BILL ANALYSIS

C.S.H.B. 2952

By: Guillen

Homeland Security & Public Safety

Committee Report (Substituted)

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

Concerns have been raised about the use of excess money in the emergency radio infrastructure account for other, unrelated expenses. C.S.H.B. 2952 seeks ensure that these funds are used only to fund radio infrastructure by replacing the emergency radio infrastructure account with the emergency radio infrastructure revolving loan account and restricting the use of money in the account to making loans to finance interoperable statewide emergency radio infrastructure.

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 rulemaking authority is expressly granted to the governor's office in SECTION 1 of this bill.

ANALYSIS

C.S.H.B. 2952 amends the Government Code to require the  governor's office to provide loans to finance interoperable statewide emergency radio infrastructure. The bill, with respect to the loans:

·         requires the office to determine the terms under which a loan may be made and to set the interest rate for a loan at a low rate that the office determines is sufficient to recover the cost of administering the loan program;

·         requires payments on the loans to be made to the office and requires the office to use the repayments of loan principal to make new loans;

·         authorizes the office to make a forgivable loan at a zero percent interest rate for a period of five years;

·         prohibits the office from forgiving an amount greater than one-fifth of the forgivable loan amount each year; and

·         requires the office to adopt rules to administer the loan program.

C.S.H.B. 2952 replaces the emergency radio infrastructure account with the emergency radio infrastructure revolving loan account as an account in the general revenue fund and transfers on the bill's effective date all money in the emergency radio infrastructure account to the revolving loan account. The bill sets out the composition of the revolving loan account and restricts the use of money in the account to making loans to finance interoperable statewide emergency radio infrastructure.

C.S.H.B. 2952 amends the Local Government Code to make a conforming change.

EFFECTIVE DATE

September 1, 2019.

COMPARISON OF ORIGINAL AND SUBSTITUTE

While C.S.H.B. 2952 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 changes from the Department of Public Safety to the governor's office the entity that is required to provide the loans and administer the loan program.