Highlights & overview of the 80th Texas Legislature

____ These are highlights of what happened in the 2007 session of the Texas Legislature, emphasizing issues that directly affect university health science centers and medical centers, and their employees. The Texas State Employees Union also won very significant victories on issues that affect other groups of state employees. Details can be found on our web site or in a copy of the TSEU Update, TSEU’s general news magazine.

EMPLOYEE HEALTH CARE
Partial victory: Health plan state funding increased: funding for university system employees’ health plans was increased to parity with funding for agency employees’ health care. University system employees’ health care funding had been 13% less than for agency employees since 2003. The increase in state funding was not enough to prevent increases in premiums and co-pays in the UT System health plan.
VICTORY: Health Savings Accounts defeated. HB 1269 would have created an alternative high-deductible health savings account plan for state agency employees, which would jeopardize our current comprehensive health plan. While HB 1269 would not have directly affected the UT and A&M plans, it would have affected university employees in the ERS health plan, and would have created pressure for similar changes in the UT and Texas A&M plans.

RETIREMENT
VICTORY: Increase in state contribution. SB 1846 mandates that the state contribution be no less than the employee contribution, currently 6.4% of salary. The state contribution, currently 6.0%, will probably increase to 6.6%, with the employee contribution also rising from 6.4% to 6.6% The increases will allow a “13th check” to TRS retirees.

PAY RAISE
MAJOR PROBLEM: University systems left out of pay raise funding, again. This is the second session that has left higher education employees out of statewide pay raises after a decades-long history of including university workers. Agency employees won a total of 11%, with a minimum of $3000 per year, in the 2005 and 2007 legislative sessions.
TSEU’s statewide pay raise campaign and success for agency employees lead to locally-based pay raises at several university locations, but they have generally been less than the statewide increases. The TSEU University employees caucus has made it a top priority to restore statewide, state-funded pay raises for university system employees.

STATE FUNDING
Initial analysis of university health science and medical center funding under the new appropriations act shows increases in funding for general operations. It is possible that the long-term decline in state funding in relation to overall operating costs has stabilized for the next two years. In one important positive change, full funding to staff the Texas Tech Medical School in El Paso was approved. A number of special university projects was funded by the Legislature, some of which were vetoed by Governor Perry. The vetoed items include:

UT Health Science Center in Houston: $5 million for Public Health Expansion

UT Health Science Center at San Antonio: $3 million for Life Science Institute

UT Medical Branch at Galveston: $2 million for the Stark Diabetes Center

For information on legislative developments affecting other state agencies, see the TSEU web site.

Found in the Sept 2007 issue of: