#T.J. Aulds The Daily News Friday, April 17, 2009 10:40 AM
The Texas House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a spending bill Thursday that includes $300 million essential to renovating and expanding University of Texas Medical Branch hospitals on Galveston Island.
House Bill 4586 passed, 141-5.
More than 200 people from Galveston County had trekked to the Capitol to show support for the spending bill.
Sporting “UTMB: We Stop for No Storm” buttons, the caravans included elected officials, college presidents, former mayors, business leaders and everyday residents interested in the future of the medical branch after Hurricane Ike.
House Bill 4586 was to be the first piece of legislation taken up by the House, but a morning filled with congratulatory resolutions and memorials pushed the vote until the afternoon.
The bill was introduced about 1:30 p.m. and voted on after two hours of debate.
Almost as soon as Speaker Joe Strauss called for a vote, the Galveston County delegation in the House Gallery let out a roar. The tote board that records the votes lit up greener than a Christmas tree. On the board, yes votes are green and no votes are red.
“It was just great,” Dr. Ned Snyder, a medical branch professor, said. “I had no idea it would be so overwhelming. I thought it would be close. I didn’t think we could get milk for school kids with this kind of majority.”
While there is still a way to go before funding is in place, Snyder said Thursday’s vote was significant.
“This will give people some hope and something to work for,” he said.
The appropriations bill includes $300 million to help the medical branch recover from Hurricane Ike and to modernize and expand its hospital facilities.
The bill commits $150 million from the state general revenue fund toward matching federal money for the medical branch to use for cleaning up and repairing after Ike and hardening its buildings against future flood damage.
The bill also commits $150 million in general revenue toward building a new hospital.
That building would allow the medical branch to return to operating about 550 hospital beds in Galveston, as it had before the hurricane.
“It’s an important day for us all,” State Rep. Craig Eiland, D-Galveston, told members of he delegation after a group photo on the steps of the Capitol. “I’ll be glad to have this monkey off my back and off (State Rep.) Larry Taylor’s back.”
When Eiland left the House floor, hundreds of medical branch supporters were waiting in the lobby and greeted him like a conquering general.