HB500

HB500 adjusts Texas’s budget with additional appropriations, permission to reuse earlier unspent money, transfers and spending reductions. It covers schools and health care, water and wildfire response, prisons, universities, state buildings and technology. Governor Abbott signed it June 22, 2025, with one line-item veto. The law took effect immediately; its special legislative-vote requirements for certain appropriations were met. Most spending windows run for two years from the law’s effective date, but some provisions specify a fiscal year or biennium instead. Final legislative text; history.

Read the veto with the bill. The governor struck the $50 million San Antonio sensitive compartmentalized information facility—secure space for classified work—in Section 1.14(a)(2). The separate $44 million Lubbock-area item remains, subject to federal sponsorship of facility clearance. The printed $94 million total in the enrolled document is not evidence that both projects survived. The governor said the San Antonio item duplicated other initiatives; that is his stated rationale, not a finding made by this briefing. Veto proclamation and marked provision.

Schools, colleges and emergency response

Article 3 provides about $1.150 billion for the Foundation School Program and sets its fiscal-2025 sum-certain appropriation at about $30.924 billion. It also provides $243 million to help districts and charter schools adopt and use open educational resource instructional materials, contingent on HB2 or similar school-finance legislation; HB2 became law. Other items include $369.225 million for TRS-ActiveCare, $35.3 million for the School for the Deaf’s utility-system construction, $1.394 million for special education, staffing and transportation at the School for the Blind and Visually Impaired, and $89.5 million for higher-than-projected community-college funding outcomes. These are funding provisions, not a promise of a specified payment to every student or teacher. Article 3; HB2 history.

The Forest Service receives about $124.754 million for natural-disaster response, $257 million to buy, maintain and operate firefighting aircraft, and $192.291 million to address the volunteer-fire-department assistance backlog. A separate $44 million transfer and appropriation supports the rural volunteer-fire-department program, with up to $1.54 million for administration. The transfer and subsequent appropriation describe the same $44 million, not $88 million. Emergency management receives $135 million for regional facilities, staging areas and response operations.

Higher-education projects include $59.8 million for the Bush Combat Development Center; $25 million for Easterwood Airport; $71 million for Texas Tech pulsed-power research facilities; $24.945 million for Texas State’s rapid-response law-enforcement training center; $65 million for the El Paso cancer-center partnership’s second phase; and $25 million for a rural cancer collaborative. Texas Tech also receives $120 million for an advanced reactor and Permian Basin desalination research. Further items support the Panhandle behavioral-health workforce ($4 million), UTMB’s aging-and-technology initiative ($5 million), and military-to-civilian technical-career training at Texas A&M–Central Texas ($2 million).

The law provides about $400.949 million to address qualifying unmatched research donations certified at the coordinating board’s January 2025 meeting, contingent on legislation repealing the Texas Research Incentive Program. SB2066 supplied that repeal. It separately authorizes $650 million for each newly qualifying Texas University Fund institution certified by the coordinating board, capped at $1.3 billion, with research-capacity use restrictions. That cap is conditional authority, not proof that $1.3 billion was actually deposited or spent. SB2066 final law; history.

Health and human services

Article 2 adds $750 million for Medicaid and permits specified transfers into Medicaid services, with reporting. It adds $82.568 million in general revenue and $14 million in federal funds for family/protective-services shortfalls, plus specified transfers from other existing appropriations. Other items include $100 million and authority for 144 additional full-time-equivalent positions at Dallas State Hospital; $98 million for deferred maintenance; $20 million for the Thriving Texas Families pregnancy-support program; about $12.863 million for Harris County Psychiatric Hospital renovations; $900,000 for Terrell fencing; about $7.380 million for the Civil Commitment Office’s health-care and supervision shortfall; and roughly $970,000 with 34 positions for abuse, neglect and exploitation backlogs. Separately, it authorizes 414 positions for newly renovated state mental-health hospitals using previously appropriated money. These provisions do not themselves expand Medicaid eligibility. Article 2.

The law redirects an estimated $43.431 million of earlier El Paso hospital funding to crisis-service facilities and operations, with legislative intent to use $2.774 million for operations and the rest for one-time construction. It changes specifications in the 2023 hospital appropriation: the Lubbock maximum-security facility moves to the John Montford prison unit; Terrell’s planned replacement increases to 275 beds and Wichita Falls’s to 225; and the old El Paso 50-bed descriptor is removed. The approximately $2.154 billion reproduced in that amended 2023 provision is not a fresh appropriation of that whole amount. Article 9 separately carries forward remaining earlier hospital-project balances. Original 2023 appropriation.

Laboratory expansion uses $205 million in federal reimbursements plus additional reimbursements received during the spending window, capped at about $123.333 million. The corresponding $328.333 million capital authority is permission to use those funds for capital work, not another appropriation to add on top.

Water, parks, transportation and energy

Article 6 provides $1.038 billion in general revenue for water infrastructure and supply projects and grants; another $581 million in general revenue for specific projects and grants; and $881 million from the Texas water fund for transfer to other board-administered funds/accounts. Separate clean-water and drinking-water revolving-fund amounts of about $48.271 million and $82.990 million are intended to draw federal matching funds, with a report due by August 31, 2027. It also provides $150 million for the Alamo, $100 million for well plugging, $60 million for local parks grants, $21.4 million for Parks and Wildlife headquarters repairs, $5.643 million from specified dedicated funds for capital construction, $2 million for the Texas State Aquarium Wildlife Rescue Center, and smaller agricultural-laboratory and office projects. Article 6.

