BILL ANALYSIS

C.S.H.B. 634

By: Buckley

Appropriations

Committee Report (Substituted)

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

It has been suggested that the reimbursement program provided for municipalities disproportionately affected by the disabled veteran property tax exemption is too restrictive and excludes some of the state's most affected communities due to their proximity to a U.S. military installation. C.S.H.B. 634 seeks to address this issue by expanding the types of municipalities that are eligible to receive state aid in the form of a disabled veteran assistance payment.

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. 634 amends the Local Government Code to include among the municipalities that, if qualified in a given tax year based on the amount of property tax revenue lost due to certain property tax relief for disabled veterans, are entitled to a disabled veteran assistance payment from the state a municipality with extraterritorial jurisdiction located within two miles of the boundary line of a U.S. military installation. That change applies to the eligibility of a qualified municipality to apply for a disabled veteran assistance payment beginning with the municipality's fiscal year that ends in the 2019 tax year. 

EFFECTIVE DATE

September 1, 2019.

COMPARISON OF ORIGINAL AND SUBSTITUTE

While C.S.H.B. 634 may differ from the original in minor or nonsubstantive ways, the following summarizes the substantial differences between the introduced and committee substitute versions of the bill.

The substitute does not change the municipalities that may be eligible for the assistance payments from municipalities adjacent to a U.S. military installation to municipalities located wholly or partly in a county in which such an installation is wholly or partly located, but the substitute includes a municipality with extraterritorial jurisdiction located within two miles of the boundary line of a U.S. military installation among the eligible municipalities.