Senate Finance reviews Attorney General budget; LBB seeks cuts while Paxton urges payment of $1.4B Meta settlement and staff raises

The Senate Finance Committee on Sunday reviewed the Office of the Attorney General(OAG) budget, as Legislative Budget Board staff outlined $163.9 million in recommended reductions and several method-of-finance swaps while Attorney General Ken Paxton urged the committee to approve payment of outside counsel from a $1.4 billion Meta settlement and to restore funding he said was cut in error.

James Kessler of the Legislative Budget Board told the committee the recommendations "include a decrease of $163,900,000 from the 2024-25 biennium" and that the package "reduces the FTE cap by 3," while also describing two method-of-finance swaps and several rider deletions and adjustments. The packet also flagged a number of one-time items and exceptional items the LBB did not include in recommendations.

Why it matters: Committee members and agency officials focused on funding sources tied to victim services, an underused landowners compensation program and how a recent Federal Communications Commission rule limiting inmate phone fees has reduced anticipated revenue to a crime victimscompensation account.

LBB recommendations and account impacts

Kessler summarized items the board put forward, including reversal of an agency-proposed swap that would have replaced general revenue dedicated (GR-D) account 469 dollars with federal Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) funds for the crime victims compensation program. He also cited a projected biennial revenue loss to account 469 of about $40.5 million related to an FCC rule adopted in late 2024 limiting collection of inmate phone revenue.

Kessler walked senators through two specific swaps the agency proposed: $15.2 million from GR-D account 469 to be replaced by VOCA funds, and $10.8 million from child-support retained collections (a GR-D account) to general revenue fund 1 because of projected declines in retained-collection revenue. He told the committee the LBB's recommendations reverse the…