HBA-GUM S.B. 1486 76(R)    BILL ANALYSIS


Office of House Bill AnalysisS.B. 1486
By: Armbrister
Criminal Jurisprudence
4/30/1999
Engrossed



BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE 

Currently, a county or municipality performs an audit of certain law
enforcement agencies and attorneys representing the state that receive
seized or forfeited property.  The audit report must be forwarded to the
criminal justice division of the Governor's Office (division).  The law
enforcement agency or the attorney must also report to the division that
the agency or attorney did not receive proceeds or property under Chapter
59 (Forfeiture of Contraband), Code of Criminal Procedure. Changing the
entity responsible for the reports may benefit the division.  Since the
division retains the reports, numerous open records requests regarding
asset forfeiture are submitted.  However, many of the reports are never
submitted to the division, and therefore cannot be produced by the
division.  As a result, the division appears to not abide by open records
requirements, although it has no authority to compel a submission.
Furthermore, the division maintains no official use for the reports, yet
they consume staff time and storage space. Therefore, the reports to the
division have become unnecessarily onerous.  S.B. 1486 requires the
attorney general, rather than the criminal division of the governor's
office, to receive certain filed audits of a law enforcement agency and an
attorney representing the state.  

RULEMAKING AUTHORITY

It is the opinion of the Office of House Bill Analysis that this bill does
not expressly delegate any additional rulemaking authority to a state
officer, department, agency, or institution. 

SECTION BY SECTION ANALYSIS

SECTION 1. Amends Section 59.06(g), Code of Criminal Procedure, to require
an audit of certain law enforcement agencies to be performed by the
attorney general, rather than the criminal justice division of the
Governor's Office (division).  Requires certified copies of the audit to be
delivered by the enforcement agency or attorney representing the state to
the general attorney, rather than delivered to the division.  

SECTION 2. Amends Section 59.06(j), Code of Criminal Procedure, to require
a law enforcement agency or certain attorneys to report to the attorney
general, rather than the division, that the agency or attorneys did not
receive certain proceeds or property.  

SECTION 3.  Effective date: September 1, 1999.

SECTION 4.  Emergency clause.