LEGISLATIVE BUDGET BOARD Austin, Texas FISCAL NOTE, 77th Regular Session March 30, 2001 TO: Honorable Debra Danburg, Chair, House Committee on Elections FROM: John Keel, Director, Legislative Budget Board IN RE: HB3181 by Danburg (Relating to procedures for maintaining information on lists of registered voters.), Committee Report 1st House, as amended ************************************************************************** * No significant fiscal implication to the State is anticipated. * ************************************************************************** Local Government Impact The bill would require a county registrar, that has not contracted with the Secretary of State for electronic data services under the registration service program, to deliver to the Secretary of State once a week a list containing each new registration, canceled registration, and change in registration information that has occurred in the county since the previous list was submitted. Under current statute, the list must be submitted quarterly. The bill would also authorize the Secretary to place into a special fund any lapsed funds after the expiration of the period in which those funds would be disbursed to registrars and issue those monies to counties that have limited technological resources to upgrade voter registration technology. The lapsed funds are from those funds already appropriated and earmarked for disbursement to voter registrars statewide. Under the provisions of the bill, the Secretary would also be required to give preference to counties with limited resources for technology improvements when transferring surplus computer equipment. According to the Texas Association of Election Administrators, approximately 120 of the 254 counties contract with the Secretary of State for use of the electronic Texas Voter Registration System (TVRS). Contacted counties with a population over 200,000 that do not contract with the Secretary estimate the requirements under the provisions of the bill would increase their annual operating costs by approximately $96,000. Some of the counties with a population under 80,000 indicated they contract with a vendor to keep their voter database current. The vendors charge an average of $175 per report generated. If reporting requirements were to increase from quarterly to weekly, the counties anticipate that the vendors would charge a one-time programming fee that would adjust the system to generate weekly instead of quarterly reports. The programming cost is estimated to range from $6,000 to $7,000. The annual cost for the reports would increase from $700 a year for four reports to $9,100 per year for 52 reports. Switching to a contract with the Secretary, rather than continuing with existing systems, would result in the cost of any computer equipment and software necessary to interface with the TVRS. Those counties that have limited technology resources and that would be eligible for the surplus computer equipment from the Secretary of State and for special funds to assist in upgrading their technology systems would have a positive fiscal impact. The fiscal benefit would vary by eligible county and would be dependent on the level of lapsed funds available, which would also vary annually. According to the Secretary of State, lapsed funds in fiscal year 1997 totaled $17,000 and in fiscal year 1998 totaled $400,000. These funds are already earmarked to assist voter registrars and vary depending on each county's annual needs. Source Agencies: 405 Texas Department of Public Safety, 307 Secretary of State LBB Staff: JK, DB, TB, SK, DG