After days of negotiations, House and Senate representatives agreed to a budget plan that would add roughly $4 billion in extra funding for public education. It also paves the way for a $2 billion fund for water infrastructure projects.

The proposed state budget would increase state judge's base salaries by 12 percent — and would do the same thing to state legislators' pensions. Check out the added benefit by member.

UPDATED: The cancellation of two key committee hearings Thursday put into clear focus that budget negotiations, believed to be nearly done just two days earlier, remained ongoing.

On the latest Agenda Texas, from KUT News and the Tribune: Several twists and turns marked Thursday's budget negotiations, and major sticking points remain.

With less than two weeks before the end of the 83rd legislative session, efforts to find more funding for the Texas Department of Transportation are sputtering.

State lawmakers would spend $3.2 billion for public education and $2 billion for water funding under plans being worked out by budget leaders, House Appropriations Chairman Jim Pitts said Tuesday.

In the waning days of budget negotiations, medical providers are pushing lawmakers to raise Medicaid reimbursement rates that were chopped two years ago.

Tax relief has become a key issue in the final weeks of the legislative session, and nearly all of the relief efforts are focused on the franchise tax paid by businesses. Use our interactive to track the status of those bills.

In the latest Texas Weekly Newsreel: With less than three weeks left in the legislative session, the deadlines are coming fast and furious, raising the stakes and prompting whispers of a special session if things don't get finished. 

Greg Abbott’s letter doesn’t have any new information in it, but the timing takes away what some — probably those further from the budget conversations than closer — saw as a possible solution for the Legislature’s financial logjam.

Spending from the state's Rainy Day Fund does, in fact, count against a constitutional limit on growth in the state budget, Attorney General Greg Abbott advised on Thursday. 

The betting here is that state finance is the closing drama of the session and that in spite of the sharper debates here at the end, that everybody goes home singing Kumbaya.

Budget decisions revolve around numbers, but talking about money is just a way to talk about policy. Consider the case of volunteer fire departments.

UPDATED: Officials from more than a dozen hospital systems will gather at the Capitol with Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst on Friday to try to iron out a solution to how they are reimbursed for uncompensated care. 

House members on Wednesday passed two bills that take aim at the practice of budget diversions, in which fees collected for specific purposes are used in another manner. The measures now go to the Senate.

The best way to finance Texas' pressing water and transportation needs — and to supplement spending on public education — is to let voters decide whether to use the state's Rainy Day Fund.

The rough seas that sank the Texas House's attempt to fund the state water plan on Monday night with a $2 billion draw on the Rainy Day Fund highlighted the limits of consensus on both how to pay for water development and whether it's a top priority. 

Besides boosting the economies of remote towns, the shale boom has big implications for the Texas economy and budget. Already, taxes on oil and gas production have soared above the comptroller’s estimates.