| TO: | Honorable Rodney Ellis, Chair, Senate Committee on Open Government |
| FROM: | Ursula Parks, Director, Legislative Budget Board |
| IN RE: | HB628 by Dale (Relating to the right of a member of the board of trustees of a school district to obtain information, documents, and records.), As Engrossed |
The bill would require school districts to provide information, documents, and records to a school board trustee without requiring the trustee to submit a public information request, so long as the requested information is not excepted from disclosure or confidential by law.
The bill would require a school district to post the cost of responding to certain requests and annually report to the Texas Education Agency (TEA) the number and total cost of requests submitted.
Based on the analysis of TEA, the required information could be collected from districts using existing resources.
Based on the analysis of TEA, it is assumed that school districts already incur costs related to providing information, documents, and records to school board trustees. To the extent that any school districts are charging school board trustees for information, documents, and records in response to school board trustee requests for public information, those districts would no longer be allowed to assess charges for this information.
There would be additional costs to post the costs of responding to board member requests and to report annual board member requests and the total cost to the TEA on an annual basis.
| Source Agencies: | 701 Central Education Agency
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| LBB Staff: | UP, KKR, JSc, JBi
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