{"id":431675,"date":"2026-09-10T11:56:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T11:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/431675\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T11:56:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T11:56:09","slug":"qa-texas-comptroller-candidates-on-education-savings-accounts-economy-transparency-central-austin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/431675\/","title":{"rendered":"Q&#038;A: Texas comptroller candidates on education savings accounts, economy, transparency | Central Austin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This November, four candidates are running to lead the Texas Comptroller&#8217;s Office and serve as the state&#8217;s chief financial officer.<\/p>\n<p>The overview<\/p>\n<p>The comptroller oversees government spending and administers the state&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/communityimpact.com\/central-austin\/texas-legislature\/comptroller-asks-lawmakers-to-double-texas-education-freedom-account-funding-to-2b\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">$1 billion education savings account program<\/a>, which launched ahead of the 2026-27 school year. The agency also projects Texas&#8217; biennial budget for state legislators, reports on statewide economic issues, and manages the state treasury and unclaimed property programs.<\/p>\n<p>Libertarian V. Alonzo Echavarria-Garza, Democrat Sarah Eckhardt, Green Party candidate Shehla Faizi and Republican Don Huffines are running for comptroller. Huffines, whom Gov. Greg Abbott <a href=\"https:\/\/communityimpact.com\/central-austin\/texas-legislature\/don-huffines-appointed-as-texas-comptroller\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">appointed to the office<\/a> in July, is considered the incumbent in this race.<\/p>\n<p>The winner of the Nov. 3 election will begin a four-year term in January. Write-in candidates may also appear on the ballot; however,\u00a0Community Impact\u00a0does not send questionnaires to write-in candidates.<\/p>\n<p>How we got here<\/p>\n<p>The seat became vacant when former comptroller Glenn Hegar stepped down last summer to become chancellor of the Texas A&amp;M University System. Former state Sen. Kelly Hancock took over the office <a href=\"https:\/\/communityimpact.com\/keller-roanoke-northeast-fort-worth\/texas-legislature\/state-sen-kelly-hancock-takes-helm-at-texas-comptrollers-office-hegar-to-lead-am\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">as acting comptroller<\/a> last July and ran for the seat in the <a href=\"https:\/\/communityimpact.com\/south-central-austin\/election\/qa-get-to-know-the-texas-republicans-running-for-state-comptroller-in-the-march-primary\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">March Republican primary<\/a>, which he lost to Huffines.<\/p>\n<p>Huffines was appointed comptroller\u2014in an official, rather than acting, role\u2014on July 2 and took over the office Aug. 1.<\/p>\n<p>Preparing for the polls<\/p>\n<p>Early voting runs from Oct. 19-30, and Election Day is Nov. 3. In addition to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/communityimpact.com\/central-austin\/election\/texas-statewide-elections-are-set-for-november-here-are-the-candidates-on-the-ballot\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">eight statewide races<\/a>, the following state and federal seats are up for election this fall:<\/p>\n<p>38 U.S. House seats (by congressional district)<\/p>\n<p>Four seats on the Texas Supreme Court (statewide)<\/p>\n<p>Three seats on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (statewide)<\/p>\n<p>Three seats on Texas&#8217; 15th Court of Appeals (statewide)<\/p>\n<p>16 state Senate seats (by legislative district)<\/p>\n<p>150 state House seats (by legislative district)<\/p>\n<p>Eight State Board of Education seats (by SBOE district)<\/p>\n<p>For more coverage of local and state races, visit\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/communityimpact.com\/election\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">communityimpact.com\/election<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Zooming in<\/p>\n<p>Community Impact&#8217;s goal with election Q&amp;As is to provide a side-by-side, equitable resource for Texas voters to review candidates&#8217; perspectives before they head to the polls.<\/p>\n<p>To ensure that candidates are the ones defining their positions, if candidates did not complete the questionnaire after multiple attempts to contact them,\u00a0Community Impact&#8217;s website reads &#8220;candidate did not respond to questionnaire before press time.&#8221; Candidates were informed of this policy.<\/p>\n<p>Candidates were asked to keep responses under 50 words, answer the questions provided and avoid attacking opponents. Answers may have been minimally edited or cut to adhere to those guidelines, or for style and clarity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This November, four candidates are running to lead the Texas Comptroller&#8217;s Office and serve as the state&#8217;s chief&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":431676,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,149999,148208,86042,145929,149993,149992,66187,150000,4872,117950,149329,133326,145922,52534,16703,4379,149995,7908,149998,14331,98652,10204,149991,2963,145923,17870,145920,28194,144155,72862,118689,145921,149997,21434,149994,145930,149996],"class_list":["post-431675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-biennial-revenue-estimate","tag-candidate-perspectives","tag-candidate-qa","tag-community-impact-voter-guide","tag-comptroller-qa","tag-comptroller-race","tag-don-huffines","tag-get-to-know-the-candidates","tag-gov-greg-abbott","tag-government-spending","tag-legislative-appropriations-request","tag-nov-3-election","tag-november-election-texas","tag-private-school-vouchers","tag-sarah-eckhardt","tag-school-choice","tag-shehla-faizi","tag-state-funding","tag-tax-transparency","tag-tefa","tag-tefa-funding","tag-texas-ballot","tag-texas-comptroller-election","tag-texas-democratic-party","tag-texas-dems","tag-texas-education-freedom-accounts","tag-texas-election-guide","tag-texas-gop","tag-texas-libertarian-party","tag-texas-midterms","tag-texas-republican-party","tag-texas-sample-ballot","tag-texas-taxes","tag-texas-voter-guide","tag-v-alonzo-echavarria-garza","tag-what-to-know-for-the-november-election","tag-who-is-the-incumbent-in-texas-comptroller-race"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431675","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=431675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/431676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}