C.S.H.B. 2642 78(R)    BILL ANALYSIS


C.S.H.B. 2642
By: Bailey
Urban Affairs
Committee Report (Substituted)


BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

A business leave time account decreases the amount of money a peace
officer employee organization is required to reimburse a municipality or
county when its members who are approved by the municipality or county to
take time off from work to conduct legislative business. A number of peace
officers have expressed interest in donating some of their accumulated
vacation and compensatory time to their employee organization to be used
for employee organization business purposes. Committee Substitute House
Bill 2642 requires a municipality or county within its scope of
applicability to establish and maintain a business leave time account for
each peace officer employee organization.            
RULEMAKING AUTHORITY

It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly grant any
additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency, or
institution. 

SECTION BY SECTION ANALYSIS

SECTION 1.  Amends Chapter 180, Local Government Code, by adding Section
180.005, which requires certain municipalities and counties to create
business leave time accounts for peace officers in their employ.   
This section would only apply to: (1) municipalities with a population of
200,000 or more; but not municipalities with a population of  460,000 or
more with a city manager form of government; nor municipalities with a
population of 1.5 million or more; nor municipalities of one million or
more that have not adopted Chapter 143, Local Government Code; nor those
municipalities which have adopted Chapter 174, Local Government Code ("The
Fire and Police Employee Relations Act"); and (2) a county with a
population of 500,000 or more.   
This section also defines "business leave" and "officer."  It would
authorize a peace officer to donate not more than five hours for each
month of accumulated vacation or compensatory  time to the union business
leave time account of an employee organization, which shall be established
and maintained by the municipality or county.   This section would require
written authorization on an approved form for such a donation, as well as
written revocation of such authorization, which would terminate monthly
transfers previously authorized by the officer.  In addition, the section
provides that only officer members of the employee organization may use
time in that employee organization's account.  Such use would allow the
officer business leave without a reduction in salary, nor a duty to
reimburse the municipality or county for time lost.  In order to use time
in the account, the president or equivalent officer of the employee
organization must submit to the municipality or county a written request,
which shall be granted except in cases of emergency or when a grant of the
request would result in an insufficient number of officers available to
carry out the normal functions of the municipality or county.  This
section requires a municipality to credit and debit a legislative leave
account or an hour-for-hour basis regardless of the cash value of the time
donated or used.  It also provides that an employee organization may not
use more than 4,000 hours from an account in a calendar year, but may
accumulate more than 4,000 hours.  The section provides that an officer
may use business leave  for legislative leave purposes or take legislative
leave.  In addition, any use of business leave under this section is not a
break in service and is treated as any other paid leave. 

SECTION 2.  Effective Date

EFFECTIVE DATE:  H.B. 2642 78(R)September 1, 2003
 
COMPARISON OF ORIGINAL TO SUBSTITUTE

C.S.H.B. 2642 adds an exception to the application of the bill not
included in the original for municipalities of one million or more which
have not adopted Chapter 143, Local Government Code.  The substitute also
strikes the word "peace" in the term "peace officer" so that the word
"officer" remains throughout the bill, and adds detention officers and
jailers licensed under Chapter 1701, Occupations Code, to the term
"officer."  The substitute also allows donation of five hours each year,
where the original only allowed donation of two hours yearly.