| TO: | Honorable Jimmie Don Aycock, Chair, House Committee on Public Education |
| FROM: | Ursula Parks, Director, Legislative Budget Board |
| IN RE: | HB343 by Márquez (Relating to the filing of financial disclosure statements by trustees of certain independent school districts; providing criminal and civil penalties.), Committee Report 1st House, Substituted |
The bill would require each member of the board of trustees of an independent school district located in a county with a population of 800,000 or more and on an international border to file a financial statement with the board of trustees and the commissioners court of the county in which the school district's central administrative office was located. The same provisions that apply to state officers regarding financial statements would apply to each member of the board of trustees. A trustee would commit a Class B misdemeanor if the trustee failed to file the required financial statement.
The bill is bracketed to apply to nine independent school districts (ISDs) within El Paso County: Anthony ISD, Canutillo ISD, Clint ISD, El Paso ISD, Fabens ISD, San Elizario ISD, Socorro ISD, Tornillo ISD, and Ysleta ISD.
Members of the nine El Paso County school district boards of trustees would be required to file financial statements with the board of trustees and the commissioners court. This requirement could be burdensome for small ISDs that have limited qualified candidates.
The El Paso County Commissioners Court would be required to determine whether a financial statement was filed late, issue a warning of liability by registered mail, and administer civil penalties. Because the bill would not have statewide impact on units of local government of the same type or class, no comment from this office is required by the rules of the House/Senate as to its probable fiscal implication on units of local government.
| Source Agencies: | 701 Central Education Agency
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| LBB Staff: | UP, JBi, JSc, KKR
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