Budgets are policy instruments also

The Texas Tribune reminds us that budgets provide ways to set public policy. Its not just about number, its about what those numbers do. These are contained in a number of "riders" legislators - or more acurately members of the House and Senate Approproatins committees - are able to add to the document as it works its way through the chamber.

Riders are often added to the budget to ensure that a state agency spends a certain amount of money in the exact way lawmakers intend. If a rider in the proposed House budget plan is ultimately signed by Gov. Rick Perry, for example, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality will spend $1.5 million cleaning up “a site of a closed battery recycling facility in a city with a population in excess of 120,000.” The description describes only one facility in Texas: the Exide Battery Recycling Plant in Frisco, which has had issues with hazardous waste disposal. Exide announced it was shutting down the plant last year.

Frisco City Manager George Purefoy said the city has been working with local lawmakers “as well as members of the appropriation and finance committees to address Frisco’s unique challenge, resulting from years of Exide Technology’s operation in our community.”

Sometimes, it’s the absence of a rider that signals a change in lawmakers’ thinking. Last session, the budget included a rider allowing the comptroller to spend up to $2 million on a program highlighting the economic cost of obesity in Texas.

The comptroller’s office requested the money again this session, hoping to maintain a website and award grants to public schools for obesity prevention and intervention programs.

So far, it is missing from both the House and Senate budgets.

“We do not plan on asking for additional funding for the Reshaping Texas obesity web portal,” said R.J. DeSilva, a spokesman for the comptroller’s office. “We will continue to use available resources to implement this important program.”