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.  Chapter 81 of the Local Government Code is
    1-5  amended by adding a new Section 81.028 to read as follows:
    1-6        Section 81.028.  Certain Powers Specified
    1-7        Each commissioners 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 and such idiots
   1-17  and lunatics as can not be admitted to the lunatic asylum,
   1-18  residents of their county, who are unable to support themselves.  A
   1-19  county is obligated to provide health care assistance to eligible
   1-20  residents only to the extent prescribed by the Indigent Health Care
   1-21  and Treatment Act (Article 4438f, Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes),
   1-22  but that Act does not affect the authority of a commissioners court
   1-23  to provide eligibility standards or other requirements relating to
    2-1  other assistance programs or services that are not covered by the
    2-2  Indigent Health Care and Treatment Act.
    2-3              (7)  Provide for the internment or cremation of
    2-4  paupers.  No pauper shall be cremated if a relative or friend
    2-5  expresses objection to this procedure.
    2-6              (8)  Use county road machinery and funds from the
    2-7  General Fund or Road and Bridge Funds in cleaning streams and in
    2-8  aiding flood control when such improvements are deemed to be of aid
    2-9  to the county in the maintenance and the building of county roads.
   2-10        SECTION 2.  Article 2351, Revised statutes is hereby
   2-11  repealed.
   2-12        SECTION 3.  This act takes effect September 1, 1993.
   2-13        SECTION 4.  The importance of this legislation and the
   2-14  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   2-15  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   2-16  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three separate
   2-17  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.
   2-18                       COMMITTEE AMENDMENT NO. 1
   2-19  Amend H.B. 2663 by deleting the following:
   2-20  (1)  On page 1, delete subsections 6 and 7, beginning on line 16
   2-21  thru page 2, line 5.
   2-22  (2)  Insert beginning on line 16 the following:
   2-23        (6)  Provide for the support of paupers, residents of their
   2-24  county, who are unable to support themselves.  A county is
   2-25  obligated to provide health care assistance to eligible residents
    3-1  only to the extent prescribed by Chapter 61, Health and Safety
    3-2  Code, but that Chapter does not affect the authority of a
    3-3  commissioners court to provide eligibility standards or other
    3-4  requirements relating to other assistance programs or services that
    3-5  are not covered by Chapter 61.
    3-6  (3)  Renumber subsequent sections appropriately.
    3-7                                                               Hamric