BILL ANALYSIS
By: McReynolds
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
Under current state law, survivors of certain state employees are eligible to receive death benefits from the state. Section 615.003 of the Government Code lists the eligible state employees whose survivors receive money from the state should the employee die as a result of an injury sustained in the line of duty. Although the list is comprised of both volunteer and non-volunteer firefighters, employees of the Texas Forest Service, the firefighters for the state of Texas, are not included. Employees of the Texas Forest Service risk their lives to protect our state but are not afforded the same benefits as others in similar careers.
HB 1333 adds the employees of the Texas Forest Service who are assigned fire-fighting, fire-prevention, rescue, or incident management duties to the group whose families are eligible to receive survivor death benefits.
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.
ANALYSIS
Amends Section 615.003 subsection (9) by consolidating health departments and striking out of date language referring to the Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation and replacing it with the new agency name.
Section 615.003 is also amended by adding a subsection (15) that adds employees of the Texas Forest Service who meet the guidelines of the National Wildfire Coordinating Group and are assigned fire-fighting, fire-prevention, rescue, or incident management duties to the group of eligible employees.
EFFECTIVE DATE
This Act takes effect September 1, 2005.