TO:	Honorable Greg Bonnen, Chair, House Committee on Appropriations
FROM:	Jerry McGinty, Director, Legislative Budget Board
IN RE:	HB1 by Bonnen (General Appropriations Bill.), As Introduced

House Bill 1, As Introduced, (HB 1) would appropriate $194,989.9 million from state funds during the 2024-25 biennium.  This represents an increase of $22,537.6 million, or 13.1 percent, from the 2022-23 estimated/budgeted level.

As required under House Rule 4, Section 34 (a-1), the Legislative Budget Board has analyzed the dynamic economic impact of the bill. The effects on employment, personal income, GSP, and other economic variables, assuming appropriation changes under HB 1 were analyzed using the REMI Tax-PI model, a dynamic forecasting and policy analysis tool that applies a combination of econometric, input-output, and computable general equilibrium methodologies.

The analysis estimated the predicted impact on the number of state employees and the impact on employment by the private sector and local governments in Texas as a result of the changes in state expenditures resulting from the 2024-25 appropriation levels in HB 1 relative to a baseline scenario where 2024-25 state expenditures were held constant at 2022-23 estimated/budgeted levels. 

It is important to note that the numbers are not all new jobs; rather they are changes in employment levels relative to the baseline scenario where state government expenditures remained constant at previously adopted 2022-23 levels.  Further, note that the employment concept used in the analysis is non-farm payroll employment calculated using source data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), and differs from state FTE levels used in the General Appropriations Bill.  For instance, two halftime workers would be counted as 1 FTE in the GAB, but two jobs in the REMI employment data.