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

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