House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jim Pitts
The House GOP leadership?s proposed state budget would freeze appropriations for further grants to be awarded by the trouble-plagued Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas.
The House version of the ?base budget,? which is a starting point for debate, will be filed Tuesday. But on Monday afternoon, chief House budget writer Rep. Jim Pitts suggested in a news release that the institute would only get some operations money but no additional funds for grants.
The Pitts release said of the proposed budget, ?It appropriates no money for new grants at the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas. State leaders called for a moratorium on CPRIT grants in December until the agency can prove that the grant-award process is transparent and accountable to taxpayers.?
The institute is funded by a $3 billion bond issue approved by voters in 2007.
As we have noted here before, Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, has been very disturbed about news reports about internal infighting and possible ?pay to play? practices at the institute.
Since October, the institute?s chief scientific officer, chief commercialization officer and executive director have resigned. Dozens of scientists who reviewed funding proposals also quit, with some expressing anxiety the agency?s grant-awarding process had become politicized. In November, The Dallas Morning News reported that companies run by Dallas businessman David Shanahan got $12.8 million in grants after Shanahan and his associates gave $90,000 to the campaigns of Gov. Rick Perry and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst. On Nov. 29, the institute disclosed it didn?t do required reviews before doling out $11 million to Peloton, a company on the campus of the UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. Some emails related to the Peloton decisions are missing. Criminal and civil probes have been launched.
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