§ 109.004.Payment of Claim by Agency

The payment provision, and its two ceilings are set outside this code.

The section does not apply where the legislature has specifically identified the claim and appropriated money to pay it.

That exception preserves the private-bill route. A claim the Legislature has considered and funded by name is paid as directed, outside this machinery.

Otherwise, a state agency may pay a claim only from money appropriated to that agency in the General Appropriations Act.

"Only from" is exclusive. No other source is available, which is what makes the claim a charge on the agency’s own budget.

Two limits apply, and both come from the appropriations act rather than from this chapter.

The amount paid for a single claim may not exceed a limitation the General Appropriations Act imposes, and the total paid in a fiscal year may not exceed a limitation that act imposes.

Placing the figures in the appropriations act rather than in the statute is a deliberate choice. The limits can be reset each biennium without amending this code, which is how budget provisions are usually handled.

It also means the limits are not findable here. A reader wanting to know what an agency can pay must look at the current appropriations act.

The annual cap is the more consequential of the two. An agency that reaches it cannot pay further claims that year from its own money, and the claimant waits for an appropriation.

That is the practical position for many claimants against the state, and it is why judgments against state agencies are often satisfied long after they are rendered.