BEAUMONT — By Sherry Koonce

The News staff writer

BEAUMONT — Hurricane Ike recovery will dominate the Texas 81st legislative session, state lawmakers said Thursday.

State Senator Tommy Williams, R - The Woodlands, and state Representative Allan Ritter, D - Nederland, spoke during a Legislative Luncheon in Beaumont.

Hosted by Chamber of Commerces from Port Arthur, Orange and Beaumont, and the Southeast Texas Chapter of the Texas Association of Business, the quarterly luncheon also featured keynote speaker Paul Burka, senior executive editor of Texas Monthly magazine.

William’s said the state was haggling with FEMA right now over reimbursement of hurricane recovery costs.

“FEMA does not want to reimburse Texas 100 percent right now because we are setting on a big surplus,” Williams said.

Though Texas has $12.5 billion in the bank, the surplus doesn’t even amount to 10 percent of the current budget. A little more than half that amount, $7 billion, is earmarked for school finance reform, he said.

Texas is also gearing up for an expected influx of 160,000 to 180,000 new public school students across the state, according to population increase projections.

Williams said it will cost the state an estimated $2 billion to add those students.

At that rate, it will not take long for the $12.5 billion to be depleted, Williams said.

Finding alternate methods to fund the state’s transportation needs is another important issue state legislators will consider during the 2009 session.

Ritter said the upcoming session would be different from any he has seen because of the economy.

“This time we are going into a session where we have an economic downturn, not as bad as the rest of the country, but we are seeing some little signs,” Ritter said.

In other Hurricane Ike related matters, Ritter said the Southeast Texas state politicians were 100 percent behind keeping University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.

UTMB was forced to close it’s hospital and much of the campus until storm-related repairs can be made. About 3,000 employees were laid off from the medical center.

“UTMB is the sole biggest employer on the island. It is important for them, and important for Southeast Texas,” Ritter said.

Immigration issues, and franchise taxes are also expected to be part of the 81st legislative session.

Burka, one of the state’s foremost political writers, started working for the magazine one year after it was founded.

In Beaumont Thursday, Burka praised the region’s economic climate.

“When I was here two years ago, people said there was going to be $3 billion to $5 billion in industrial expansions. It seems those numbers have quadrupled. The future is bright for this area, provided you can keep the storms away,” he said.

Though some of the area’s refineries are still down, Burka said Southeast Texas is the best economic climate in the state outside of the Houston and Dallas areas.

Burka said the past year has been a great time to be writing about politics. On a national level, it’s been the first time that no sitting president or vice-president is on the ballot.

He described president-elect Obama’s campaign as “phenomenal.”

“His campaign will be studied for years. It was flawless,” Burka said.

The campaign, he said, was on the cutting edge of technology, and reached out to a new constituency: the young, the secular, technologically-savvy and environmentalists.

On the state level, Burka said he expects an interesting session to write about.

skoonce@panews.com