LEGISLATIVE BUDGET BOARD
                              Austin, Texas
                                     
                    FISCAL NOTE, 77th Regular Session
  
                              March 29, 2001
  
  
          TO:  Honorable Florence Shapiro, Chair, Senate Committee on
               State Affairs
  
        FROM:  John Keel, Director, Legislative Budget Board
  
       IN RE:  SB1529  by Shapiro (Relating to procedures for
               maintaining information on lists of registered voters.),
               As Introduced
  
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*  No significant fiscal implication to the State is anticipated.        *
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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 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.

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.
  
  
Source Agencies:   405   Texas Department of Public Safety, 307
                   Secretary of State
LBB Staff:         JK, RB, SK