Only one more week of political ads. Early voting ends this Friday and the 2012 General Election date is next Tuesday, November 6. Look for next week’s memo where we will include election results from Texas. Looks like it will be an interesting ride until then.
According to a recently released report by the State Auditor’s Office, state agencies in Texas reduced their total number of employees by about 3,200 workers in the fiscal year that ended Aug. 31st. This was a reduction of about 2.1 percent. The report showed the state employed 147,325 full-time equivalents as of August 31st.
The University of Texas at Austin announced that beginning with the 2014 entering freshman class, UT Austin will automatically admit all eligible applications who rank within the top 7 percent of their high school class, with the remaining spaces to be filled through holistic review. Even though Texas law guarantees automatic admission to the state’s public universities to students who graduate in the top 10 percent of their high school senior class, legislators modified the law in 2009 to allow UT Austin to limit such automatic admissions to 75 percent of its freshman slots for Texas residents.
The 83rd Legislative Session begins January 8, 2013. Legislators may begin filing bills on Monday, November 12, 2012. If you are interested in following the bills as they are filed, go to the Texas Legislature Online at http://www.capitol.state.tx.us and click on Today’s Filed Bills under Legislative Activity. The bill filing deadline is March 8, 2013.
Here is some sweet Halloween trivia for you. The National Confectioners Association estimates that consumers will spend $2.4 billion on candy for Halloween, the top holiday for candy sales.