TEXAS \u2014 As millions of Texans prepare for the November elections with more than a dozen proposed constitutional amendments, Proposition 1 will allow voters to decide\u00a0whether\u00a0the state should create an $850 million fund for\u00a0Texas State Technical College (TSTC).<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
With 11 campuses\u00a0across\u00a0the state and increasing demand for HVAC technicians, electricians and plumbers, officials within the college system say it needs the funds to keep up with Texas\u2019 demand for skilled workers
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The Texas Workforce Commission estimates that by 2030 there will be a shortage in the trades workforce
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If approved by voters, the state would take $850 million out of the general revenue fund to put into the Texas Institution Infrastructure Fund. Then\u00a0the\u00a0comptroller\u2019s office would disperse the funds into a new Workforce Education Fund for the technical college to access
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Critics say that\u00a0if passed, Proposition 1\u00a0would create a funding process outside the normal budget process<\/p>\n
\u201cWith that money, we can buy land, we can build buildings, we can renovate buildings, we can do infrastructure and we can buy equipment,\u201d said Joe Arnold, TSTC\u2019s deputy vice chancellor for government relations.<\/p>\n
With 11 campuses\u00a0across\u00a0the state and increasing demand for HVAC technicians, electricians and plumbers, he says the college system needs the funds to keep up with Texas\u2019 demand for skilled workers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a skills gap right now.\u00a0There\u2019s a shortage of technicians across Texas. There\u2019s about a million jobs open in Texas right now in the technical fields. So the need is absolutely out there,\u201d explained Arnold.<\/p>\n
The Texas Workforce Commission estimates that by 2030 there will be a shortage in the trades workforce.<\/p>\n
If approved by voters, the state would take $850 million out of the general revenue fund to put into the Texas Institution Infrastructure Fund. Then\u00a0the\u00a0comptroller\u2019s office would disperse the funds into a new Workforce Education Fund for the technical college to access.<\/p>\n
Critics say that\u00a0if passed, Proposition 1\u00a0would create a funding process outside the normal budget process. But Arnold says that won\u2019t be the case.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of these funds were set up to do one particular thing. And, and that\u2019s all that money can be used for. The other thing I\u2019ll say about that is the legislature themselves, overwhelmingly, voted to put this on the ballot. If at some point in time the Legislature wants more oversight, they can vote to put it on the ballot again to take it away,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Unlike other community colleges across the state, the Texas State Technical College system receives performance-based funding from the state.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TEXAS \u2014 As millions of Texans prepare for the November elections with more than a dozen proposed constitutional…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26259,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1657,1658,132,1570,102,9979,223,287,82,27,14568,29,28,835],"class_list":["post-26258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-app-latest-local-state-politics-stories","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-austin","tag-ctv","tag-dallas","tag-marcine-graham","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-san-antonio","tag-texas","tag-texas-elections-2025","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26258\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}