By:  Oakley                                            H.B. No. 667
       73R3518 JD-D
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to notifying certain state employees when information in
    1-3  their personnel files is inspected under the open records law.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Section 4, Chapter 424, Acts of the 63rd
    1-6  Legislature, Regular Session, 1973 (Article 6252-17a, Vernon's
    1-7  Texas Civil Statutes), is amended to read as follows:
    1-8        Sec. 4.  Application for Public Information.  (a)  On
    1-9  application for public information to the officer for public
   1-10  records in a governmental body by any person, the officer for
   1-11  public records shall promptly produce such information for
   1-12  inspection or duplication, or both, in the offices of the
   1-13  governmental body.  If the information is in active use or in
   1-14  storage and, therefore, not available at the time a person asks to
   1-15  examine it, the officer for public records shall certify this fact
   1-16  in writing to the applicant and set a date and hour within a
   1-17  reasonable time when the record will be available for the exercise
   1-18  of the right given by this Act.  Nothing in this Act shall
   1-19  authorize any person to remove original copies of public records
   1-20  from the offices of any governmental body.
   1-21        (b)  A person requesting access to information in the
   1-22  personnel file of  an employee of a governmental body described by
   1-23  Section 2(1)(A) of this Act must submit a written application to
   1-24  the officer for public records of the governmental body.  The
    2-1  application must include the requestor's name and home or business
    2-2  address, the name and home or business address of any person or
    2-3  entity on whose behalf the request is made, and the reason access
    2-4  to the information is requested.  If access to any information is
    2-5  given, a copy of the application shall be given to the employee.
    2-6        SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1993.
    2-7        SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
    2-8  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
    2-9  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   2-10  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   2-11  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.