AMARILLO, TEXAS -- The 81st Texas Legislative session begins next week, and local senate and house members are preparing for the upcoming workload. 

Senator Kel Seliger is gearing up for a busy session, planning to file up to 20 to 25 bills.  

Among the top priorities:  state budget, water conservation, public education, an overhaul of the Texas Department of Transportation, immigration/border security, and of course taxation.   

"The biggest thing that we'll deal with of course in 2009 is the state budget. That's going to be probably around $160 billion," said Seliger.

As far as water is concerned, Seliger made it clear that in the Texas Panhandle water matters. Conservation, recycling, and desalination are three components to the water issue our local senator will work on. 

"Right now the priority is on water conservation, which is absolutely essential for the survival of the cities and towns in the Texas Panhandle, and for irrigated agriculture," said Seliger.  He went on to say "few things are as important as water and inherent in that is water conservation."

Public education, which is the largest part of the budget, is also high on the list of hot items this upcoming session.  Around 4.5 million childre attend Texas schools. Seliger wants to make sure small-town graduates are just as prepared and have the same opportunities as students graduating from large schools.  Higher education, specifically community colleges, will face issues that the local senator believes will show up during the session.

The Texas Department of Transportation will also be looked at very closely. 

"We need to completely remake the philosophy of the Texas Department of Transportation, into one that is both effective as it is at the district level, and to make sure that it's transparent and is understandable why the people of the state of Texas will invest in excess of $8 billion on our cities and highways over the next two years," said Seliger.

"This is where we do the work of the people," he continued. "I expect from the Texas Senate the same thing I've seen the previous two sessions: a cooperative atmosphere, some very healthy debate and disagreements about issues. But the end, when we get to May, we will still be pulling together to do what's best for the state of Texas," said Seliger.

Along with the standard duties of senator, Seliger also serves on the management committee of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. They oversee operations of the department which handles probation and parole a couple of high priorities. The work Seliger wants to achieve is mainly focused on rehabilitation of those in the system.

Seliger plans to travel down to Austin a couple of days early to prepare for the session.