The Texas Sexual Assault Prevention and Crisis Services Program will pay for a variety of facilities designed to help victims of crime, adding rape crisis centers and educating specialized examining nurses.
But it is basically funded through $5 consistent with paying visitors to adult businesses, such as strip clubs, which closed this spring when the government tried to curb the spread of the new coronavirus.
Un convinced “post taxes” took $5.35 million out of the program.
Inmates who paint for Texas Correctional Industries manufacture clothing and other parts sold to contribute to the Revenue of the Criminal Justice Department. But this spring, in reaction to the shortage of non-public protective equipment, inmates switched to mask making. , which cost the correctional service $3 million in profits.
The Office of Risk Management, the state’s self-insurance agency, says it has processed two to three times the typical number of worker claims in recent months. By mid-August, government threat managers had won 5,130 programs “potentially similar to COVID-19,” said spokeswoman Janice McCoy. Claims coverage can reach $6 million.
Beginning in April, state agencies submitted monthly reports detailing the prices they incurred as a result of COVID-19, adding direct prices, such as cleaning products, as well as unclaimed revenue.
Some examples:
The State Risk Management Office reported that worker reimbursement claims for government workers doubled and tripled the previous volume.By mid-August, the company had processed 5130 requests potentially related to coronavirus.
The Sexual Assault Prevention and Crisis Services Program is funded by the prices of adult entertainment companies, such as strip clubs. As they closed this spring, the program reported a shortage of $5.35 million.
The University of Texas at Austin said it lost $9 million due to the cancellation of the spring school basketball tournaments and the Texas relays.
When Texas prisoners moved from making for-profit parts to non-public equipment, the Department of Criminal Justice reported a $3 million coup.
The Department of Motor Vehicles expects its budget to run out at about $100 million, basically because of the deficit.
Call them the hidden public prices of COVID-19. In the last six months, since the virus has been around the world and in the United States, the fight against the disease has charged the federal government billions of dollars.
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In Texas last month, Comptroller Glenn Hegar gave a grim assessment of the two-year budget of the virus-ravaged state, estimating that Texas might be expecting about $11.5 billion less than expected. Most of the losses were due to a drop in oil costs and sales tax revenues, as companies operated at a particularly low capacity or were absolutely closed and consumers who opposed coronaviruses spent less.
However, the cash the state pays for its operations comes from much more than sales taxes.
“Fees, fines, entry and registration permits, sin taxes, oil and fuel charges,” said Sherri Greenberg, a former lawmaker and now a professor at the UNIVERSITY of Texas at the University of Texas at Austin’s LBJ School of Public Affairs. Fundraising flows bring billions of dollars to the budget; some agencies have them to pay for their operations.
Since April, the firm has submitted reports to the Legislative Budget Council detailing the cash the virus diverted from its direct expenses (hand sanitizers, computer updates) to lost revenue. Together, the firms paint a mosaic of dozens of shapes, giant and small, in which the disease corrodes the public coffers.
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, Texas coronavirus losses place it in the most sensitive part of the states most affected by the virus, “there is still a lot of uncertainty,” said Mandy Rafool, the organization’s budget analyst.
“Texas is in a more powerful position than other states to meet the challenge ahead,” said State Senator Jane Nelson, Republican for Flower Mound, chair of the Senate Finance Committee. However, he added, “We will have to use our resources more efficiently, restore our priorities and make difficult decisions.”
Part of the hole will be closed by a surplus of approximately $3 billion integrated into Texas’ 2020-2021 spending plan. But “there’s still a big hole,” said Vance Ginn, a leading economist at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
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In May, Gov. Greg Abbott and other Republican leaders ordered state agencies to cut their budgets by five percent to succeed over the “economic shock.” But many of the biggest were exempted, so “it’s a massive exercise that will pay little in terms of overall savings,” said State Rep. Donna Howard, Democrat for Austin, a member of the House Appropriations Committee.
