By Ellis                                              H.B. No. 2943
         76R6892 GCH-F                           
                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 1-1                                   AN ACT
 1-2     relating to compensatory time accumulated by employees of the Texas
 1-3     Department of Criminal Justice.
 1-4           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
 1-5           SECTION 1.  Chapter 493, Government Code, is amended by
 1-6     adding Section 493.0075 to read as follows:
 1-7           Sec. 493.0075.  EMPLOYEE COMPENSATORY TIME.  (a)
 1-8     Notwithstanding any contrary provision in the General
 1-9     Appropriations Act or other law, an employee of the department who
1-10     accrues compensatory time and is unable to take the time off
1-11     because of the department's staffing requirements is not subject to
1-12     any limitation on the amount of unused compensatory time that may
1-13     be accumulated or transferred from one fiscal year to the next.
1-14     The department may deduct from an employee's accumulated
1-15     compensatory time only time the employee takes off.
1-16           (b)  If an employee leaves employment with the department,
1-17     the department shall pay the employee or the employee's estate, as
1-18     applicable, for all the employee's unused compensatory time at a
1-19     rate equal to the hourly rate of pay earned by the employee on the
1-20     last day of employment with the department.
1-21           SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1999, and
1-22     applies only to compensatory time accrued by an employee of the
1-23     Texas Department of Criminal Justice while employed by the
1-24     department on or after that date.
 2-1           SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
 2-2     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
 2-3     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
 2-4     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
 2-5     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.