After months of negotiation, the joint House and Senate Budget Conference Committee on Thursday evening solidified its final version of the state budget for the next two years. Although the final size of the budget has yet to be publicly released, it is expected to be around $210 billion, according to The Texas Tribune.
The 10-member committee, composed of eight Republicans and two Democrats, hashed out the budget’s final details over the course of several days this week.
According to reports, the conference committee’s budget will not include a $3 million transfer from HIV and STD prevention programs into abstinence education, which had been a contentious component of the House budget.
The budget also includes the Senate’s proposed figure for public education, $1.5 billion, instead of the $2.2 billion the House proposed. Details about the budget’s higher education funding, which is distributed through a series of research funds and other targeted programs, are still to come.
Once the full bill is released, it will go to the House and Senate for a vote before heading to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk.
To read more about the conference committee’s decisions, read The Texas Tribune’s coverage here.
