BILL ANALYSIS
Senate Research Center S.B. 1172
AUTHOR'S / SPONSOR'S STATEMENT OF INTENT
Under current law, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) is required to use all income derived from Palo Duro Canyon State Park (Palo Duro) for its maintenance, improvements, and operations. Any unexpended income is required to be split evenly between the general revenue fund (GR fund) and other state parks. Since funds have never been returned to the GR fund, this serves only to create additional accounting requirements for TPWD. Authorizing the entire unexpended amount at the end of the biennium to be used by TPWD on other state parks would significantly reduce the amount of time and resources TPWD is required to spend each year accounting for Palo Duro expenditures. TPWD has established an internal agency account specific to Palo Duro in order to track all related revenue and expenditures. Since TPWD expends funds both directly and indirectly on Palo Duro, significant accounting resources are dedicated each year to accurately track all related funds. Historically, Palo Duro revenues have never exceeded both direct and indirect expenditures.
As proposed, S.B. 1172 removes the statutory authority that requires half of all unexpended income from Palo Duro to be sent to the GR fund.
RULEMAKING AUTHORITY
SECTION BY SECTION ANALYSIS
SECTION 1. Amends Section 22.023, Parks and Wildlife Code, to authorize the unexpended income relating to Palo Duro Canyon State Park at the end of the biennium to be used by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) on other state parks, rather than authorizing one-half of the balance of the unexpended income to be used by TPWD on other state parks and requiring the remaining one-half and any other unexpended balance to be transferred to the general revenue fund at the end of each biennium.
SECTION 2. Effective date: upon passage or September 1, 2007.