Bill Text: TX SB758 | 2017-2018 | 85th Legislature | Comm Sub

NOTE: There are more recent revisions of this legislation. Read Latest Draft

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Bill Title: Relating to bill payment assistance programs offered by certain municipalities.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 3-0)

Status: (Passed) 2017-05-18 - Effective on 9/1/17 [SB758 Detail]

Download: Texas-2017-SB758-Comm_Sub.html

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By: Menéndez S.B. No. 758
(In the Senate - Filed February 6, 2017; February 22, 2017,
read first time and referred to Committee on Intergovernmental
Relations; March 27, 2017, reported favorably by the following
vote: Yeas 6, Nays 0; March 27, 2017, sent to printer.)
Click here to see the committee vote

A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT
relating to bill payment assistance programs offered by certain
municipalities.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
SECTION 1. Section 1502.056(a), Government Code, is amended
to read as follows:
(a) If the revenue of a utility system, park, or swimming
pool secures the payment of public securities issued or obligations
incurred under this chapter, each expense of operation and
maintenance, including all salaries, labor, materials, interest,
repairs and extensions necessary to provide efficient service, and
each proper item of expense, is a first lien against that revenue.
For a municipality with a population of more than one million but
less than two million, the first lien against the revenue of a
municipally owned utility system that secures the payment of public
securities issued or obligations incurred under this chapter also
applies to funding, as a necessary operations expense, for a bill
payment assistance program for utility system customers who:
(1) [have been threatened with disconnection from
service for nonpayment of bills and who] have been determined by the
municipality to be low-income customers; or
(2) are military veterans who have significantly
decreased abilities to regulate their bodies' core temperatures
because of severe burns received in combat.
SECTION 2. This Act takes effect September 1, 2017.
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