Sec. 143.1261. LEGISLATIVE LEAVE ACCOUNT. (a) A fire fighter or police officer may donate not more than one hour for each month of accumulated vacation or compensatory time to an employee organization. The municipality shall establish and maintain a legislative leave time account for each employee organization.

(b) The fire fighter or police officer must authorize the donation in writing on a form provided by the employee organization and approved by the municipality. After receiving the signed authorization on an approved form, the municipality shall transfer donated time to the account monthly until the municipality receives the fire fighter's or police officer's written revocation of the authorization.

(c) Only a fire fighter or police officer who is a member of an employee organization may use for legislative leave purposes the time donated to that employee organization. A fire fighter or police officer may use for legislative leave purposes the time donated under this section in lieu of reimbursing the municipality under Section 143.126.

(d) A request to use for legislative leave purposes the time in an employee organization's time account must be in writing and submitted to the municipality by the president or the equivalent officer of the employee organization or by that officer's designee.

(e) The municipality shall account for the time donated to the account and used from the account. The municipality may:

(1) determine and credit the actual cash value of the donated time in the account and determine and deduct the actual cash value of time used from the account for legislative leave purposes; or

(2) credit and debit an account on an hour-for-hour basis regardless of the cash value of the time donated or used.

(f) An employee organization may not use for legislative leave purposes more than 4,000 hours from its time account under this section in a calendar year. If more than one employee organization requests to use legislative leave, each employee organization may use a proportional share of the 4,000 hours based on the total amount of hours donated to the employee organization for its exclusive use before January 2 of the calendar year in which the legislative leave is requested. This section does not prevent an employee organization from accumulating more than 4,000 hours. This subsection only limits the total number of donated hours that one or more employee organizations may use in any calendar year.

Added by Acts 1997, 75th Leg., ch. 1195, Sec. 2, eff. Sept. 1, 1997.