About a dozen freshman Republicans in the Texas House have filed dozens of amendments to the state budget with the same goal: defunding various programs and agencies and putting that money toward retired teachers.

Texas' public pension systems — including the one state lawmakers pay into — have an airtight exemption from the landmark 1973 sunshine law that was designed to let taxpayers known how public money is being spent. But some lawmakers want to change that.

The Texas attorney general and the FBI are already investigating the accidental release of personal information by the comptroller's office. Now, as Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports, an outside group wants to start its own investigation.

A new phone scam has highlighted the possible trouble ahead for Texans who had their personal information exposed — and, as Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports, for Comptroller Susan Combs, whose office mistakenly leaked the data.

As they talk of cutting pension contributions and raising premiums for state employee health care and mandating layoffs and furloughs at state agencies, what are lawmakers doing to their own compensation and benefits?

Gov. Scott Walker should come to Texas, where much of what he’s seeking already exists. The right to bargain collectively isn’t allowed among state employees, and no public employee in Texas may legally go on strike. 

Travis County prosecutors who reviewed allegations of irregularities at the Teacher Retirement System of Texas decided months ago not to pursue the case.

Top appointees and employees at the state Teacher Retirement System overrode staff recommendations in order to hire political cronies and business associates for investment work there, Democratic gubernatorial nominee Bill White charged Tuesday. A spokesman for Gov. Rick Perry's campaign says White is "throwing everything at the wall to see what will stick."

Ramsey and others on Bill White and the changing state of the race for governor; Thevenot's two-parter on what Dallas churches are doing to combat social ills and racial division; Ramshaw on the use of force by school district police departments (and why parents don't know about it); Grissom's two-parter, abetted by Stiles, on unregulated payday lenders; Aguilar on Mexican immigrants who play against type; and Rapoport on those missing extra checks for retired public employees. The best of the best from November 21 to 25, 2009.

Sorry, retired teachers and other public employees: You'll have to do without that extra $500 you were expecting. And you shouldn't count on any additional benefits next year — not if the state pension fund continues to be, in the words on one state senator, "actuarially unsound."