BILL ANALYSIS
Senate Research Center H.B. 610
80R10682 MSE-D By: Brown, Fred et al. (Lucio)
AUTHOR'S / SPONSOR'S STATEMENT OF INTENT
Currently, municipalities are not specifically required to include a list in their service plan detailing the municipal services that they will provide to an area upon annexation. Municipalities are obligated to adhere to their service plan, but by omitting certain services, a municipality may be able to avoid the obligation of providing those services.
H.B. 610 requires municipalities to include a list of all services required by Section 43.056, Local Government Code, to be included in their service plans, and to propose in the service plan a schedule for providing those services.
RULEMAKING AUTHORITY
SECTION BY SECTION ANALYSIS
SECTION 1. Amends Section 43.056(b), Local Government Code, as follows:
(b) Requires the service plan, which is required to be completed in the period provided by Subsection (a) before the annexation, to include a program under which a municipality will provide full municipal services in the annexed area no later than 2-1/2 years after the effective date of the annexation, in accordance with Subsection (e), and include a list of all services required by this section to be provided under the plan.
Deletes existing text requiring the service plan to include a program under which the municipality will provide full municipal services in the annexed area no later than 2-1/2 years after the effective date of the annexation, in accordance with Subsection (e), unless certain services cannot reasonably be provided within that period and the municipality proposes a schedule for providing those services. Deletes existing text requiring the schedule to provide for the provision of full municipal services no later than 4-1/2 years after the effective date of the annexation if the municipality proposes a schedule to extend the period for providing certain services. Deletes existing text requiring the municipality, if the area was annexed after December 1, 1998, and before September 1, 1999, to provide sewer services in the annexed area as provided by this subsection, except that, no later than five years after the effective date of the annexation, the municipality is prohibited from providing sewer services in the annexed area by means of a package wastewater treatment plant.
SECTION 2. Effective date: upon passage or September 1, 2007.