From the Texas Tribune: Texas Senate passes bill to direct federal relief money to state agencies, hospitals and tourism industry

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The Texas Senate on Friday advanced its proposal doling about $16 billion in federal coronavirus relief dollars to help shore up people, industries and state agencies that have been financially strained by the pandemic.

The legislation, Senate Bill 8 authored by state Sen. Jane Nelson, a Flower Mound Republican who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, would direct money to state hospitals, food banks and the tourism industry.

It appropriates $7.2 billion to the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts for the state’s unemployment compensation fund, which was overloaded last year by record claims. The bill would also provide $3.5 billion to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and Texas Department of Public Safety for the salaries and benefits of state employees involved in the pandemic response. Another $2.5 billion would go to the Texas Department of State Health Services to fund items such as local and state hospital surge staffing, the purchasing of therapeutic drugs and regional infusion centers.

The spending proposal, passed unanimously in the Senate, now heads to the lower chamber for consideration. Allocating those federal relief dollars, which the state has under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, was among the items on Gov. Greg Abbott’s special session agenda for the Legislature’s third overtime round of the year. The $1.9 trillion federal bill, signed into law by President Joe Biden earlier this year, sent direct payment to millions of Texans and billions of dollars in aid for state and local governments and schools.

For more on the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, click below.

- NCSL.
- Congress.gov.