Honorable Garnet Coleman, Chair, House Committee on County Affairs
FROM:
Ursula Parks, Director, Legislative Budget Board
IN RE:
HB317 by Keough (Relating to the creation of county databases containing information on county expenditures.), As Introduced
No fiscal implication to the State is anticipated.
The bill would amend the Local Government Code to require the commissioners court of certain counties to establish and post on the Internet a database of county expenditures that is searchable by the public. The bill provides requirements for the database.
Local Government Impact
There would be costs to a county to comply with provisions of the bill. These costs would depend on the current processes in a county and the resources of a county.
Tom Green County reported a one time cost of $15,000 in Fiscal Year (FY) 2016 for software and maintenance and an estimate annual cost of $12,500-$14,000 in FY 2017-2020 for ongoing software maintenance.
Lubbock County reported estimated costs to implement the provisions of the bill to include an additional staff member and software maintenance ranging from $68,207-$85,518 in FY 2017-2020.
According to the Texas Association of Counties (TAC), Coryell County currently publishes their check register on a website. It is assumed the current process would meet the requirements of the bill. If the current process does not meet the provisions of the bill, there would be costs associated with software to meet the provisions of the bill.
According to TAC, Denton County estimated modifying their existing application to include requirements of the bill would take approximately 30 days to complete with an estimated cost of $7,000.
According to TAC, Montgomery County is currently in the process of installing software to accomplish greater fiscal transparency. The County estimates the total fiscal impact to comply with the provisions of the bill to be at least $15,000 annually, depending on the additional staff time required.
According to TAC, Kerr County currently has a similar process in place as described by the provisions of the bill. The County reported staff costs of $9,000 per year for the redaction of certain information on each check. The county noted the process has considerably reduced the number of open records request since they began providing certain fiscal information on the Internet.
According to TAC, El Paso reported in order to comply with the provisions of the bill, the County would need to enter into a major IT project. The costs of the IT project is unknown.