BILL ANALYSIS

C.S.H.B. 664

By: Larson

Transportation

Committee Report (Substituted)

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

Metropolitan planning organization (MPO) transportation policy boards consist of elected officials, including city council members, county commissioners, suburban mayors, state representatives and senators, and nonelected officials. These nonelected officials include public employees such as city and county public works department staff and Texas Department of Transportation engineers. While the expertise of the nonelected public employees is clearly needed, interested parties contend that only elected members of the MPO and board members of a metropolitan rapid transit authority should be allowed to vote.

The purpose of C.S.H.B. 664 is to ensure accountability by requiring a member of an MPO policy board to be an elected official or a member of the board of a metropolitan rapid transit authority to be eligible to be a voting member of the policy board.

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

C.S.H.B. 664 amends the Transportation Code to specify that to be eligible to be a voting member of a metropolitan planning organization policy board that serves a county with a population of more than 1.7 million and in which more than 75 percent of the population resides in a single municipality, the member must be an elected official or a member of the board of a metropolitan rapid transit authority under provisions of law relating to those authorities.

EFFECTIVE DATE

September 1, 2011.

COMPARISON OF ORIGINAL AND SUBSTITUTE

C.S.H.B. 664 differs from the original by imposing the voting eligibility requirement for metropolitan planning organization policy boards only on those that serve a county with a population of more than 1.7 million and in which more than 75 percent of the population resides in a single municipality, whereas the original imposes the requirement generally. 

C.S.H.B. 664 differs from the original by requiring a voting member of the policy board to be either an elected official or a member of the board of a metropolitan transit authority, whereas the original requires a voting member to be an elected official.