By Duncan                                              S.B. No. 264
         76R4569 AJA-D                           
                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 1-1                                   AN ACT
 1-2     relating to the probationary period for a police officer under the
 1-3     municipal civil service law.
 1-4           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
 1-5           SECTION 1.  Section 143.027, Local Government Code, is
 1-6     amended to read as follows:
 1-7           Sec. 143.027.  PROBATIONARY PERIOD.  (a)  A person appointed
 1-8     to a beginning position in the fire [or police] department must
 1-9     serve a probationary period of one year beginning on that person's
1-10     date of employment as a fire fighter[, police officer,] or academy
1-11     trainee.
1-12           (b)  A person appointed to a beginning position in the police
1-13     department must serve a probationary period beginning on the date
1-14     the person is commissioned as a police officer in the employing
1-15     police department and ending on the first anniversary of that date.
1-16           (c) [(b)]  During a fire fighter's or police officer's
1-17     probationary period, the department head shall discharge the person
1-18     and remove the person from the payroll if the person's appointment
1-19     was not regular or was not made in accordance with this chapter or
1-20     the commission rules.
1-21           (d) [(c)]  During a fire fighter's or police officer's
1-22     probationary period, the person may not be prohibited from joining
1-23     or required to join an employee organization.  Joining or not
1-24     joining an employee organization is not a ground for retaining or
 2-1     not retaining a fire fighter or police officer serving a
 2-2     probationary period.
 2-3           (e) [(d)]  A fire fighter or police officer who was appointed
 2-4     in substantial compliance with this chapter and who serves the
 2-5     entire probationary period automatically becomes a full-fledged
 2-6     civil service employee and has full civil service protection.
 2-7           SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1999, and
 2-8     applies only to the probationary period of a person employed in a
 2-9     beginning position in a police department on or after the effective
2-10     date of this Act.  The probationary period of a person employed in
2-11     a beginning position in a police department before the effective
2-12     date of this Act is governed by the law as it existed immediately
2-13     before the effective date of this Act, and that law is continued in
2-14     effect for that purpose.
2-15           SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
2-16     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
2-17     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
2-18     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
2-19     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.