Company type | Sovereign wealth fund |
---|---|
Industry | Institutional investor |
Genre | Public lands, mineral rights, land use rights |
Founded | 1854 |
Founder | Act of the Texas Legislature |
Headquarters | , U.S. |
Total assets | US$48.3 billion (August 2020) [1] |
Owner | Texas |
Website | Official website |
The Texas Permanent School Fund is a sovereign wealth fund which serves to provide revenues for funding of public primary and secondary education in the US state of Texas. [2] Its assets include many publicly owned lands within Texas and various other investments; as of the end of fiscal 2020 (August 31), the fund had an endowment of $48.3 billion. [1] The fund is distinct from the Permanent University Fund, which funds most institutions in the University of Texas System and the Texas A&M University System, but no other public universities or schools in the state.
The lands and other assets in the fund are managed by the Texas General Land Office (GLO). Money is added to the fund whenever lands under GLO management are sold or leased, or when mineral royalties are collected on natural resource extraction on these lands. Royalties on oil and gas extraction are the fund's major source of revenues. [3]
The General Land Office then reinvests these revenues and manages the investments. The interest produced by the fund's investments is distributed to the state's public school districts (in proportion to their average daily student attendance), but the fund itself may not be spent; this provision ensures that the fund will continue to grow, and its revenues will be available for Texas public schools in perpetuity. [3]
In 1854 an act of the Texas Legislature established the Special School Fund (a predecessor to the Permanent School Fund), intended to fund the state's public school system. The fund was endowed with $2 million taken from the money paid to Texas by the federal government in return for Texas's claimed territory in what are now parts of New Mexico, Colorado and Oklahoma. [4]
After the Civil War and Reconstruction, in 1876 Texas enacted a new constitution which changed the fund's name to the Permanent School Fund and transferred half of the public lands owned by the state to the fund as its new endowment. The 1876 constitution also tasked the General Land Office with the management of these lands and the fund. [3]
In 1953, the United States Congress passed the Submerged Lands Act, which returned to the States the navigable territorial waters that had been historically the property of the States. Because Texas's historical territorial waters originated with its period as a sovereign state, the US Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Louisiana (1960) 363 U.S. 1 (1960) that Texas was in the unique position of owning territory out to three leagues (10.35 miles) from its coastline. These lands were also added to the Permanent School Fund, further enlarging its assets. [2]
The Crown Estate is a collection of lands and holdings in the United Kingdom belonging to the British monarch as a corporation sole, making it "the sovereign's public estate", which is neither government property nor part of the monarch's private estate. The Crown Estate in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland is managed by the Crown Estate Commissioners. In Scotland, the Crown Estate is managed by Crown Estate Scotland, since the Scottish estate was devolved in 2017.
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An institutional investor is an entity that pools money to purchase securities, real property, and other investment assets or originate loans. Institutional investors include commercial banks, central banks, credit unions, government-linked companies, insurers, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, charities, hedge funds, real estate investment trusts, investment advisors, endowments, and mutual funds. Operating companies which invest excess capital in these types of assets may also be included in the term. Activist institutional investors may also influence corporate governance by exercising voting rights in their investments. In 2019, the world's top 500 asset managers collectively managed $104.4 trillion in Assets under Management (AuM).
The Permanent University Fund (PUF) is a sovereign wealth fund created by the State of Texas to fund public higher education within the state. A portion of the returns from the PUF are annually directed towards the Available University Fund (AUF), which distributes the funds according to provisions set forth by the 1876 Texas Constitution, subsequent constitutional amendments, and the board of regents of the Texas A&M University System and University of Texas System. The PUF provides extra funds, above monies from tax revenues, to the UT System and the Texas A&M System which collectively have approximately 50 percent of state public university students. The PUF does not provide any funding to other public Universities in the State of Texas.
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The University of Texas at Austin was originally conceived in 1827 under an article in the Constitución de Coahuila y Texas to open a public university in the state of Texas. The Constitution of 1876 also called for the creation of a "university of the first class." Thus, they created "The University of Texas." Since the school's opening in 1883, the University of Texas has expanded greatly with the Austin institution remaining the flagship university of the University of Texas System. By the late 1990s, the University had the largest enrollment in the country and contained many of the country's top programs in the areas of law, architecture, film, engineering, and business.
The state auditor of Minnesota is a constitutional officer in the executive branch of the U.S. state of Minnesota. Nineteen individuals have held the office of state auditor since statehood. The incumbent is Julie Blaha, a DFLer.
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A sovereign wealth fund (SWF), sovereign investment fund, or social wealth fund is a state-owned investment fund that invests in real and financial assets such as stocks, bonds, real estate, precious metals, or in alternative investments such as private equity fund or hedge funds. Sovereign wealth funds invest globally. Most SWFs are funded by revenues from commodity exports or from foreign-exchange reserves held by the central bank.
Severance taxes are taxes imposed on the removal of natural resources within a taxing jurisdiction. Severance taxes are most commonly imposed in oil producing states within the United States. Resources that typically incur severance taxes when extracted include oil, natural gas, coal, uranium, and timber. Some jurisdictions use other terms like gross production tax.
The Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund(HSTF) is a sovereign wealth fund established in 1976 by the Government of Alberta under then-Premier Peter Lougheed. The Heritage Savings Trust Fund was created with three objectives: "to save for the future, to strengthen or diversify the economy, and to improve the quality of life of Albertans." The operations of the Heritage Savings Trust Fund are subject to the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund Act and with the goal of providing "prudent stewardship of the savings from Alberta's non-renewable resources by providing the greatest financial returns on those savings for current and future generations of Albertans." Between 1976 and 1983 the Government of Alberta deposited a portion of oil revenue into the fund. The Heritage Savings Trust Fund used oil revenues to invest for the long term in such areas as health care, education and research and as a way of ensuring that the development of non-renewable resources would be of long-term benefit to Alberta. The strategy and goals of the fund have changed through successive provincial governments which moved away from direct investments in Alberta to a diversified approach, which now includes stocks, bonds, real estate and other ventures.
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The Board of Commissioners of Public Lands, otherwise known as BCPL, is a state agency responsible for investing Wisconsin's school trust funds in support of public education, for managing the state's remaining school trust lands, and for maintaining an extensive archive of land records. The board was established by Article X, Sections 7 and 8 of the Wisconsin Constitution, ratified in 1848, making it Wisconsin's oldest extant state agency.
Following the defeat of the Confederate States in the American Civil War, Texas was mandated to rejoin the United States of America. Union Army soldiers officially occupied the state starting on June 19, 1865. For the next nine years, Texas was governed by a series of provisional governors as the state went through Reconstruction. As stated by the Texas State Library and Archive Commission, in 1869, the United States Congress passed an act allowing the citizens of Texas to vote on a new State Constitution. Later that same year, President Grant approved their Constitution. Texas fully rejoined the Union on March 30, 1870, when President Grant signed the act to readmit Texas to Congressional Representation. Texas later repealed the State Constitution of 1869 and enacted the Texas State Constitution of 1876 on February 15, 1876, which remains their current state constitution though with numerous amendments.
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