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« Legislative News Legislators Discuss 81st Session Triumphs, 82nd Session Challenges
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The Texas Association of Counties recognized three state legislators for their efforts in supporting local control and strengthening local government.
The three legislators spoke to county officials at TAC’s Annual Conference about legislation that passed and failed during the 81st legislative session, and predicted that the 82nd legislative session will be just as challenging, if not more so due to redistricting.
House Ways and Means Committee chair Rep. René R. Oliveira, of Brownsville, was honored as TAC’s Legislator of the Year, while Sen. Royce West of Dallas and Rep. Garnet Coleman of Houston were named Champions of County Government. West chaired the Senate Intergovernmental Relations Committee, while Coleman chaired the House County Affairs Committee.
Among other beneficial laws passed during the 81st session, the legislators championed bills on emergency management, competitive bidding, and regulations regarding land use and nuisances. Ultimately, the Legislature passed bills that allow commissioners courts to provide financial assistance to areas declared disasters by county judges and authorized the governor to use the state’s natural disaster contingency funds to reimburse local governments for costs of providing temporary housing or emergency shelters during evacuations. And regarding competitive bidding, HB 987 raised counties’ sealed competitive bidding thresholds from $25,000 to $50,000.
Attempts to grant counties nuisance authority in unincorporated areas were not as successful, though West promised to develop more legislation.
“This issue is too important to be dealt with in a piecemeal fashion. We need to take a comprehensive approach – underscore comprehensive approach – and develop an appropriate level of oversight that will benefit all Texans and will balance the competing interests,” he said.
The senator also asked counties for input when it comes to implementing new authorities granted by House Bill 2833. After a sunset advisory committee recommended discontinuing the Texas Residential Construction Commission, the Legislature granted counties permissive oversight over building codes.
“As you take on this task, I want to hear and get feedback from you. I need to hear from you how it works and how it doesn’t,” West said. “Ensuring the habitability of new and existing structures has always been a focus of myself and other members of the Llegislature, so we want to make certain that the legislation and the tools that we have provided you on the House Bill 2833 is in fact utilized. …Whatever we need to do in order to tweak it, let’s work together to tweak it.”
The legislators also focused their remarks partly on the effect that the current drought conditions are having on the state, and Oliveira encouraged county officials to help create a solution to the inevitable problem.
“We are feeling the drought right now and if we are not getting the message or the writing on the wall about conservation and alternative water sources, I don’t know what it’s going to take for us to wake up. It is going to be a big crisis in this next decade,” Oliveira predicted. “We have to start thinking outside the box, and you all as counties leaders are going to have to do that. Alternative water costs are going to be expensive, but we have to start looking now.
“In my area, it’s so hot, the trees are bribing the dogs,” he added.
The upcoming Census was also an important topic, and legislators implored county officials to create or implement programs to ensure that every resident in each county is counted.
“Federal monies flow from the amount of your population, the bodies you have in your county,” Oliveira said, adding that state funding flows the same way. “Whether they are here legally or not, whatever, if they are a body and they are alive…make sure every body gets counted.”
During the next legislative session, West said he hopes to address the issues that stopped House Bill 3485 from getting the governor’s signature. That bill, authored by Coleman, would have allowed rural hospitals to hire doctors. Currently, doctors that work in rural hospitals are self-employed; the legislation was intended to help rural areas lure more doctors, but Gov. Rick Perry vetoed the bill due to an amendment added late in the session that Perry said would have impacted medical liability reform.
Oliveira said he will try to rewrite the margins tax and fix problems with the Tax Code as they relate to declining oil and gas revenue, but that legislators need county officials to stay active or become actively engaged in solutions prior to the session.
“My commissioners, my county judge, my tax assessor, they are very active. We meet in the fall every year and they give us a list of things to do, and a wish list if you will, and we can’t always accomplish them but at least there is that dialogue,” said Oliveira, from Cameron County. “I believe and have always believed that we act as equal partners. …The best government I’ve ever known was always the government closest to the people.”
In exchange, each of the legislators promised to continue to fight against revenue caps that would harm counties’ ability to give residents their desired services.
“We restrict the amount of money you can raise and then send you more things that you have to pay for, and that’s not the kind of government that 254 counties should have to endure,” Coleman said.
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