1-1     By:  Duncan                                            S.B. No. 264
 1-2           (In the Senate - Filed January 25, 1999; January 28, 1999,
 1-3     read first time and referred to Committee on Intergovernmental
 1-4     Relations; February 25, 1999, reported favorably by the following
 1-5     vote:  Yeas 5, Nays 0; February 25, 1999, sent to printer.)
 1-6                            A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 1-7                                   AN ACT
 1-8     relating to the probationary period for a police officer under the
 1-9     municipal civil service law.
1-10           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
1-11           SECTION 1.  Section 143.027, Local Government Code, is
1-12     amended to read as follows:
1-13           Sec. 143.027.  PROBATIONARY PERIOD.  (a)  A person appointed
1-14     to a beginning position in the fire [or police] department must
1-15     serve a probationary period of one year beginning on that person's
1-16     date of employment as a fire fighter[, police officer,] or academy
1-17     trainee.
1-18           (b)  A person appointed to a beginning position in the police
1-19     department must serve a probationary period beginning on the date
1-20     the person is commissioned as a police officer in the employing
1-21     police department and ending on the first anniversary of that date.
1-22           (c)  During a fire fighter's or police officer's probationary
1-23     period, the department head shall discharge the person and remove
1-24     the person from the payroll if the person's appointment was not
1-25     regular or was not made in accordance with this chapter or the
1-26     commission rules.
1-27           (d) [(c)]  During a fire fighter's or police officer's
1-28     probationary period, the person may not be prohibited from joining
1-29     or required to join an employee organization.  Joining or not
1-30     joining an employee organization is not a ground for retaining or
1-31     not retaining a fire fighter or police officer serving a
1-32     probationary period.
1-33           (e) [(d)]  A fire fighter or police officer who was appointed
1-34     in substantial compliance with this chapter and who serves the
1-35     entire probationary period automatically becomes a full-fledged
1-36     civil service employee and has full civil service protection.
1-37           SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1999, and
1-38     applies only to the probationary period of a person employed in a
1-39     beginning position in a police department on or after the effective
1-40     date of this Act.  The probationary period of a person employed in
1-41     a beginning position in a police department before the effective
1-42     date of this Act is governed by the law as it existed immediately
1-43     before the effective date of this Act, and that law is continued in
1-44     effect for that purpose.
1-45           SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
1-46     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
1-47     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
1-48     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
1-49     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.
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