Article 7 provides $250 million for railroad grade-separation grants, conditioned on authorizing legislation. SB1555 became law; its grant program requires at least 10 percent of project costs from a nonstate source and covers qualifying local road or pedestrian crossings. Other items include $106.8 million for aviation services, including $40 million for Lubbock Reese improvements; $22 million for Texarkana airport; $20 million for specified State Highway 99 access-road improvements in Fort Bend County; $15 million for an aircraft hangar; $68 million for the unemployment compensation fund; and about $30.794 million for vocational rehabilitation and federal maintenance-of-effort requirements. The $52 million aircraft-purchase appropriation is reduced by proceeds from the specified aircraft/property sales—it is not $52 million plus unlimited sales proceeds. SB1555 final law; history.

Article 8 transfers and appropriates one $350 million funding amount for advanced-nuclear grants and necessary staff support, contingent on HB14, which became law. The transfer into the dedicated fund and appropriation out of it are not separate $350 million expenditures. It also supports the lottery/bingo transfer to licensing regulators, including agreements, quarterly transition reports and $2.5 million for operations, contingent on SB3070, which became law. Funeral and plumbing regulators receive restricted office funding; they may not raise fees or taxes in fiscal 2025–27 to offset those office appropriations. HB14; SB3070.

Justice, public safety and government operations

Article 5 adds $566.437 million for prison operations and managed health care, including $336.437 million for hospital/clinical care; $301 million for dormitory construction within existing prison fencing; $226.299 million for construction and major repairs; $110 million to buy the Dalby facility; and $30 million for Memorial Unit water/wastewater systems. Another $30 million for Hospital Galveston renovations requires a one-to-one cost-sharing agreement with UTMB. Juvenile justice receives $104 million to complete new facilities, $13.3 million to reimburse counties holding youths when state capacity is unavailable, $5 million for safety/maintenance, and $675,000 for inspector-general staffing costs. The facility rider retains planning/reporting requirements but removes its obsolete August 2024 submission deadline. Military-facility and public-safety building, lock and camera projects are also funded. Article 4 provides $5.1 million for county indigent-defense grants and $2.5 million for judicial-conduct office space, and allows up to $18,000 in additional annual salary for each business-court judge for fiscal 2025 from existing appropriations. Articles 4–5.

Article 1’s major items include $1.02 billion from general revenue and the highway fund for Employees Retirement System legacy liabilities; $300 million deposited to the space research trust fund; $100 million for courthouse preservation; $177.2 million to address the federal crime-victim-funding shortfall; $40.454 million transferred to the crime-victims account; $64.008 million for disaster needs/invoices; $95 million in local major-event preparation grants; $20 million for university research recruiting grants; and $149 million for Texas Tech electromagnetic-pulse and cybersecurity infrastructure. It also provides $7.491 million and fiscal-2025 authority for 28 positions to establish the education savings account program; $9.5 million for outside counsel in the specified children’s-rights litigation; defense-community grants; law-enforcement training; and $5 million for bullet-resistant police-vehicle grants under HB2217, which became law.

State-building items include $121 million for replacement of the State Insurance Building, $75 million for Senate facilities, $50.9 million for the Rudder Building, $47.163 million for warehouse/server/storage/office facilities, $20 million for the governor’s mansion, relocation and temporary-space funds, records digitization and maintenance. Some carry additional conditions: specified comptroller-office funds require a five-day in-office policy; Senate-facility spending requires the lieutenant governor’s prior approval. The law also carries forward an estimated $104.498 million from the earlier Bullock museum appropriation into the state-buildings preservation endowment, and permits cancer-research grant-management technology spending/transfers from existing funds.

Two contingencies especially matter. The $250 million semiconductor transfer/appropriation depends on SB1758 or similar legislation; SB1758 became law without the governor’s signature, and spending still requires Legislative Budget Board approval, with the stated 30-day deemed-approval process. The separate $250 million film-incentive fallback applies only if SB22, HB4568 or similar legislation failed to become law. SB22 did become law, so do not count that fallback as activated funding. SB1758 history; SB22 history; HB2217.

Reused balances, technology and spending controls

Article 9 extends earlier unspent balances for hospital and health-system work, school safety and library regulation, university research/cancer/maritime facilities, parks, disaster matching funds, public-safety licensing/training facilities, courts, buildings and other named projects. Its figures are estimates of earlier balances, including several estimated at zero—not a list of wholly new appropriations. It preserves already-obligated American Rescue Plan funds for their obligated purposes. The Hobby Building sale proceeds must be spent first on Capitol Complex Phase 2 and within two years of the sale closing, while an equal $53.299 million general-revenue appropriation is reduced. Article 9.

Article 10 funds 88 named technology items plus capital authority. These cover statewide accounting, cybersecurity and data centers; child-protection case management/background checks; health data and contracts; education investigations and Windham connectivity; judicial case systems; prison records, broadband and surveillance; driver-license services; environmental/railroad reporting; vehicle registration/title replacement; unemployment systems; and licensing agencies’ equipment, software and public services. Examples include $125 million for the second phase of vehicle registration/title replacement, about $97 million for public-safety disaster recovery/modernization, $58.3 million for prison/parole information systems, and $48.243 million for expanded cybersecurity services. Funding sources vary; not every item comes from unrestricted general revenue. Article 11 separately funds vehicles/boats through 24 numbered allocations, with allocations and capital authority; its military-vehicle provision grants capital authority, not a new $1.05 million appropriation.

Spending reductions include $10 million in Public Finance Authority debt-service appropriations, about $55.025 million in Facilities Commission lease appropriations, and the Military Department’s remaining unspent/unobligated state-active-duty disaster balance, estimated at $159 million, reduced to zero. Article 11 incorporates the applicable general-budget limitations/reporting/transfer provisions and directs agencies to honor legislative purposes. Article 12 appropriates federal receipts for their designated purposes but expressly excludes the specified federal border-security reimbursements. None of these provisions is proof that a project was built, a grant awarded, or all authorized funds spent.