Enrolled Bill Summary

Senate Bill 1147 amends the Occupations Code to continue the State Office of Administrative Hearings (SOAH) until September 1, 2015, and to include and update standard sunset provisions. The bill requires each state agency, with certain exceptions, to pay for its administrative hearings as a lump sum at the start of each year of the biennium, beginning in 2006-2007, based on the agency's average costs over the previous three years. The bill requires the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation to transfer to SOAH all department functions relating to administrative hearings, and it requires SOAH to consider in those hearings the rules and policies of the Texas Licensing and Regulation Commission, which has final authority to accept, reverse, or modify a proposal for a decision made by an administrative law judge. The bill exempts from public record requirements certain working papers of SOAH judges. The bill requires SOAH's rules regarding witness participation in hearings by telephone to include procedures for verifying the identity of those witnesses, and it requires SOAH to provide and pay for translators at its hearings, if requested.