BILL ANALYSIS

H.B. 1725

By: Stephenson

Pensions

Committee Report (Unamended)

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

Interested parties note that local pension boards under the Texas Emergency Services Retirement System currently are required to have three board members who are active members of the system. However, in some volunteer emergency services departments there sometimes may not be enough volunteers available to sit on the board. These parties assert that this results in government inefficiency at the local level when local pension boards are unable to operate properly because the composition of the board is incomplete or out of compliance with statutory requirements. H.B. 1725 seeks to address this issue.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE IMPACT

It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly create a criminal offense, increase the punishment for an existing criminal offense or category of offenses, or change the eligibility of a person for community supervision, parole, or mandatory supervision.

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

H.B. 1725 amends the Government Code to require, in a circumstance in which a department participating in the Texas Emergency Services Retirement System does not have a sufficient number of active members to serve on a local board of the system under the statutory provision reserving three of the trustee positions on the local board for active members representing the department, that one or more trustees be selected to serve in the place of an active member on the board under that provision by the other members of the local board or, if there are no other members, by the political subdivision of which the department is a part. The bill requires a person selected in place of an active member under such a provision to be a retiree of the system or a beneficiary of the system who is the surviving spouse of a former member or retiree.

EFFECTIVE DATE

On passage, or, if the bill does not receive the necessary vote, September 1, 2015.