2025-2026 Legislative Goals

OVERALL STATE EMPLOYEE/RETIREE GOALS

1) Fight for fair pay for all state employees.

Texas is a wealthy state with a growing population and economy, but state employees and retirees have been facing severe problems for decades as the cost of living has increased faster than pay almost every year. Even with the pay raise passed in 2023 for state agency employees, pay has not kept up with the rising cost of living. University employees have not had a statewide pay raise since 2002, and the cost of living has risen by 75% over this time.

Every year state employees go without a pay raise is a year we really see a pay cut with the soaring cost of living.

  1. All Texas state employees should earn, at minimum, a living wage with benefits.
  2. Fund a minimum $10,000/year pay raise for every state employee to restore state employees’ standard of living.
  3. Include all university workers, in academic institutions and health science centers, in the across-the-board raise for all state employees.
2) Ensure quality, affordable health care, including gender-affirming care, reproductive care, and secure pensions for state employees, retirees, and their dependents, including domestic partners.

All active and retired state employees have earned and deserve a secure retirement. Current retirees have not had a cost-of-living increase since 2001, and are living on pensions based on the lower salaries of decades ago. Reduced health and pension benefits are broken promises to the hundreds of thousands of Texans who devoted their careers to quality state services.

  1. Approve full funding for the state contribution to the ERS and TRS retirement funds and cost of living increases for all ERS and TRS retirees.
  2. Defeat all proposals to convert our health care or pension plans to defined contribution plans.
  3. Make all individual retirement account options “opt in” for new employees instead of “opt out”.
  4. Cover all health care increases with new state funding; no benefit cuts
  5. Leverage public health care spending to demand better rates
  6. Eliminate the 60-day waiting period for new employees to receive benefits.
  7. Eliminate the ERS cash balance plan for new employees, and include them in the Defined Benefit Plan
  8. Waive all out-of-pocket fees at state university health-related facilities for all state employees and retirees and their families
  9. Defeat all proposals to eliminate or reduce the earned compensation pay for unused accumulated annual leave upon leaving state employment and the credit for unused sick and annual leave in computations of state employees’ retirement pension annuity.
  10. ERS and TRS pension funds should not be invested in companies that seek the dissolution of public pensions or their conversion to defined contribution plans.
3) Oppose and reverse privatization.

The contracting out of public services in Texas has resulted in deeply compromised services for the people of our state, in the waste of many billions of tax-paid dollars, and in crumbling pay and benefits for the people who do the work as corporate profiteers take the money and run. It’s time to end the failed experiments.

  1. Examine every major outsourcing contract in all state agencies and universities and cancel the ones that are not meeting expectations.
  2. Cancel planned privatization experiments in state agencies and universities and devote the resources to strengthening state services and higher education.
4) Fully fund all state agencies and universities.

In past years anti-public services legislators have attempted to “starve out” state programs by repeatedly cutting funding, or by freezing funding in the face of increasing demands for the services. The Texas Legislature must accept its responsibility to Texas by adequately funding state services.

  1. Restore and increase funding for human services, criminal justice, employment, education, and other state programs to ensure these vital services are funded at a level that meets today’s needs and prepares Texas for growth and prosperity.
  2. Stop the trend of reduced state funding for higher education which forces universities to turn to corporate grants and increases in student costs. Fully fund higher education as an investment in Texas.
  3. Improve the equity and adequacy of Texas’ revenue system to overcome structural deficits and ensure that revenue keeps pace with the need for public services. Specifically, Texas should:
  4. Expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act
  5. Implement regular Sunset Reviews of all tax breaks to ensure they are working in the best interest of our state
5) Preserve and expand state employees’ rights to justice on the job.

State employees lack protections to redress abuses of power by authority, including sexual assault, harassment, and human & civil rights violations. In some cases where internal investigative bodies exist, the processes are daunting, confusing, and non-supportive. The process can drag on for long investigations, during which there is insufficient protection for victims against reprisal. External, objective review is essential to resolve grievances. When investigations are pursued against state workers, they must be assured due process under the law. All employees must be assured equal protections.

