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2025 · Regular session · House bill
HB3161
HB3161 lets a city participating in the Texas Municipal Retirement System (TMRS) choose an employee contribution rate of 8% of compensation.
Official caption: Relating to member contributions to the Texas Municipal Retirement System.
Official report lists House author(s): Villalobos, Simmons. This does not identify sponsors or amendment drafters.
Bill explanation published · Version and amendment review scope is stated below · Individual amendment records may not be separately annotated.
Bill highlights
Selected points from the published explanation. Follow each point to its source-linked context; conditions and limits may matter.
- HB3161 lets a city participating in the Texas Municipal Retirement System (TMRS) choose an employee contribution rate of 8% of compensation.
- All participating departments within a city generally must use the same employee rate.
- For a simple illustration, on $1,000 of covered compensation, an 8% member contribution is $80, compared with $70 at 7%—an additional $10 directed to retirement.
- The governor signed June 20, 2025.
What does it do?
HB3161 lets a city participating in the Texas Municipal Retirement System (TMRS) choose an employee contribution rate of 8% of compensation. The existing 5%, 6% and 7% options remain. A city selects the rate by ordinance; the bill does not automatically raise anyone’s contribution and does not let each employee individually choose a rate. Final law.
All participating departments within a city generally must use the same employee rate. The existing exception remains for cities that elected different departmental rates before September 1, 1991, until the city chooses to equalize them. The act changes only the available rate in subsection (a); it leaves the separate procedures for increases and reductions intact. Contribution statute.
For a simple illustration, on $1,000 of covered compensation, an 8% member contribution is $80, compared with $70 at 7%—an additional $10 directed to retirement. That arithmetic is not a forecast of the employee’s final pension or exact take-home-pay change after taxes and other payroll arrangements.
The governor signed June 20, 2025. The law took effect September 1, 2025. Official history.
What changed along the way?
The filed bill already added the 8% option. Its substance stayed unchanged in the House report, House-passed text, Senate report and enrolled law. Both committees reported it without amendments, and the amendment index lists none. All versions.
For the full amendment record, open the official amendment index.
Official bill versions
Compare the published text versions in the official text index. A change is not attributed to a specific amendment here without a verified record.
Who could benefit—and who could bear the costs?
Cities gain another retirement-plan design option, and employees in a city adopting it would contribute more toward retirement. The trade-off is a higher member contribution and potentially greater city pension costs. The bill does not set an 8% employer rate or guarantee an 8% benefit increase.
The May 20 fiscal note anticipates no significant state fiscal impact, but reports TMRS’s assessment that a city choosing the 8% option would face significant cost and a negative actuarial impact—an adverse effect on its projected pension finances. It supplies no single statewide dollar estimate for adopting cities.
The April 21 actuarial impact statement explains that funding requirements and costs fall on each participating municipality, rather than creating an impact on TMRS liabilities as a system. That does not mean the option is cost-free for a city. The act makes no appropriation.
Official sources
- Bill history and latest recorded action
- Bill versions, analyses and fiscal notes
- Action history and votes
- Amendment index
Catalog report retrieved 2026-10-25. Check the official record for corrections or later changes.
