Economy

The stimulus money increased funding for education last session. But can the state keep it up next session without more federal money?

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Hoping to push a wide array of digital content and teaching tools to public schools, the Texas Education Agency has cut a deal with a division of The New York Times for an electronic curriculum portal and searchable access to the newspaper’s content since 1851.

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State Rep. Dan Gattis, R-Georgetown, is dropping his bid for state Senate and won't seek reelection to the Texas House next year, he said Sunday. Gattis said State Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, will seek reelection after all.

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Comptroller Susan Combs says the state will have $77.7 billion in general revenue for the current budget, which calls for $77.6 billion in general revenue.

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The number of Mexican-born professionals living in the United States has more than doubled since 1995. They're not the undocumented workers you see in evening-news mug shots or aerial photographs of a littered and barren desert. They're college graduates — some with multiple degrees — who join their blue-collar counterparts in their journeys north.

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

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

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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.

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

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Speaker Joe Straus has given committees their assignments for the next year.

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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.

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The Obama administration’s economic stimulus package has failed to create any jobs in Texas’ 52nd congressional district, despite pouring nearly $9 million into it. This would be a problem — if CD-52 existed.

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It’s beginning to look a lot like primary season.

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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.

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

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

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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?

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The UT/Tribune poll results convey some very intense disapproval of political leadership.

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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.

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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.

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