By:  Whitmire                                          S.B. No. 719
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
                                        AN ACT
    1-1  relating to the records of an unsustained complaint or an
    1-2  overturned disciplinary action taken against a fire fighter or
    1-3  police officer in certain municipalities.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Subchapter G, Chapter 143, Local Government Code,
    1-6  is amended by adding Section 143.1214 to read as follows:
    1-7        Sec. 143.1214.  RECORDS OF OVERTURNED DISCIPLINARY ACTION OR
    1-8  UNSUSTAINED COMPLAINT.  (a)  The department head promptly shall
    1-9  order that the records of a  disciplinary action that was taken
   1-10  against a fire fighter or police officer be expunged from each file
   1-11  maintained on the fire fighter or police officer by the department
   1-12  if the disciplinary action was overturned on appeal by the
   1-13  commission, an independent third-party hearing examiner, or a court
   1-14  of competent jurisdiction.  Documents that must be expunged under
   1-15  this subsection include all documents that indicate disciplinary
   1-16  action was recommended or taken against the fire fighter or police
   1-17  officer, such as the recommendations of a disciplinary committee or
   1-18  a letter of suspension.  This subsection does not apply if the
   1-19  disciplinary action was only reduced and not overturned.
   1-20        (b)  The department may maintain an investigatory document
   1-21  that relates to a disciplinary action against a fire fighter or
   1-22  police officer that was overturned on appeal, or any document in
   1-23  the possession of the department that relates to a charge of
   1-24  misconduct against a fire fighter or police officer that the
    2-1  department did not sustain, only in a file created by the
    2-2  department for the department's use.  The department may not
    2-3  release those documents to any agency or other person.
    2-4        SECTION 2.  Section 143.1214, Local Government Code, as added
    2-5  by this Act, applies according to its terms to a disciplinary
    2-6  action that is overturned or a complaint that is found to be
    2-7  unsustained before, on, or after the effective date of this Act.
    2-8        SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
    2-9  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   2-10  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   2-11  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   2-12  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
   2-13  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   2-14  passage, and it is so enacted.