Legislative

Legislative Update

May 23, 2011

Actions since last report dated May 10, 2011

Status of Legislation

  • HB 46 by Menendez – Finally passed will take effect immediately
    • HB 46 is Relating to compensatory time off for certain employees of the Parks and Wildlife Department.
  • HB 78 by Flynn – has been set on the local calendar in the Senate for Wednesday. This bill has a 95% chance of finally passing
    • HB 78 is Relating to the purchase of food and beverages by certain state law enforcement agencies for peace officer training functions.
  • HB 1346 by Guillen – Finally passed will take effect immediately
    • HB 1346 is Relating to the consistent use of the term “game warden” throughout the Parks and Wildlife Code.
  • HB 1788 by Farias – Was substituted in the Senate International Relations & Trade Committee and voted out of committee. This bill has a 67% chance of finally passing.
    • HB 1788 is Relating to capturing reptiles and amphibians by nonlethal means.
  • HB 2141 by Guillen – has been set on the local calendar in the Senate for Wednesday. This bill has a 95% chance of finally passing.
    • HB 2141 is Relating to enforcement of laws related to water safety.

Budget Related Issues

  • On May 12th Shannon delivered the GWPOA budget priorities along with a copy of the Game Warden overview brochure and the joint law enforcement LECOS brochure to all members of the Conference Committee on HB 1 and asked them to support our priorities.
  • Shannon & John have been working with members of the conference committee on the retire/rehire issue in Article IX trying to get the date changed so that the retired Texas Ranger in the current Cadet Class will not get caught up in that issue. Sen. Duncan’s office has assured us they understand the issue and are working on a fix for that.
  • We continue to monitor the process. We are hearing that the conference committee report will be debated by the full House & Senate on Thursday.

February 28, 2011

I spoke with one of our Regional reps over the weekend and he advised that he was getting calls from his members wanting to know what we were lobbying for or what our priorities were. I would like to make it plain to our members we are fighting to keep all of our benefits. We are not going to come out of this unscathed but hopefully we can greatly lessen the impact. He also advised that they were upset that we were helping the agency with legislative measures. There are several bills that we are assisting on that affect us all H B 555 which increases the penalties for boat accidents (fail to stop a render aid), H B 739 which affects the statute of limitations on boat accidents Criminal negligent homicide. There are numerous Deer breeder bills that we are tracking with Chief of staff Sinclair so that they do not affect us adversely. He advised that they also wanted to know what they get for their membership to GWPOA. The main thing they get is legislative representation. Mr. Travis and Sam have worked for us diligently over the years doing an outstanding job lobbying for us. Mr. Travis has done this for a ¼ of the rate most lobbyist charge. Mr. Travis’s rate is 1500.00 dollars a month and if every Game Warden was a member of the GWPOA we still could not pay him but for 9 months. Right now we only have 280 game wardens who are members, some wardens have never joined. Sam works for us for mileage reimbursement and his expenses only and I do not know of many people who would do that.

We have just engaged John Pitt’s firm to also assist us in our lobbying efforts for this session. His fee is 5,000.00 a month; The Company he represents is well known and respected in Texas. Mr. Travis thought they would do an excellent job if we hired them and he would enjoy working with them as would Sam.

The Game warden Magazine is what keeps us afloat and pays our bills. The members also get up to 5 hours of legal representation from our law firm LYON, GORSKI, HARRING and GILBERT. In my tenure we have used them 3 times to represent our brother members they were Michael Jaramillo, Marco Alvizo and Tom Jenkins. If you have someone who questions you about legal representation have them call one of the wardens who have used the service because I know they were glad to have the representation. The number to the law firm is below for your records. To use the service you must be a member and go through the GWPOA officers for approval. I have also provided a list of the things that we are concentrating on right now for our members. Thanks

LYON, GORSKI, HARRING and GILBERT
Dallas Texas
888/711-2583
214/965-0090
214/965-0097 Fax

  1. Work to support S B 1 and Modify H B 1 (appropriation bills)
  2. Schedule C step raise move from 4 to 6 Years. (Game Warden I) fight against
  3. Schedule C pay freeze for two years. Fight against
  4. LECOS non-funding for next two years. Keep our retirement multiplier at 2.8 percent instead of 2.3 like other state employees
  5. Law Enforcement losing 27 FTE’s for next two years. Fight against
  6. Work on reducing the impact to our heath benefits’.
  7. Other matters of concern to the Law Enforcement Division.

Capt. Malcom Wilkes
301 Main Suite D
Brownwood Texas76801
office 325/646-0440
cell 325/642-0955

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