The 79th Texas Legislative Session has now adjourned sine die and it is time to look back over what was accomplished within the last 140 days. Here is a quick overview of what occurred on a several major issues. Most of them were completed within the regular session, but a couple of items will likely require a return trip to Austin by lawmakers in a special session to resolve.


The single biggest item that will require a little more time to finish is school finance reform. We were very close to settling the final details on the education reforms, but still had more work to do on the funding package.


I anticipate that Governor Rick Perry will call a special session on this topic shortly and we can finish the job. My twin priorities for any bills on this topic are that they must contain significant local property tax reductions and result in more money going to our classrooms and our teachers. I also want to know that the new money will lead to improved student performance.


Another item that might come up as a special session topic is passing a bill on tuition revenue bonds to assist higher education in constructing the new facilities they need.


The single biggest bill of the session, of course, is the biennial budget. The budget we just passed has more than half of all general revenue (54.8 percent) going to fund education. This includes a 16.5 percent general revenue increase over the last budget for the public schools and an 8.2 percent increase for higher education.


Public safety and the criminal justice system also saw a funding increase of 5.4 percent over last session.


The budget increases for the obvious priorities came in part by greater efficiencies in state government. The Texas Legislature took the lead by cutting our own budget by 2.4 percent. Spending by regulatory agencies will also be reduced by 19.4 percent.


One item I am especially pleased was addressed this session was the complete overhaul of our state's Child Protective Services (CPS) system. Additional funds were appropriated to allow the hiring of an additional 2,500 CPS employees, which will lead to a 40 percent reduction in the number of cases each caseworker handles. The amount of paperwork each caseworker deals with should also be cut more than in half, which will enable them to spend more time working with the children and their families. The end result will be safer kids and fewer preventable tragedies.


Another major accomplishment of this session was legislation to fix our broken workers' compensation system – which was so bad that it hurt our ability to recruit new employers. The new system will cut costs for employers while actually increasing the cap on the benefits an injured worker may receive by 12 percent.


Major tort reform regarding asbestos claims was also adopted, which will help those who were genuinely injured while unclogging the courts of frivolous claims.