By Turner of Harris                                    H.B. No. 943
       74R2525 GCH-D
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to performance audits of certain metropolitan transit
    1-3  authorities.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Chapter 141, Acts of the 63rd Legislature,
    1-6  Regular Session, 1973 (Article 1118x, Vernon's Texas Civil
    1-7  Statutes), is amended by adding Section 12H to read as follows:
    1-8        Sec. 12H.  COMPTROLLER'S PERFORMANCE AUDITS OF CERTAIN
    1-9  AUTHORITIES.  (a)  In addition to the audit required by Section 12D
   1-10  of this Act, an authority in which the principal city has a
   1-11  population of more than 1.2 million is subject to performance
   1-12  audits by the state comptroller of public accounts to determine
   1-13  whether the authority is accomplishing the purposes for which it
   1-14  was created.  In performing an audit under this section, the
   1-15  comptroller may examine any budgets and operations of the
   1-16  authority, determine whether the authority is effectively and
   1-17  efficiently providing the services it was created to provide, and
   1-18  make appropriate recommendations to the legislature.
   1-19        (b)  The comptroller may initiate an audit under this section
   1-20  at the comptroller's discretion and shall initiate an audit at the
   1-21  request of the governor, the lieutenant governor, the speaker of
   1-22  the house of representatives, or the presiding officer of the
   1-23  committee of the senate or the house of representatives responsible
   1-24  for approving legislation governing the authority, except that an
    2-1  audit under this section may not be performed more often than once
    2-2  every two years.
    2-3        (c)  The comptroller shall file a copy of the report of each
    2-4  audit performed under this section with each person who has
    2-5  authority to initiate the audit.
    2-6        SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
    2-7  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
    2-8  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
    2-9  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   2-10  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
   2-11  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   2-12  passage, and it is so enacted.