The Texas House approved a roughly $337 billion two-year spending plan early Friday, putting billions toward teacher pay, border security and property tax cuts, after more than 13 hours of debate that saw hundreds of amendments meet their demise.
The House budget largely aligns with a version the Senate passed in March, though lawmakers made several changes on the floor that will have to be ironed out behind closed doors with their Senate counterparts. The biggest amendment of the day, from Rep. Mary González, D-Clint, eliminated funding for the Texas Lottery Commission and for economic development and tourism in the governor’s office, to the tune of more than $1 billion. Both remain funded in the Senate’s latest budget draft.
The House’s proposal, approved on a 118 to 26 vote, would spend around $154 billion in general revenue, Texas’ main source of taxpayer funds used to pay for core services. The bulk of general revenue spending would go toward education, with large buckets of funding also dedicated to health and human services and public safety agencies.
Both chambers’ spending plans leave about $40 billion in general revenue on the table, coming in well under the $195 billion Comptroller Glenn Hegar projected lawmakers will have at their disposal. But the Legislature cannot approach that number unless both chambers agree to bust a constitutional spending limit, a virtual nonstarter at the GOP-controlled Capitol.
In all, 19 Republicans and seven Democrats opposed the budget.
Public education and school vouchers
The House budget proposal would send $75.6 billion to the Foundation School Program, the main source of state funding for Texas’ K-12 public schools.
Lawmakers, in separate legislation, want to use that bump to increase the base amount of money public schools receive for each student by $395, from $6,160 per pupil to $6,555. That amount, known as the basic allotment, has not changed since 2019.
The Senate similarly approved a spending bump for public schools, but focused its increase on targeted teacher raises based on years of experience and student performance.
Both chambers also have budgeted $1 billion for a voucher program that would let families use taxpayer dollars to pay for their children’s private schooling and other educational expenses. That funding survived multiple amendments from House Democrats aimed at redirecting it elsewhere, none of which came up for floor votes.
Unlike in previous sessions, no lawmaker filed an amendment to bar state dollars from being used on school voucher programs. Such amendments, which routinely passed the House with support from Democrats and rural Republicans, served as test votes to gauge the chamber’s support for voucher-like bills. This year, a narrow majority has signed on in support of the chamber’s school voucher bill, a milestone for the historically voucher-resistant House.
Property tax cuts
The budget would shell out another $51 billion — 15% of the state’s total two-year spending plan — to maintain and provide new property tax cuts, a proposal that some budget watchers worry is unsustainable.
Huge budget surpluses in recent years have helped pay for property tax reductions, including the $18 billion package lawmakers approved two years ago. Now, lawmakers are looking to a $24 billion surplus to help cover new cuts and maintain existing ones.
Texans pay among the highest property taxes in the country, which fund public services, especially public schools, in a state without an income tax. The Legislature has tried to tamp down on those costs in recent years by sending billions of dollars to school districts to reduce how much they collect in property taxes.
Border security
Both chambers’ spending plans dedicate $6.5 billion to border security, raising total state spending on Operation Lone Star to almost $18 billion since Gov. Greg Abbott launched Texas’ border crackdown in 2021.
Most of the funding would go to the governor’s office, which would receive $2.9 billion; the Texas Military Department, which would receive $2.3 billion; and the Department of Public Safety, which would receive $1.2 billion.
The House also approved a $12 billion supplemental budget early Friday, covering unexpected costs and unpaid bills from the current budget cycle. The bill, approved 122 to 22, would put $2.5 billion toward shoring up Texas’ water crisis by fixing aging infrastructure and expanding water supplies.
It would also spend $924 million to bolster the state’s wildfire and natural disaster response and $1 billion to pay down the unfunded liabilities of state employees’ pension fund. In addition, it would pump another $1.3 billion into the Texas University Fund, a multibillion-dollar endowment created by the Legislature in 2023 for “emerging” research universities around the state.
Written by Jasper Scherer and Kayla Guo. This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2025/04/11/texas-house-budget-approval/.
