Perry slices $81 million before approving budget

Gov. Rick Perry on Sunday trimmed $81 million from a $118 billion state budget that already had cut services to thousands of Texans to avoid raising state taxes.

More than half of his budgetary vetoes -- about $54.5 million -- were from higher education research, including funds that had been earmarked to help the University of Houston gain national recognition as a research facility.

"We set priorities, separated wants from needs and stretched every dollar. We protected both the pocketbooks of Texas taxpayers and vital programs, increasing funding for public education and health care."

The spending bill, however, makes significant cuts in some education and health care programs to enable the governor and legislative leaders to keep their vows to bridge a $9.9 billion revenue shortfall without higher state taxes.

And some local officials and advocates for various programs have warned that cuts in state spending will require increases in local property taxes to pay for such things as schools and county hospitals.

In addition to striking the higher education research funding, Perry used his line-item veto to wipe out several small agencies, including the Aircraft Pooling Board, the Texas Criminal Justice Policy Council, the Texas Wildlife Damage Management Service, the Texas Council on Environmental Technology and the Research & Oversight Council on Workers' Compensation.

The governor struck $22.5 million -- the entire appropriations -- from the Texas Excellence Fund and an identical amount from the University Research Fund, both major sources of research funding for most of the state's four-year universities.

Perry said the new budget increases funding for public education by $1.2 billion and adds $1.1 billion in new funds for health care. But it cuts some education areas, including funding for teachers health insurance. And the Texas Health and Human Services Commission has estimated that 169,000 fewer low-income children will be served under the Children's Health Insurance Program.