HBA-GUM, GUM H.B. 3150 76(R)    BILL ANALYSIS


Office of House Bill AnalysisH.B. 3150
By: West, George
Pensions & Investments
4/12/1999
Introduced



BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE 

Under current law, retiring teachers have the option to purchase service
credit for one year towards retirement if they accumulate 50 days of state
sick or personal leave and retire after September 1, 2001.  A number of
school districts deduct a teacher's time off from accumulated state days
before district sick or personal days.  Local days are used only after all
accumulated state days from the current and previous years have been used.
Consequently, if a teacher is out of school for an extended period of time
late in his or her career, accumulated state days may be diminished so
greatly that the opportunity to purchase service credit towards retirement
is lost.  

 H.B. 3150 authorizes a teacher who has accumulated 10 days or 80 hours of
unused state personal or sick leave to reserve that leave with the Teacher
Retirement System (TRS) for potential service credit in July of each year.
This bill requires that a teacher exhaust the personal sick leave
accumulated under the teacher's employer before using accumulated state
leave.  This bill also requires TRS to adopt rules relating to accumulated
leave, and provides that state personal or sick leave is not required to be
reserved to receive service credit under Section 823.403 (Credit for
Accumulated Personal or Sick Leave).   

RULEMAKING AUTHORITY

It is the opinion of the Office of House Bill Analysis that rulemaking
authority is expressly delegated to the Teacher Retirement System in
SECTION 1 (Section 823.4031, Government Code) of this bill. 

SECTION BY SECTION ANALYSIS

SECTION 1.  Amends Subchapter E, Chapter 823, Government Code, by adding
Section 823.4031, as follows: 

Sec. 823.4031.  RESERVATION OF ACCUMULATED PERSONAL OR SICK LEAVE. (a)
Provides that a member who has accumulated 10 days or 80 hours of unused
state personal or sick leave may reserve that leave with the Teacher
Retirement System (TRS) for potential service credit under Section 823.403
(Credit for Accumulated Personal or Sick Leave).  Requires that leave be
reserved only in increments of 10 days or 80 hours and only in July of each
year. 

(b)  Requires that a member exhaust the combined, current, unused, and
unreserved personal or sick leave from the member's employer before taking
leave reserved under this section. Provides that leave reserved under this
section, which is not used to receive service credit under Section 823.403
and not taken by member, is considered refunded at the time of termination
of employment and is subject to applicable personnel policies regarding
payment or transfer of the leave. 

(c)  Requires TRS to adopt rules relating to leave under this section.

(d)  Provides that state personal or sick leave is not required to be
reserved under this section in order to receive service credit under
Section 823.403. 

SECTION 2.  Emergency clause.
  Effective date: upon passage.