Texas Central Railroad sponsored a reception for Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives Dennis Bonnen at the Canvas Hotel in Dallas on Thursday, October 10th. About 50 members of the North Texas Commission attended the event.
While addressing his audience, Dennis Bonnen said that Chapter 313 of the Texas Tax code should have been reauthorized during the last session with the authorization of Chapter 312. Chapter 313 allows school districts to participate in tax abatements for significant capital investments. Chapter 312 allows temporary reduction of taxes, but for cities, counties, and special districts. Projects that can take advantage of Chapter 313 tax abatements are planned long in advance and the possibility that the Texas Legislature will not reauthorize Chapter 313 next session will put a chill on projects this year.
When a Chapter 313 or 312 tax abatement is critical to landing a project in North Texas, Speaker Bonnen emphasized the importance of making sure everyone knows about it. Too often, the tax abatement, which might be ten times larger than the award from the Governor’s Enterprise Fund, is lost in the publicity, which gives more credit to the smaller Enterprise Fund award.
At the event, Speaker Bonnen expressed confidence that the funding for HB3, the massive education funding overhaul bill, can be maintained for the next biennium. He expressed high praise for Chairman Dan Huberty for his work in getting HB3 through the Legislature. Speaker Bonnen recognized that members of the Legislature want to keep education the number one funding priority in the state, but views the Health and Human Services budget as crowding other funding priorities out.
Bonnen said redistricting will take much of the energy in the next session. The actual census numbers on which redistricting will be based will arrive April of 2021 just at the time when the Legislative Session traditionally starts to get into full swing.
Speaker Bonnen said he sees the Speaker of the House’s role as listening to the members of the House and removing roadblocks that might keep them from accomplishing their goals.