SRC-SEW H.B. 1113 77(R)   BILL ANALYSIS


Senate Research Center   H.B. 1113
77R4362 ATP-DBy: Goolsby (West)
Intergovernmental Relations
5/5/2001
Engrossed


DIGEST AND PURPOSE 

Current law requires a municipality of 1.5 million or more that has adopted
provisions regarding municipal civil service to establish and maintain a
legislative leave time account for each of its firefighter and police
officer employee organizations. A legislative leave time account decreases
the amount of money an employee organization is required to reimburse a
municipality when its members take time off from work to conduct
legislative business. A number of police officers from other municipalities
have expressed interest in donating some of their accumulated vacation and
overtime to their employee organization to be used for legislative leave
purposes.  H.B. 1113 requires a municipality of one million or more that
has not adopted the provisions for municipal civil service to establish and
maintain a legislative leave time account for each police officer employee
organization.  

RULEMAKING AUTHORITY

This bill does not expressly grant any additional rulemaking authority to a
state officer, institution, or agency. 

SECTION BY SECTION ANALYSIS

SECTION 1.  Amends Chapter 614A, Government Code, by adding Section
614.011, as follows: 
 
Sec. 614.011.  LEGISLATIVE LEAVE TIME ACCOUNT. (a) Provides that this
section applies only to certain police officers.  
 
(b)  Prohibits a police officer from donating more than two hours for each
month of accumulated vacation or compensatory time to the legislative leave
time account of an employee organization.  Requires the municipality to
establish and maintain a legislative leave time account for each employee
organization. 
 
(c)  Requires the police officer to authorize the donation in writing on a
form provided by the employee organization and approved by the
municipality.  Requires the municipality, after receiving the signed
authorization on an approved form, to transfer donated time to the account
monthly until the municipality  receives the police officer's written
revocation of the authorization. 
 
(d)  Authorizes only a police officer who is a member of an employee
organization to use for legislative leave purposes the time donated to the
account of that employee organization.  Authorizes a police officer to use
for legislative leave purposes the time donated under this section instead
of reimbursing the municipality under Section 614.005. 
 
(e)  Requires a request to use for legislative leave purposes the time in
an employee organization's time account to be in writing and submitted to
the municipality by the president or the equivalent officer of the employee
organization or by that officer's designee. 
  
(f)  Requires the municipality to account for the time donated to the
account and used from the account.  Requires the municipality to credit and
debit an account on an hour-for-hour basis regardless of the cash value of
the time donated or used. 
 
(g)  Prohibits an employee organization from using for legislative leave
purposes more than 4,000 hours from its legislative leave time account
under this section in a calendar year.  Provides that this subsection does
not prevent an employee organization from accumulating more than 4,000
hours, but only addresses the total number of donated hours that an
employee organization is authorized use in any calendar year. 

SECTION 2. Effective date: upon passage or September 1, 2001.