AUSTIN -- Republican Gov. Rick Perry opposes accepting federal economic stimulus money for the state's unemployment system.
The Associated Press Tuesday reported his Texas Enterprise Fund for businesses steadily pulls in tens of millions of dollars from the dwindling Texas unemployment tax pool.
The arrangement is getting more scrutiny at the Capitol:
-- as more Texans lose their jobs
-- as Perry's opposition to federal government money persists
-- and as the enterprise fund and its sister account, the Emerging Technology Fund, increasingly come under fire from legislators.
Perry spokeswoman Allison Castle Tuesday said lawmakers, not the governor, determine the funding source for the enterprise fund. She said Perry is not voicing a preference on whether the fund gets unemployment tax money. A large chunk of the money comes from general state revenue.
Under existing law, one-tenth of 1 percent of taxable wages paid by businesses to the Texas Unemployment Trust Fund goes into a holding account.
Each October, if the amount of money in the unemployment insurance fund is above a certain level, 75 percent of that holding account money goes to the Texas Enterprise Fund and 25 percent to a skills development fund to help retrain workers.
Now some legislators are questioning whether the division of money is fair and whether unemployment tax money should go to the enterprise fund at all.
Rep. Norma Chavez of El Paso has filed legislation seeking to split the holding account money -- up to $160 million per two-year budget cycle -- 50-50 between the enterprise fund and the job skills development fund.
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The unemployment fund holding account bill by Chavez is HB1180.
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