As of September 1, more than 770 laws were passed during the past Texas Legislative session which will impact various areas including public safety, health care and education.
House Bill 3 requires an armed officer at every school campus in Texas and mental health training for school staff that interact with children. The armed person can be either a peace officer, a school resource officer, a school marshal or a school district employee, according to the law. School districts that can’t meet this requirement can claim a “good cause exception” but must find an alternative plan. Passed in the first legislative session after the school shooting in Uvalde, also gives the Texas Education Agency more authority over school districts to establish active-shooter protocols. School districts that fail to meet the standards could be put under the state’s supervision. The state will give each school district $15,000 per campus and $10 per student. In addition, lawmakers have allocated $1.1 billion to the TEA to administer school safety grants to the state’s more than 1,000 school districts.
Senate Bill 1852 relates to active shooting training for peace officers. The bill amends the Occupations Code to establish initial and continuing active shooter training requirements for all peace officers. House Bill 1 includes $7 million to fund the program.
The bill also requires newly licensed peace officers to complete the Texas State Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training (ALERRT) 16-hour response to active shooter course within the first two years of licensing, unless the training was provided in the basic peace officer course, Senate Bill 29 bans the state from enacting mask mandates, vaccine mandates or business and school closures to prevent the spread of COVID-19. In 2020 and 2021, Gov. Greg Abbott imposed these restrictions at the urging of U.S. and world health officials as a way to rein in the deadly COVID19 pandemic and protect particularly vulnerable Texans from contacting the virus. The new law makes exceptions for certain entities, such as prisons, hospitals and assisted living centers or nursing homes.
Senate Bill 22 allocates $330 million in support for rural sheriffs, in return for hiking the pay for sheriffs, deputies and prosecutors. A grant-based system monitored by Texas’ comptroller will determine eligibility by a county’s population size.
The state grant program shall be established and administered by the comptroller for counties and jurisdictions with populations of 300,000 or less. This includes 236 counties and 295 district and county prosecutor offices. Broken into three tiers of funding levels, $250,000 per year will be available for counties with less than 10,000 population. Currently, there are 93 counties in this tier. With 91 counties in the next tier, $350,000 per year will be for counties with 10,000 or more but less than 50,000 in population. In the final tier, there are 52 counties in this tier and $500,00 will be allocated for counties with 50,000 or more and 300,000 or less.
The grant program requires that sheriff’s salaries be set at a minimum of $75,000, patrol deputies’ salaries at a minimum of $45,000, and jailers’ salaries at a minimum of $40,000. Counties must meet the established thresholds before using the funding for other purposes. After the minimum salary requirements are met, sheriff’s may use the funding to further increase salaries, hire new employees, or purchase safety equipment. House Bill 6 classifies overdoses from fentanyl as “poisonings,” which means any Texan who provides someone with a fatal overdose of the opioid could face a murder charge. The measure is part of a series of new laws aimed at the opioid crisis in the state, many of which seek to get tough on people who are selling or illegally importing fentanyl.
House Bill 14 allows third-party review of building applications if cities and counties fail to issue building permits within 15 days. The law is intended to speed up the local development process to build homes and apartments more quickly. Studies show that longer regulatory processes for housing permits drive up home prices and rents.
House Bill 17 allows the courts to remove district attorneys for official misconduct if they choose not to pursue certain types of crimes. Texas prosecutors cannot be impeached by the Legislature or face recall elections. Outside of criminal convictions, locally elected officials can be removed only through a court process in which a local resident files a petition accusing them of incompetency, official misconduct or drunkenness, according to state statute.
House Bill 1217 relates to the administration of and procedures relating to early voting by personal appearance. The bill amends the Election Code to standardize early voting hours across rural and urban counties, stating early voting must be conducted for at least 12 consecutive hours on each weekday.
Voting must occur not earlier than 6 a.m. or later than 10 p.m. This includes an opportunity for counties with a population of less than 55,000 to use Chapter 19 funds through the Secretary of State to assist in defraying any costs associated with implementation.
House Bill 2127 prevents cities and counties from enacting local laws that go further than what’s allowed under broad areas of state law. House Bill 1500 changes aspects of how electricity can be bought and sold on the state’s main power grid, with an aim toward getting more on-demand power such as natural gas-fueled power plants built. Changes include creating a financial tool, known as an ancillary service, that will pay power generators that can produce power within two hours and run for at least four hours to help smooth out supply during high-demand times; requiring new power producers that connect to the grid starting in 2027 to be prepared to produce a set amount of power during times of high demand; and requiring companies to pick up the tab for building new transmission lines that connect power generators to the grid if costs go above a certain amount.