HB 283 (Fallon/Creighton) requires a transit authority, a school board of trustees that has a student enrollment over 10,000, any city that has 50,000 or more in population, or county commissioners court (125,000 or more in population) to: (1) make a video and audio recording of most open meetings of the council, and (2) make available on the internet an archived copy of that video and audio recording. The bill was signed by the Governor on June 17, 2015 and becomes effective January 1, 2016.
HB 1295 (Capriglione/Hancock) provides that a governmental body may not enter into any contract with a business entity unless that business submits a disclosure of “interested parties.” Only applies to a contract with a governmental entity or state agency that has a value of at least $1 million and requires an action or votes by the governing body. The entity shall submit a form prescribed by the Texas Ethics Commission. The bill was signed by the Governor June 19, 2015 and becomes effective September 1, 2015.
HB 1378 (Flynn/Bettencourt) requires each political subdivision to compile and make available detailed debt information on an annual basis in a certain prescribed manner. Certain exceptions are also provided. Language of motions, ordinances and notices are specified including language that includes the description of the purpose of the increase. The description of the purpose of the increase must also be specified in the ballot. This bill also provides that a governing body generally may not issue a certificate of obligation for a purpose that voters have voted down within the previous three years. This bill was signed by the Governor June 18, 2015 and becomes effective January 1, 2016.
HB 280 (Simmons/Perry) relating to the information required to be posted by TWDB on the board's Internet website regarding the use of the state water implementation fund for Texas (SWIFT). Regular post and updated information will include: amounts of bonds issues, terms of bonds, status of repayment of loan and default risk, a description of the point system for prioritizing projects, among other things. The bill was signed by the Governor May 28, 2015 and becomes effective September 1, 2015.
VETOED – SB 408 (Rodriguez/Blanco) relating to consideration of a bidder’s principal place of business in awarding certain county contracts was vetoed on June 9. Gov. Abbott said in his statement that “All government contracts should be competitively bid, and the vendor who offers the best value to the taxpayers should be chosen every time. The bill was vetoed by the Governor June 9, 2015. In his veto, the Governor noted “all government contracts should be competitively bid, and the vendor who offers the best value to taxpayers should be chosen every time.”
SB 20 (Nelson/Price) includes provisions to strengthen document retention requirements, requirements for documents to be posted on agency websites, requirements for reporting contracting information to the Comptroller (CPA), requirements for reporting vendor performance to the Comptroller's tracking system, requirements for use of information in the tracking system in contract award decisions, ethics reporting requirements and disclosure of potential conflicts of interest, and creation of a centralized contract database maintained by the Comptroller. The bill was signed by the Governor June 4, 2015 and becomes effective September 1, 2015.
HB 23 (S. Davis/Huffman) relating to disclosure of certain relationships with local government officers and vendors. The bill was signed by the Governor June 19, 2015 and becomes effective September 1, 2015.
*Other contracting language may be found in the 84th Session Summary of Ethics or Health Care.