BILL ANALYSIS

 

 

                                                                                                                                             H.B. 315

                                                                                                                                            By: Miller

                                                                                                                                          Corrections

                                                                                                       Committee Report (Unamended)

 

 

 

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

 

The 72nd Legislature required the executive director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to develop an intraagency career ladder program.  A career ladder was then designed for correctional officers, but did not include prison industry workers in the program.  Prison industry workers are, for practical purposes, the correctional officers who manage and guard the industry programs within the prisons and they typically experience the same risks and require the same training as correctional officers.

 

House Bill 315 requires that prison industry workers be included in the career ladder program developed for correctional officers.

 

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

 

HB 315 amends the Government Code to provide that the career ladder program developed for correctional officers under Subsection (a), Section 493.007, Government Code, shall also include prison industry workers.  The bill also provides that for Section 493.007, Government Code, “prison industry worker” means a Texas Department of Criminal Justice (department) employee, other than a correctional officer, who is assigned to work on a program or project established under Chapter 497 and whose job on a regular basis requires routine contact with state jail defendants or inmates confined in facilitates operated by or under contract with the department.  The term includes a farm manager, livestock supervisor, maintenance foreman, shop foreman, medical assistant, food service supervisor, steward, education consultant, commodity specialist, or correctional counselor.

 

HB 315 provides that the department must use the career ladder program developed under section 493.007(a), Government Code, as a amended by this Act, for any person who becomes employed by the department as a prison industry worker or who becomes eligible for promotion by the department as a prison industry worker on or after September 1, 2007.

 

EFFECTIVE DATE

 

September 1, 2007.