The first day that Texas lawmakers may prefile legislation for consideration in the next regular session is November 8. Given this, I thought this might be a good time to share a few of my legislative priorities. Some of these ideas may even see legislation filed on the first available day.


Without question my number one priorities for the next session are to fix the state’s broken school finance system and enhance the quality of the education our children receive. I have been working on this all during the interim and look forward to addressing these two intertwined topics when my legislative colleagues return to Austin next January.


I also plan on being diligent when it comes to moving our local transportation needs forward. The road to Central Texas’ future can’t be clogged with continued gridlock.


What other legislative priorities do I have? Here is a quick snapshot of a few items I am already working on for 2005.


One piece of legislation that I intend to put in the hopper at the first opportunity has as its goal to make life a bit easier on the school-age children of Texas' military families. Those serving our country in uniform oftentimes have to move their families on short notice. This frequently means uprooting the kids from one school and moving them to another far away. I think we are not doing enough to help these kids integrate successfully into their new schools.


My bill calls for such common-sense measures as improving the timely transfer of student records and developing systems to ease student transition during the first two weeks of enrollment at a new school. This includes making it easier for these students to join into extracurricular activities.


Another item I plan on tackling early is the obvious problems that the State of Texas has experienced with regards to its contracting practices. I have some proposals in mind that I believe belong in the list of fixes.


For example, I think it just makes sense to have our Office of the Attorney General involved in the development and review of major contracted purchases by state agencies. Having their skilled contract attorneys provide some input at the front-end of the procurement process could help save us from major problems later.


I also think it prudent to formally establish a prohibition on conflicts of interests by state purchasing employees and have them sign an oath to this effect. State legislators sign a similar document regarding leases agreements for our district offices. Asking purchasing employees responsible for multi-million dollar contracts to do the same seems reasonable to me.


Improving health care is another legislative imperative and I am working on a number of items. One that I am particularly excited about involves expanding disease management for those suffering from chronic ailments like diabetes or heart disease. Properly done, disease management both improves health outcomes and saves money. My thought is the State of Texas should look at longer eligibility periods for those on Medicaid and CHIP who participate in our new disease management programs. I think that keeping these folks in disease management will end up saving us money in the long run.


Another initiative that has me excited is the concept of rewarding health care providers that provide higher quality to their Medicaid patients. Our current Medicaid model is, frankly, based upon quantity and forces doctors to see large numbers of patients to make enough through the low reimbursement rates to stay in business.


My plan calls for financial incentives for treating patients to nationally-recognized best-practices for various diseases. In other words, we pay a bit more for superior quality and better outcomes. This approach should save the taxpayers money through reduced acute and emergency care.


From reforming school finance to improving our health care system, it sure looks like it will be a busy session in 2005. As always, some of the best ideas for future legislation will come to me from the people of District 55 – so it is important for us to stay in touch as this next session approaches.