The Texas Department of Public Safety is instead asking lawmakers for $381.5 million to upgrade its current facilities with better technology, dormitories and cafeteria for trainees from across the state.
Karen Brooks Harper
Karen Brooks Harper reported on the state budget and health and human services from 2020 to 2024. An alumna of the Missouri School of Journalism, Karen arrived in Texas in 1995 to join the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, spent several years in Laredo and Mexico covering immigration and the drug war for Knight-Ridder newspapers, and has covered Texas politics for more than two decades for news organizations including the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the Dallas Morning News and Reuters.
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Operation Lone Star
Texas Military Department says it needs $460 million more to keep border mission afloat this year
State officials have repeatedly had to move money from other departments to keep Gov. Greg Abbott’s multibillion-dollar border mission running this year.
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Texas Legislature 2023
Gov. Greg Abbott says he won’t give up COVID-era power until Texas lawmakers ban vaccine mandates, strengthen border
Abbott doubles down on his long-standing call to lawmakers to prohibit local governments from enacting mask and vaccine mandates.
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Texas Legislature 2023
Texas Legislature’s state budget proposals leave more than $50 billion in state funds up for grabs
The preliminary budgets by House and Senate call for $130.1 billion in state spending over two years, even though tens of billions more are available to them. The bills do not bust state or constitutional spending limits.
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Texas Legislature 2023
Texas lawmakers will have $188.2 billion available for the next budget after record-breaking revenue growth
It’s far more money than legislators have ever had at their disposal, with an increase in available funds that dwarfs any previous jumps between cycles. It’s also more money than lawmakers can constitutionally spend.
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Economy
Southwest Airlines’ holiday meltdown brings on federal investigation
The Dallas-based airline has canceled more flights than any other airline during the holidays, prompting federal investigators to ask why.
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Coronavirus in Texas
Texas hits 1,000 days under Greg Abbott’s public health disaster as a new COVID-19 wave and legislative session loom
After more than 92,000 deaths and 8 million reported COVID-19 cases in Texas, the state remains one of less than a dozen still under a statewide disaster or public health emergency.
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Texas Legislature 2023
Texas lawmakers have a $27 billion surplus, but a spending cap complicates their goal of lowering property taxes
Texas homeowners have some of the highest property tax bills in the nation, a byproduct of the state’s reliance on such taxes to help pay for public schools and the state’s lack of an income tax.
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Uvalde school shooting
Amid fallout from the Uvalde shooting, Texas DPS wants $1.2 billion for academy and active-shooter training facility
DPS is asking lawmakers to approve a $467 million active-shooter facility as a “down payment” for the training academy. “You play like you practice,” Director Steve McCraw said.
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Health care
State leaders won’t commit to specifics about how much they might invest in children’s mental health
As public debate intensifies over how the state will divvy up billions in new money, community groups that treat children for mental illness fear they’re not a priority.