BILL ANALYSIS

H.B. 3666

By: Workman

Transportation

Committee Report (Unamended)

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

Concerned observers note that emergency services districts, which provide emergency services such as fire control and suppression, first responder emergency medical services, and ambulance transport, are experiencing increased difficulty in providing an adequate level of emergency services to their citizens due to financing constraints. While some districts are adopting an optional local sales and use tax to address this financing problem, certain districts in more urban counties are often finding that the tax option is unavailable because of local taxes already being levied by other entities such as metropolitan rapid transit authorities. These observers believe that voters within an emergency services district who are being taxed by such an authority but do not receive services from the authority should have the option of withdrawing from the authority through an election. H.B. 3666 seeks to provide for this option.

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. 3666 amends the Transportation Code to authorize an emergency services district to withdraw from a metropolitan rapid transit authority by a vote of a majority of the registered voters of the district voting at an election on the question of withdrawing from the authority. The bill requires the governing body of the emergency services district to call such an election if a petition requesting that an election to withdraw from the authority be held is submitted to the governing body and is signed by at least 10 percent of the district's registered voters on the date the petition is submitted. The bill requires a signature on the petition, in order to be counted for purposes of validating the petition, to have been inscribed not earlier than the 120th day before the date the petition is submitted to the governing body. The bill requires the governing body to determine whether the petition is valid before the 31st day after the date the petition is submitted to the governing body and establishes the petition as valid if the governing body fails to act on the petition before the expiration of that period. The bill prohibits an election from being called to be held on a date earlier than the first anniversary of the date of the most recent election held to withdraw from the authority. The bill makes certain statutory provisions relating to the withdrawal of territory from an authority applicable to the withdrawal of an emergency services district and expands the definition of "unit of election," for purposes of those provisions, to include an emergency services district.

EFFECTIVE DATE

September 1, 2015.