The Appropriations Bill, House Bill 1, is entering the final stages of negotiation. The House and Senate have each passed their proposed budgets. This week, conference committee members were appointed and have begun the hard work of reconciling those two budget proposals.
The Texas House of Representatives and the Senate Finance Committee have approved additional funding for CASA programs, but at different levels. The House approved funding for CASA at the full requested amount: an additional $2.25 million in annual funding for CASA programs. The budget passed by the Senate also provided additional funding, but by $1.25 million annually.
Texas CASA’s goal will be to support funding at the level approved by the House during conference committee deliberations. Legislative Advocacy Teams reached out to their House members last week to ask them to maintain the House level of funding for CASA programs. Please contact the Public Policy team with any questions at [email]publicpolicy@texascasa.org[/email].