LEGISLATIVE BUDGET BOARD Austin, Texas FISCAL NOTE 75th Regular Session March 17, 1997 TO: Honorable Rodney Ellis, Chair IN RE: Senate Bill No. 800 Committee on Jurisprudence By: Harris Senate Austin, Texas FROM: John Keel, Director In response to your request for a Fiscal Note on SB800 ( Relating to an appeal of a decision made by certain county civil service commissions.) this office has detemined the following: Biennial Net Impact to General Revenue Funds by SB800-As Introduced No fiscal implication to the State is anticipated. This bill would apply only to counties which have civil service commissions to supervise county public sector employment. This bill would provide for appeals of commission decisions to be reviewed by district courts under the substantial evidence rule, rather than the requiring a new trial as prescribed by current law, unless some type of legal error is shown to have been made by the commission. If this bill were enacted, appellants would only be able to use the record of the commission's hearings in making a case before the district court. This bill would allow the civil service commission to charge appellants up to one-half the cost of preparing the record of commission proceedings. The fiscal impact of this bill to counties would depend on the number of cases appealed. It is anticipated that there would be some savings to counties associated with having appeals considered under the substantial evidence rule rather than by trial. Counties which currently do not transcribe the records of civil service commission trials could, however, experience increased costs associated with this activity, since they would only be able to recover one-half of such costs. Source: Agencies: 304 Comptroller of Public Accounts 302 Office of the Attorney General LBB Staff: JK ,BB ,TL