  1. Defeat all proposals to reduce state employees’ due process rights on the job, especially “at will” proposals, and strengthen due process provisions and First Amendment rights for all state employees.
  2. Pass a grievance procedure reform bill that improves the timeline and includes due process, just cause, and a final step outside the worker’s agency/university.

AGENCY/UNIVERSITY CAUCUS GOALS

  1. Human Services Caucus
    • Oppose and roll back privatization and all other low-quality replacements of public works, such as low-quality AI technologies. Technological advancements should always improve the quality of services and never replace employees with cheap low-quality alternatives. HHSC contracts should increase oversight and accountability which will not be serviced by privatization of public services.
    • Maintain and increase staffing to deal with ongoing case load growth, enact an across-the-board career ladder to reduce staff turnover, and transparency in availability and criteria for merit raises and bonuses.
    • Safe and sanitary work environments including:
      • Independent monitoring and stronger regulations defining workplace environments.
      • Increase funding for training for all staff levels with a particular focus on support staff, and increased funding for adequate staffing levels.
      • iii. Increased funding for sufficient and functional equipment, including software and consumable supplies.
  1. TWC & Amalgamated Caucus
    • Increase protection and personal safety for workers dealing with the public.
    • Enhance career and pay opportunities.
    • Ensure assembly and speech rights.
  1. University Caucus
    • All university/health science center employees-including part-time adjunct, and graduate workers-should receive the same benefits as other state employees, such as a pension, years of service accrual, across-the-board pay raises, full healthcare for employees, including gender-affirming and reproductive care, and in every way be considered state workers.
    • Support academic freedom and freedom of speech for all faculty, staff, and students while opposing the use of state force, disciplinary measures, and punishment intended to suppress those freedoms.
    • Reverse the ban on DEI and restore and fully fund university programs.
  1. Texas Juvenile Justice Department Caucus
    • Take steps to prevent agency turnover including opposing closures of TJJD facilities and privatization, full funding, hiring additional staff to cover workloads and shift standards
    • Include Youth Development Coaches and other hazardous positions in the LECOSRF 20-year retirement plan.
    • Allow for justice on the job: hazard pay, PPE, and other safety measures, a cross-agency CAPPS review and feedback that does not penalize individual agencies.
    • Transparency in agency and facility re-organization with due process.
  1. State Supported Living Centers/State Hospitals Caucus
    • Mandate fixed staffing ratios of direct contact staff to patients/residents that reflect a set ratio as well as number of level of care.
    • Increase longevity pay from $20 every 2 years to $50 every 2 years with no cap.
    • Establish the right to representation in the initial investigative process for client abuse and neglect including access to video and all evidentiary information to anyone that the employee is designated as their representative.
  1. Retiree Caucus
    • Fund a Texas State Retirees Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA)
    • Enact legislation to fully fund our healthcare to prevent any cost increases for active employees or retirees.
    • Repeal the sections of SB 321 from the 2011 legislative session that created a “cash balance” pension system and restore the traditional defined benefit pension plan for all current and future retirees.
  1. Family Protective Services Caucus
    • Reduce staff turnover and retain staff by establishing a career ladder, paying staff for their educational achievements and language skills after initial hire date, and on the job experience and overtime hours worked.
    • Establish an automatic equity pay adjustment for all existing employee positions to reflect the new hire base pay rate.
    • Adequately fund client services and direct care to eliminate CWOP and to prevent and reverse the privatization of DFPS programs that safeguard children and adults.
    • Request the adoption of caseload standards in alignment with the recommendations of the NAEYC, CWLA, and TDPRS. Additionally, increase full-time equivalent (FTE) positions and provide support workers to ensure caseloads that allow for a manageable workload within a standard 40-workweek.
  1. Parole Caucus
    • Hire more parole officers and lower case loads
    • Safe work environment
    • $10k pay raise for all TDCJ parole staff and clerical staff
    • EAP pays up to 5 day mental health therapy sessions
    • Give the parole and staff one mental health day a month