the Center for Public Policy Priorities told Texas Tribune that Texas has “to kick off the budget process before anyone really knows what’s happening.” Revenue forecasters must give state agencies budgetary guidance in June. “If things don’t rapidly improve,” she said, “the agencies may be told to start cutting their current budgets just to make room.” Dale Craymer, president of the Texas Taxpayer and Research Association, said, “The consequences for Texas of the drop in oil prices will depend on two questions: how low and how long.”
