For this week's written assignment for ACC's 2306 classes: A look at both bicameralism and checks and balances in Texas, along with the Legislative Budget Board.
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We already knew the Legislature was going to start its January session without a House Appropriations Committee; naming a new budget-writing panel will follow the election of a new speaker of the House.
Now there’s a new kink in the preparation of the state’s next two-year budget: Ursula Parks, the beleaguered director of the obscure but critical Legislative Budget Board, is retiring at the end of the month.
Her departure is notable for a couple of reasons that have nothing to do with Parks and everything to do with the finances at the heart of state government. The LBB has played the part of the rope in a fierce tug-of-war between the House and the Senate.
Parks’ departure caps a series of tense moments between lawmakers and a prominent agency that belongs not to the executive branch, like most agencies, but to the Legislature itself.
And it beheads the third of those agencies, adding to vacancies at the top of the State Auditor’s Office and the Sunset Advisory Commission. Both the LBB and the SAO are co-chaired by the lieutenant governor and the speaker of the House; Sunset is run by a board directly and indirectly appointed by those two officials.
While those agencies are set up to serve state senators and representatives — the Texas Legislative Council and the Texas Reference Library are in this category, too — they’re also in the sometimes-uncomfortable position of serving two masters.
Over the last two legislative sessions, their masters have been pulling their leashes in different directions
