BILL ANALYSIS

C.S.H.B. 3365

By: Hughes

Judiciary & Civil Jurisprudence

Committee Report (Substituted)

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

Texas is divided into administrative judicial regions, with each region having a presiding judge.  Interested parties assert that the duties of the presiding judge have significantly expanded over the past few years and that it has been too long since presiding judges have received a salary increase. C.S.H.B. 3365 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

C.S.H.B. 3365 amends the Government Code to change the annual salary for a presiding judge of an administrative judicial region from an amount set by the Texas Judicial Council not to exceed $33,000 to an amount that is 28 percent of the annual state salary of a district judge and to remove requirements relating to the apportionment and payment of a presiding judge's annual salary. The bill prescribes the amounts of annual salaries for certain presiding judges who are retired or former district judges, retired appellate judges, or retired and former judges subject to assignment in an administrative region, expressed as percentages of a district judge salary according to the number of courts and judges over which the presiding judge presides and removes the annual salaries for those judges expressed as specific dollar amounts. The bill establishes that a retiree judge appointed to serve as a presiding judge of an administrative judicial region does not resume service as a judicial officer for purposes of the suspension of certain judicial retirement system payments and that the retiree's annuity payments will not be suspended. The bill entitles a former judge appointed to serve as a presiding judge to service credit in the Judicial Retirement System of Texas Plan One or the Judicial Retirement System of Texas Plan Two in which the judge is a member for each month in which the former judge serves as a presiding judge.

EFFECTIVE DATE

September 1, 2015.

COMPARISON OF ORIGINAL AND SUBSTITUTE

C.S.H.B. 3365 differs from the original in minor or nonsubstantive ways by conforming to certain bill drafting conventions.