LEGISLATIVE BUDGET BOARD

Austin, Texas

FISCAL NOTE, 78TH LEGISLATIVE REGULAR SESSION

May 1, 2003

TO:	Honorable Kenny Marchant, Chair, House Committee on State Affairs
FROM:	John Keel, Director, Legislative Budget Board
IN RE:	HB863 by Kolkhorst (Relating to access to certain information about former employees of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice under the public information law.), Committee Report 1st House, Substituted

No significant fiscal implication to the State is anticipated.

The bill would amend the Government Code by excepting the addresses, telephone numbers, social security numbers, and personal family information of former employees of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) and predecessor agencies from the public information law.  The bill would not significantly affect the operations of state government. 

Local Government Impact

Under existing statute, the address, telephone number, social security number, and personal family information of current TDCJ employees are excepted from the public information law. 

The proposed change in statute would add that information of former TDCJ and TDCJ-predecessor agencies' employees and their family would be excepted from public information even if no written request was submitted.

County clerks in Tarrant, Fort Bend, and Nolan counties indicated that the costs of implementation would be significant because of the high number of persons to which the bill would apply and the volume of recent and archived records that would have to be reviewed for identifying records to be redacted. Costs would result from added staff time to research records that are on microfiche, review of any paper records, and programming changes to computerized systems. Costs would vary by county, depending on the number of records filed annually and the type of system currently in place (computerized or manual).

Source Agencies:	696 Department of Criminal Justice
LBB Staff:	JK, RR, GG, VDS, DLBa