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House Bill 1685 |
House Author: Price |
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Effective: 9-1-13 |
Senate Sponsor: Whitmire |
Previous law created the Self-Directed Semi-Independent Agency Project Act in the Revised Statutes as a pilot project that was subject to sunset review and applicable to the Texas State Board of Public Accountancy, Texas Board of Professional Engineers, and Texas Board of Architectural Examiners. House Bill 1685 amends those provisions and redesignates them as a chapter in the Government Code, removes the pilot project status and separate sunset review requirement for the provisions, and continues the application of those amended and redesignated provisions to the applicable agencies. The bill requires the examination of an applicable agency's performance as a self-directed and semi-independent agency and its compliance with the amended and redesignated provisions during the agency's own periodic sunset review and requires an applicable agency to pay the costs incurred by the Sunset Advisory Commission in performing a review of the agency under the agency's enabling legislation.
House Bill 1685 requires the applicable agencies to follow general laws, such as prompt payment, travel, and state purchasing requirements, that apply to state agencies unless otherwise provided under the amended and redesignated provisions. Furthermore, the bill requires those agencies to provide the preceding five years of trend performance data regarding their licensing and enforcement and basic administrative activities in their annual reports and requires the agencies to report operating plans and projected budget data for two fiscal years.
House Bill 1685 prohibits the applicable agencies from opening accounts not under the control of the comptroller of public accounts and requires the agencies to use the Uniform Statewide Accounting System for all future payments, except that direct payments to the Texas Treasury Safekeeping Trust Company may be made from each agency's trust company account. The bill also removes a requirement that scholarship fees provided in an agency's enabling statute be remitted to the state. The bill requires the agencies to remit all administrative penalties to the comptroller for deposit in the general revenue fund and deletes existing language allowing the agencies to retain those fines.
House Bill 1685 repeals an Occupations Code provision that authorizes a part of an administrative penalty representing the cost of enforcement to be appropriated to the Texas Board of Professional Engineers as reimbursement for performing its regulatory functions.