State Sen. Lois Kolkhorst touched on issues including education, illegal immigration and child abuse in a news release with her reflections on the recently completed regular session of the 85th Texas Legislature.
Kolkhorst represents District 18, a sprawling, rural district that spans from Port Aransas and areas surrounding Corpus Christi, to a small part of Harris County to San Antonio.
“It’s an honor to serve nearly one million people in such a thriving and diverse district,” Kolkhorst said. “That’s why I’m proud of so many priorities that were achieved for Senate District 18.”
She said the state’s $217 billion budget “prioritized” the hiring of 600 new Child Protective Services caseworkers to protect abused and neglected children.
On another front, the budget directed $5 billion for “crucial” transportation needs and provided $40 million in new appropriations to fund infrastructure projects at Texas ports, according to the release.
A member of the Senate Finance Committee, Kolkhorst praised the state’s budget as being “fiscally responsible” and said it “addressed the needs of public schools by continuing full funding for public education and covering student enrollment growth with an additional $2.65 billion.”
An additional $350 million for the Teacher Retirement System was included to continue healthcare benefits for TRS participants, she said.
The release said Kolkhorst “worked to write and pass SB 1566, to give school boards more flexibility in how they manage their districts.”
The bill was written after consultation with the Texas Association of School Boards.
“This bill also allows the use of a new online tool to give board members a dashboard of data, so they can increase their direct responsibility and efforts to improve students’ academic achievement,” the release said.
Kolkhorst authored Senate Bill 419 to continue a school funding mechanism known as Additional State Aid for Tax Reduction (ASATR), which benefits the Port Aransas Independent School District and many other school districts in Texas. (Editor’s note: A story about ASATR and PAISD is in this edition.)
Kolkhorst’s bill didn’t find enough support to become law, but she said she is “committed to helping find a solution.”
To fight illegal immigration, drug smuggling and human trafficking, Kolkhorst said she supported Texas maintaining $800 million in budget spending “to secure the border.”
She said she was proud to co-author and pass SB4 “to address the so-called ‘Sanctuary Cities’ in Texas that brazenly ignore United States immigration laws.”
The release said, “Texas sent a strong message with SB 4. We can and will crack down on sanctuary cities, because no community in our state should be a sanctuary for illegal immigration.”
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