Honorable Jodie Laubenberg, Chair, House Committee on Elections
FROM:
Ursula Parks, Director, Legislative Budget Board
IN RE:
HB2000 by Israel (Relating to the creation of a fund to assist local governments with the acquisition of voting system equipment.), As Introduced
No significant fiscal implication to the State is anticipated.
The bill would amend the Election Code relating to the creation of a fund to assist local governments with the acquisition of voting system equipment.
Based on information provided by the Secretary of State, under the bill the agency would collect $1.5 million from contract payments and would use those funds to reimburse a vendor for work provided to the communities. Therefore, this analysis assumes no additional funds would be allocated to the Voting System Fund and there would be no fiscal impact of this provision. The bill would also allow the Legislature to appropriate to the fund an amount equal to two times the amount of money allocated to the fund from contract payments under Section 18.061. As allocations from contract payments are assumed to be zero, this analysis assumes there would be no matching State funds and this provision would have no significant fiscal impact.
This analysis assumes any additional work associated with implementing the provisions of the bill could be absorbed by the Secretary of State using existing resources.
This legislation would do one or more of the following: create or recreate a dedicated account in the General Revenue Fund, create or recreate a special or trust fund either in, with, or outside of the Treasury, or create a dedicated revenue source. Legislative policy, implemented as Government Code 403.095, consolidated special funds (except those affected by constitutional, federal, or other restrictions) into the General Revenue Fund as of August 31, 1993 and eliminated all applicable statutory revenue dedications as of August 31, 1995. Each subsequent Legislature has reviewed bills that affect funds consolidation. The fund, account, or revenue dedication included in this bill would be subject to funds consolidation review by the current Legislature.
The bill would take effect September 1, 2017.
Local Government Impact
Under the provisions of the bill there is no revenue impact to units of local government.
Source Agencies:
304 Comptroller of Public Accounts, 307 Secretary of State