Lawmakers can also make the decision to take advantage of the state’s emergency fund of approximately $9 billion, an emergency account created through oil and fuel taxes. “You’re going to hear a lot of discussions in this consultation about” Is it still raining? Greenberg predicted.
But that will probably not happen until a new legislative consultation is held in January. And while the federal government channeled billions of dollars of COVID-19 aid budget to the states, budget analyst Rafool said much of that cash went to local governments or was subject to conditions, making it difficult to use to fill gaps in public spending. .
Many public agencies have reported unforeseen expenses needed to accommodate life during a pandemic. Laptops had to be purchased or upgraded as officials moved into the offices of the house. Cash was also needed for software and more bandwidth to take over external traffic: $149,000 in total for the workers’ pension system, according to his report.
Agencies have also reported accessing their bank accounts and having had to work hard for normal episodes of deep antivirus cleanup. The staff “spent nearly 1,800 hours offering decontamination facilities at 90 sites,” the Ministry of Public Security reported, “in addition to the 250 overtime hours that correspond to the day spent cleaning and cleaning in common areas.”
The Texas Workforce Commission, which handles unemployment claims, said it had accumulated 177,000 overtime hours. The prison service reported that between 700 and 800 employees were quarantined at once, with their shifts covered while others had overtime.
The Criminal Appeals Court spent $603 on Chlorox hand and wipe disinfectants.
With the launch of online and in-person courses, the University of Texas at Austin estimated that it had spent $30 million to prepare for the fall of 2020. This included $4.6 million for 50,000 student protection kits (mask, thermometer, disinfectant and instructions) and 3,000 “disinfection stations” on campus.
Most of the expected deficits through agencies, however, are fees and fines that have recovered as a result of the pandemic.
The Department of Motor Vehicles said it was expecting a $96 million gap in its budget for missing costs.
With major entertainment occasions canceled due to considerations about the spread of the virus, the Texas Facility Commission says it won’t earn about $250,000 as it would with summer parking fees in state garages.
The State Preservation Board budget has a $4 million hole, basically due to the closure of the Texas History Museum. The Department of Parks and Wildlife did not get $12 million in park entry fees and records of boats on which it was based.
The State Law Library said it costs $900 in arrears and fines for borrowed books.
Universities have reported some of the largest budget holes planned, largely due to unpaid dormitories, meals, activities and parking fees for absent students. The University of Texas A-M in Galveston lost $7 million because it was unable to manage its maritime camps.
UT-Austin estimated the loss of profit from the Big 12 and NCAA basketball tournaments and Texas Relays charge you $9 million, regardless of possible football losses. While some FBS schools have said they won’t participate this fall, the 12 grand said their groups would play with limited fan involvement.
In some cases, deficiencies can simply threaten services. Assistance to low-income judicial litigators is generated through a program that collects interest from the trustees’ accounts. Due to low interest rates (a component of cutting to stimulate the frozen economy of COVID-19), recoveries are less than $1 million according to the month.
When the proceeds plummeted in the past, “court and legal assistance went to the Texas legislature for monetary support,” the Texas Supreme Court, which administers the program, reported.
20% of the Texas Homeless Defense Commission budget comes from the court prices assessed in traffic and crime cases. With the elimination of legal activity, the commission’s profits are expected to decline by more than $10 million, the Office of Court Administration said.
Geoff Burkhart, the commission’s chief executive, said belt adjustment and reserves allow the firm to pass.But with the general decline in court filings, he added that COVID-19 also revealed the fragility of the commission’s long-term budgets: “It’s not a sustainable source of income,” he said.
Eric Dexheimer began running in the Austin workplace of the Houston Chronicle in December 2018. Previously, he worked for Austin American-Statesman, select weekly newspapers in Denver and Portland, and network newspapers and weekly newspapers in New York State. He is from Batavia (Exit 48, NYS Thruway).