By:  Duncan                                            S.B. No. 264
                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
                                       AN ACT
 1-1     relating to the probationary period for a police officer under the
 1-2     municipal civil service law.
 1-3           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
 1-4           SECTION 1.  Section 143.027, Local Government Code, is
 1-5     amended to read as follows:
 1-6           Sec. 143.027.  PROBATIONARY PERIOD.  (a)  A person appointed
 1-7     to a beginning position in the fire [or police] department must
 1-8     serve a probationary period of one year beginning on that person's
 1-9     date of employment as a fire fighter[, police officer,] or academy
1-10     trainee.
1-11           (b)  A person appointed to a beginning position in the police
1-12     department must serve a probationary period beginning on the date
1-13     the person is commissioned as a police officer in the employing
1-14     police department and ending on the first anniversary of that date.
1-15           (c)  During a fire fighter's or police officer's probationary
1-16     period, the department head shall discharge the person and remove
1-17     the person from the payroll if the person's appointment was not
1-18     regular or was not made in accordance with this chapter or the
1-19     commission rules.
1-20           (d) [(c)]  During a fire fighter's or police officer's
1-21     probationary period, the person may not be prohibited from joining
1-22     or required to join an employee organization.  Joining or not
1-23     joining an employee organization is not a ground for retaining or
1-24     not retaining a fire fighter or police officer serving a
 2-1     probationary period.
 2-2           (e) [(d)]  A fire fighter or police officer who was appointed
 2-3     in substantial compliance with this chapter and who serves the
 2-4     entire probationary period automatically becomes a full-fledged
 2-5     civil service employee and has full civil service protection.
 2-6           (f)  This section does not apply to a city with population of
 2-7     1.5 million or more.
 2-8           SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1999, and
 2-9     applies only to the probationary period of a person employed in a
2-10     beginning position in a police department on or after the effective
2-11     date of this Act.  The probationary period of a person employed in
2-12     a beginning position in a police department before the effective
2-13     date of this Act is governed by the law as it existed immediately
2-14     before the effective date of this Act, and that law is continued in
2-15     effect for that purpose.
2-16           SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
2-17     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
2-18     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
2-19     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
2-20     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.