Honorable Abel Herrero, Chair, House Committee on Land & Resource Management
FROM:
Ursula Parks, Director, Legislative Budget Board
IN RE:
SB655 by Bettencourt (Relating to certain notice of the extent of a municipality or its extraterritorial jurisdiction.), As Engrossed
No fiscal implication to the State is anticipated.
The bill would amend the Local Government Code relating to certain notices for annexation plans. The bill would require a home-rule municipality to make publically available a digital map of the municipal boundaries and extraterritorial jurisdiction no later than January 1, 2018.
The bill would require a municipality to send a notice to each property owner within 90 days after the municipality adopts or amends an annexation plan that would be included in the municipality's extraterritorial jurisdiction. The notice must include a description of the area, a statement that the completed annexation will include all or part of the owner's property, a statement of the purpose of extraterritorial designation, and a brief description of each municipal ordinances that would be applicable.
The bill would take effect September 1, 2017.
Local Government Impact
According to the Texas Municipal League (TML), the costs to comply with the mapping requirements of the bill would be significant for smaller municipalities that do not already have geographic information system (GIS) capabilities. TML contacted several cities to inquire about the cost of a geospatial mapping software. The cities of San Marcos, Corpus Christi and College Station have geospatial mapping software costing between $50,000 to $64,600 per year. The City of Granbury estimated an in-house yearly cost of $90,000 per year for staff and software purchase and maintenance. Granbury instead decided to hire an outsource company for mapping and the initial setup cost was $20,000 with ongoing costs of $50,000 per year.