Recent trends of local government spending in Texas are worrisome for taxpayers. The city of Austin paid the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond more than $877,000 from 2017-2025 to provide workshops “undoing racism” (City of Austin, 2025). And from 2020 to 2026, Austin gave $4.8 million to the Workers Defense Fund, an organization that fights against securing the border and ensuring that immigration is legal and orderly (Workers Defense, n.d.).
Not to be outdone, Harris County spent $1.1 million in taxpayer money during fiscal year 2025 towards providing legal services for illegal aliens (Trimmer, 2025).
The numbers speak for themselves; local government spending in Texas is becoming excessive. If only there was a government agency tasked with uncovering this kind of government spending that sends local tax bills skyrocketing.
Now there is—the Texas Regulatory Efficiency Office. Created in 2025 through the last legislative session’s Senate Bill 14, the TREO was established to “assist state agencies in identifying unnecessary and ineffective rules” (2025, p. 2). It serves as the Texas version of the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
The Texas Legislature should expand the Texas Regulatory Efficiency Office’s powers to include oversight of local government administrative efficiencies.
When the 89th Texas Legislature passed and Gov. Greg Abbott signed SB 14 (2025) into law, it paved the way for Texas to cut much of its administrative bloat that was long overdue. The mess in need of cleaning was staggering. Texas’ administrative code has roughly 20 million words, 274 thousand restrictions, and 44 thousand regulations, making it the fifth largest administrative code in the country (Mercatus, 2025).
Not only does TREO provide the extra oversight that many state agencies need, but it also submits reports to the Legislature that showcase all the administrative bloat being cut and “any legislative recommendations of the office to accomplish [their activities]” (2025, p. 7).
While these agencies are going through some much-needed oversight—and proposing a saved $123.2 million for Texas—TREO’s powers are limited to only state agencies. Meanwhile, the local government agencies, impervious to review by the state, are still left alone, often without adequate oversight. For example, the local government debt in the state of Texas at the end of FY2025 was $368.3 billion (Texas Bond Review Board, 2026). With local government bonds continuing to get proposed and passed, it’s important to recognize the level of local government spending that is going on (Quintero & Mitta, 2026).
What can the 90th Texas Legislature do to clean up local governments? It’s quite simple; Texas needs to send in TREO. With its help, local governments can clean out the unnecessary and ineffective rules that currently hurt Texans more than help them.
The process of adding TREO as a tool for local governments would come by amending the Government Code to expand TREO’s powers. No longer would TREO be able to only clean out state agency rules and administrative efficiencies, but rather, other areas of the Texas Code that need oversight will get the help that they need. Expanding TREO’s powers is important because it gives them the authority that they need to ensure local governments even get checked in the first place for excess inefficiencies.
The biggest objection to expanding TREO’s powers is strong, but it can be addressed. Early indications are pointing to how well TREO works with state agencies, but it might not be clear how likely these uncompromising local governments are to clean their administrative bloat. Furthermore, TREO has only existed for a little under a year, being established on Sept. 1, 2025 (Texas Regulatory Efficiency Office, n.d.). With such little data on its effectiveness long-term, why should we trust it in the short-term?
Despite its infancy, TREO is showing off its youthful energy. Operating with only seven of their allotted 18 full-time employees, TREO has already worked with 11 state agencies and proposed $123.2 million in savings, reducing 437 regulations and cutting 69,579 words from the Texas Administrative Code (Texas Regulatory Efficiency Office, n.d.).
Even assuming TREO used all the statutorily allotted 18 full-time employees, there’s still more in the tank. SB 14 gave TREO the discretion to set up an advisory panel (which it has already done) and forum to assist them in their duties (Office of the Texas Governor, 2025). The forum, for example, would include “interested persons [who can] assist the office and the panel” in matters relating to cutting administrative bloat (SB 14, 2025, p. 5).
The increase in state oversight only emphasizes how lacking it can be at the local level. Not only will Texans be grateful for TREO’s help in cutting administrative bloat across state agencies, but they will be even more grateful for the millions in potential savings at the lowest levels of government.