81R38285 CBE-D
By: Geren H.R. No. 2946
R E S O L U T I O N
WHEREAS, Successfully meeting the needs of the legislature
over the course of a 140-day regular session is a challenging task
taken on every two years by the staff of the legislative support
agencies, including the Texas Legislative Council; and
WHEREAS, Each odd-numbered year, legislators travel to the
Capitol from across the Lone Star State to represent their
constituents, yet they must stay connected with the folks back home
throughout their tenure in Austin; helping them to maintain that
tie are the members of the council's information systems division,
whose skilled technical services crew ensures that offices are
equipped with needed PCs, printers, and software; before the
session even began, these personnel installed or relocated
equipment in 29 district offices and moved 129 Capitol offices; the
division's Computer Support Center provides training designed to
serve everyone from the most savvy client to those with little to no
experience, and the division's technical support staff and CSC
operators are standing by to help them all, ready to lend their
expertise over the phone or to dispatch one of the council computer
consultants to an office just in the nick of time; so far this
session, the staff has answered approximately 23,000 calls and
provided training to 93 percent more clients; others among the IS
staff are at work developing and supporting such custom network and
web applications as LMS, CMS, MSS, TLIS, and TLO to accomplish ever
more diverse tasks; and
WHEREAS, The hardworking attorneys, legal assistants,
editors, and support staff of the legal division are one by one
helping to craft the proposed laws of the Lone Star State; to that
end, legal staff members have produced some 10,600, or 32.5 percent
more, bills and constitutional amendments and approximately
12,800, or 21 percent more, amendments, substitutes, conference
committee reports, and miscellaneous drafts; greatly contributing
to the process are members of the division's legal editing team, who
not only work on each draft produced by the agency but also perform
a dual role by carrying out the engrossing and enrolling duties for
the house; in that capacity, they have engrossed more than 1,300 and
enrolled close to 560 house bills and constitutional amendments and
over 2,500 house concurrent and simple resolutions, with the bulk
of the end-of-session enrollment work still to come; and
WHEREAS, The research division of the TLC is composed of
policy and statistical analysts, writers, webmasters, mapmakers,
and database specialists; during the session, these multitasking
staffers have spent their time handling a 25 percent increase in
research, data, and map requests from the legislature and the
public while also producing more than 600 senate amendment and
conference committee side-by-side analyses in the waning days of
the session, some 4,650 bill analyses for house committees, and
approximately 4,700 policy, congratulatory, and memorial
resolutions; they also update election and geographic databases and
prepare other useful publications and develop websites to help new
members and staff; and
WHEREAS, Supporting the legal and research divisions in their
efforts to meet the needs of the legislature are members of the
TLC's document production staff; expertly producing approximately
25,000, or 13.6 percent more, legislative drafts, as well as over
11,000 house official printings and numerous other documents this
session are the employees of the data transcription, graphics,
proofreading, print shop, and final processing sections; also
central to the mix is the document distribution section, which
distributes more than 100,000 copies of bills and resolutions to
the legislative community and the public; and
WHEREAS, None of these achievements would be possible were it
not for the policy and planning division, whose personnel played a
vital role in helping to hire the 130 extra employees needed agency
wide to handle the workload of the session; and
WHEREAS, Tying it all together is the staff of the
administration division, whose invaluable contributions keep all
of the agency's divisions running smoothly during the session;
composed of the executive team and the accounting and purchasing
and staff services and facilities management personnel, the
administration division seamlessly maintains the overall
operations of the agency and manages the myriad everyday tasks
required to ensure TLC staff with the resources they need to get the
job done; and
WHEREAS, Council staff strive to bring to their duties
accuracy, creativity, knowledge, and technical expertise, and they
serve the legislature, and thereby the citizens of this state, to
the very best of their abilities; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, That the House of Representatives of the 81st Texas
Legislature hereby recognize the staff of the Texas Legislative
Council for their efforts in behalf of the legislative branch of
government and the Lone Star State; and, be it further
RESOLVED, That an official copy of this resolution be
prepared for the staff of the council as an expression of high
regard by the Texas House of Representatives.