AUSTIN, Texas — In this week's edition of Texas This Week, Texas is in the midst of a serious heat wave and the majority of the state's prisons don't have air conditioning. The result: people are dying. Ashley Goudeau, Managing Editor of Political Content for KVUE, spoke with Texas Tribune reporter Jolie McCullough about her new report.
3 things to know in Texas politics
1. U.S. Supreme Court ends affirmative action
The U.S. Supreme Court's decision to strike down affirmative action admissions policies at universities will largely impact the University of Texas at Austin. The "Forty Acres" is the only public university in the state that still considers race in admissions. Other Texas colleges rely on the state's 10% rule, which guarantees admission to high school seniors who graduate in the top 10% of their class. UT leaders said they will make changes to comply with the law.
The decision will also impact Texas private universities. St. Edward's University, Rice University and Southern Methodist University also consider race.
2. Second special session begins
The second special session of the 88th Texas Legislature kicked off on Wednesday. The House kept things short and sweet, briefly meeting, then adjourning. The full chamber comes back on July 5.
The Senate, on the other hand, wasted no time passing out its property tax relief plan. Senate Bill 1 is expected to save the average homeowner more than $1,200 in the first year. It would reduce the school maintenance and operations (M&O) tax rate by $0.10, lower how much districts can increase taxes year-over-year without an election to 1.75%, increase the homestead exemption from $40,000 to $100,000 and double the tax exemption for businesses to $2.47 million. That would mean about 67,000 small to medium businesses wouldn't have to pay the franchise tax.
We will see how the plan goes over in the House, but right now, that chamber's property tax plan still solely consists of reducing the school M&O tax rate.
If you're wondering which tax plan is better for you, it depends on the value of your house and what school district you pay taxes to. In most cases, the Senate plan saves homeowners more money, but some folks fare better under the House plan. Learn which plan could save you more money.
3. Texas Senate votes to give teachers more money
Texas teachers could get more money if the Senate has its way. During the property tax plan vote, State Sen. Roland Gutierrez (D-San Antonio) insisted the State use its record budget surplus to give teachers a boost.
It took about two hours of lawmakers working on the floor, but they added an amendment to Senate Joint Resolution 1. SJR1 is the constitutional amendment that voters would have to approve to increase the homestead exemption. It now also includes giving urban teachers a supplemental payment of $2,000 a year for two years and rural teachers $6,000 a year for two years. The bill now heads ti the House.
Jolie McCullough on Texas prisoners dying in heatwave
A new report from The Texas Tribune describes harrowing conditions inside Texas prisons. As the state deals with a significant heatwave, many prisons don't have air conditioning. Nine prisoners have died.
Jolie McCullough, criminal justice reporter for The Texas Tribune, joined KVUE's Ashley Goudeau to talk about what she found.
Ashley Goudeau: First, sum up a little bit of what you learned for us.
Jolie McCullough: "Sure. So, as you said, we're in this heat wave right now in the state of Texas. And I've covered the lack of air conditioning in prisons for several years. And so, this is something I was keeping a close eye on. And I noticed in death reports – prisons have to file reports when someone dies in their care – I was seeing a significant amount of deaths come in, especially cardiac arrest, heart attacks, the types of deaths that can be attributed to heat. And two of these cardiac arrests were of men in their mid-30s, which also seemed alarming to me. So that's what we wanted – that's what triggered me to really dig deeper and to provide this information and share it with the public."
Goudeau: So, when we're talking about the lack of air conditioning and we're talking about the lack of air conditioning leading potentially to these deaths, how many prisons are we talking about?
McCullough: "Yeah. So there are 100 prisons in Texas right now, and more than two thirds of them – so between 66 and 70, most of them, about 70 – have no air conditioning, or they have air conditioning in some parts of the prison but not in all or most living areas."
Goudeau: And the nine deaths – were some of them at some of the same units, in the same areas?
McCullough: "So they were in different units, but there were – we saw multiple. The two deaths of the men in their 30s, the heart deaths of those men, they were both in the Huntsville area, just north of Houston. And so, it's more spread across the state. But these deaths, these nine deaths that I counted, they weren't the only deaths within Texas prisons at that time. These were deaths that I counted that were in prisons that did not have air conditioning, and they were in regions of the state where that day, on the day that the prisoner died, the heat index was above 100 degrees."
Goudeau: So when we're talking about these conditions that they're dealing with, it's not just the prisoners themselves. There's also staff there who are working in these areas with no air conditioning on 100-degree days at risk.
McCullough: "That's true. And that's something that correctional officers have been pushing for this a lot as well, pushing at the Legislature, to try to install, to get some money to install air conditioning in these prisons. Because, you know, there's a short staffing crisis within our prisons as well. And many attribute at least part of that to these brutal conditions in the summer that these officers are working in."
Goudeau: The Legislature seemingly heard some of their cries for help because there was an effort during this past regular session to add air conditioning to prisons. But what happened with that?
McCullough: "Yeah, so there – the House actually budgeted for more than half a billion, more than half a billion dollars to go towards air conditioning and would eventually try to install air conditioning in all prisons by 2031. But that didn't go anywhere in the Senate. So, ultimately, what happened was no money in the budget – despite a big surplus – was put directly towards air conditioning. There was about $80 million that could be used for air conditioning if the prison agency decided to do so. But none was put directly for that cause."
Goudeau: You know, there are families of people who are incarcerated. There are groups who really see this as a civil rights violation.
McCullough: "Yeah. And that was the lawsuit that was settled in 2018 was a civil rights lawsuit. And, granted, that was a geriatric prison. So those were, these people at that prison are mostly older men with health issues. And that was something that TDCJ [Texas Department of Criminal Justice] ultimately settled to say, 'We will put air conditioning in this prison,' because they were entrenched in that court battle for years, and it was costing millions of dollars."
Goudeau: When we think about just kind of the day-to-day, how long these prisoners are being kept, how long these people are being kept inside units, some without windows, in this heat -- can you describe some of the conditions the families have told you that their loved ones are in?
McCullough: "Yeah. So this is something that essentially prisons are concrete boxes or steel boxes. Men have described wetting their sheets with the hot water that comes out of their sink to try to lay on the ground to try to find some release, relief. They haven't been able to sleep on their beds because they're metal bunks. Ice water is supposed to be passed out regularly, but many have been reporting in the last few weeks that it doesn't happen on all units often because staff are also exhausted. They're also incredibly hot, or there are not enough staff to help with passing out the water. So this is really – it's, they get no relief from this heat. And some men are, they're saying that they're getting sick much more often than the State is saying."
Goudeau: Any solutions to this? Have lawmakers been paying attention to this report into these numbers?
McCullough: "Well, so the Texas Department of Criminal Justice has already had a plan to install, with last year's, with the current budget, to put some more air conditioning in some units. And they're hoping to kind of pick away at that with the money that they do have available. But the Legislature, so far, has not moved at all in terms of in terms of providing relief itself."