By Eckels                                             H.B. No. 2663
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to the powers and duties of the commissioners court.
    1-3        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-4        SECTION 1.  Subchapter B, Chapter 81, Local Government Code,
    1-5  is amended by adding Section 81.028 to read as follows:
    1-6        Sec. 81.028.  CERTAIN POWERS SPECIFIED.  Each commissioners
    1-7  court may:
    1-8              (1)  establish public ferries whenever the public
    1-9  interest may require;
   1-10              (2)  lay out and establish, change, discontinue, close,
   1-11  abandon, or vacate public roads and highways;
   1-12              (3)  build bridges and keep them in repair;
   1-13              (4)  appoint road overseers and apportion hands;
   1-14              (5)  exercise general control over all roads, highways,
   1-15  ferries, and bridges in their counties;
   1-16              (6)  provide for the support of paupers, residents of
   1-17  their county, who are unable to support themselves.  A county is
   1-18  obligated to provide health care assistance to eligible residents
   1-19  only to the extent prescribed by Chapter 61, Health and Safety
   1-20  Code, but that chapter does not affect the authority of a
   1-21  commissioners court to provide eligibility standards or other
   1-22  requirements relating to other assistance programs or services that
   1-23  are not covered by Chapter 61; and
    2-1              (7)  use county road machinery and funds from the
    2-2  general fund or road and bridge funds in cleaning streams and in
    2-3  aiding flood control when such improvements are deemed to be of aid
    2-4  to the county in the maintenance and the building of county roads.
    2-5        SECTION 2.  Article 2351, Revised Statutes, is repealed.
    2-6        SECTION 3.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1993.
    2-7        SECTION 4.  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.