Economy

Balancing the next state budget may be more a political exercise than a technical one.

We should pay attention to what my old boss, Bob Bullock, used to call the thorns among the roses here in Texas.

Multi-part stories from Ramshaw and Grissom and Stiles on mental health services for detained immigrants and on payday lenders who provide exorbitantly priced credit to people with nowhere else to turn... Twitter, word clouds and the race for governor — a Stiles joint... Farouk Shami is in and Hu was there to watch... Philpott went to Bastrop for a gather of Republican governors... Rapoport finds a State Board of Education that's trying to control itself... and we have the skinny on legislative races that are likely to be competitive (only about 5 percent of the races on the ballot). It's the best of The Texas Tribune from November 14 to 20, 2009.

The state's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose to 8.3 percent in October, up from 5.2 percent a year ago.

Will there be enough money to cover the current state budget? "Fortunately, it's too early to tell," jokes House Speaker Joe Straus. He and other state leaders are well aware of the numbers, and although they think it's not yet time to act, they're focused on the big question.

Texas probably started its version of the recession in the second half of 2008, and October of this year might turn out to have been the low point.

Our searchable database of public employees' pay — now featuring data from universities and eight of the state's largest cities.

The federal government is giving away $4.35 billion to state education systems through Race to the Top. But is Texas already out? 

Idea for seminars at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, the Baker Institute of Public Policy, and the Bush School of Government and Public Service: How do you fire a cheerleader?

State psychiatrists are making crazy money. Of the 100 highest paid state employees, 45 are psychiatrists, most of them employed by the state’s 10 mental hospitals.

Texans say immigration tops their list of state concerns. Nearly half of them say illegal immigrants should be deported, as against 41 percent who think the immigrants should be allowed to keep their jobs, assimilate, and eventually be allowed to apply for legal status.

The economy clearly leads Texans' list of concerns about the country in the inaugural University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll.

States are struggling mightily to fund Medicaid services in one the deepest recessions in recent history, according to a 50-state health care study released by the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured. States, many of them strapped by budget shortfalls, overwhelmingly reported being saved by the federal stimulus package, and said without it, they would have been forced to make serious cuts in Medicaid eligibility.