BILL ANALYSIS

C.S.H.B. 3730

By: Wilson

State Affairs

Committee Report (Substituted)

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

The State of Texas lacks a central directory for state agency email addresses. Legislative or other agency staff attempting to contact a specific person within an agency must dig through the agency's website, make multiple phone calls to the agency for each contact they need, or rely on an informal network of staffers sharing essential contact information. None of these options are guaranteed to provide the necessary information, nor do they offer any guarantee of the accuracy of the information that they do find. This wastes valuable state resources and generates a great deal of frustration and stress for everyone involved. A centralized list needs to be created. C.S.H.B. 3730 seeks to require the centralized capitol complex telephone service directory to be expanded to include email addresses.

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. 3730 amends the Government Code to require each state agency, house of the legislature, and legislative agency in the capitol complex, not later than October 1 of each year and in a manner determined by the Department of Information Resources (DIR), to provide DIR with an email address for each person who uses the centralized capitol complex telephone service. The bill revises the requirement under current law for DIR to annually prepare and issue a revised centralized capitol complex telephone service directory by doing the following:

· including the email addresses among the directory's contents; and

· changing the deadline for DIR to prepare and issue the directory from March 31 to December 31.

EFFECTIVE DATE

September 1, 2023.

COMPARISON OF INTRODUCED AND SUBSTITUTE

While C.S.H.B. 3730 may differ from the introduced in minor or nonsubstantive ways, the following summarizes the substantial differences between the introduced and committee substitute versions of the bill.

Whereas in the introduced an applicable entity in the capitol complex was required to submit user emails to DIR only on request, the substitute instead requires that each entity annually submit user emails to DIR. The substitute includes provisions not in the introduced requiring that the email addresses be submitted not later than October 1 and in a manner determined by DIR.