HBA-NRS H.B. 2341 77(R)    BILL ANALYSIS


Office of House Bill AnalysisH.B. 2341
By: Noriega
County Affairs
4/8/2001
Introduced



BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE 

Currently, the union leadership of the Harris County Deputies Organization
(HCDO) may utilize legislative leave to petition governmental bodies with
the permission of the sheriff. However, current legislative leave statutory
provisions do not allow employees to donate hours of their vacation or
accumulated overtime to HCDO. Therefore, all required hourly reimbursements
for approved legislative leave that is utilized by HCDO must be repaid to
Harris County in cash. House Bill 2341 allows members of HCDO to
voluntarily donate up to two hours of vacation time or accumulated overtime
per month to a legislative leave time bank established by the local
government.  

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. 

ANALYSIS

House Bill 2341 amends the Local Government Code to provide that an
employee in a county with a population of 2.8 million or more is entitled
to legislative leave without pay to appear before or to petition a
governmental body during a regular or special session. To be eligible for
legislative leave, an employee must submit a written application to the
sheriff not later than the 30th day before the date the employee intends to
begin the legislative leave. The application must indicate the length of
the requested leave and state that the employee is willing to reimburse the
county for any wages, pension, or other costs the county will incur as a
result of the leave. The bill authorizes the sheriff to require an employee
to reimburse the county for all costs incurred by the county and associated
with the employee's legislative leave. Not later than the 30th day after
the date the sheriff receives the application, the bill requires the
sheriff to notify the employee in writing of the amount of money required
to reimburse the county for the costs the county will incur.  

The bill requires the sheriff to grant legislative leave to an employee
unless an emergency exists or granting the leave will result in an
insufficient number of employees to carry out normal functions of the
department. The bill authorizes another employee of equal rank to volunteer
to work in the applicant's place if granting the leave will result in an
insufficient number of employees to carry out normal functions of the
department. The bill requires legislative leave granted to an employee to
attend a session of the United States Congress to be granted for a period
not to exceed 30 percent of the applicant's total annual working days
during each year in which leave is requested.  

The bill authorizes an employee to donate not more than two hours for each
month of accumulated vacation time or compensatory time to the legislative
leave time account of an employee organization. The bill provides that an
employee must authorize the donation in writing on a form provided by the
employee organization and approved by the sheriff. A request to use for
legislative leave purposes the time in an employee organization's
legislative leave time account must be in writing and submitted to the
county by the president or the equivalent officer of the employee
organization or by that officer's designee. The bill requires the sheriff
to account for the time donated to the legislative leave time account and
used from the  account. The bill prohibits an employee from using for
legislative leave purposes more than 2,080 hours from its legislative leave
time account in a calendar year.  

EFFECTIVE DATE

On passage, or if the Act does not receive the necessary vote, the Act
takes effect September 1, 2001.