SB1494

The law changes Election Code Section 41.0052(a), replacing the old December 31, 2016 deadline with December 31, 2025 and limiting the destination to the November uniform election date in odd-numbered years. It covers a political subdivision holding its general election for officers on a different date, but excludes counties and municipal utility districts. It does not authorize a move from November back to May. Final law; Secretary of State guidance.

The Secretary of State explains that this odd-year procedure fits entities holding elections every two or four years, not an unchanged schedule with one-year or three-year terms or staggered two-year terms. The guidance calls for official governing-body action and appropriate term adjustments; any separate legal authority to change staggering must be considered separately. Independent school districts also received a separate option under HB3546, without SB1494’s election-date decision deadline or odd-year restriction. Do not apply this bill’s deadline to that separate school-district authority. Secretary of State guidance; HB3546, Section 2; Existing term-adjustment framework.

The introduced, Senate-committee and Senate-passed versions would have allowed action through December 31, 2026, without the odd-year limitation. The House committee substitute changed the deadline to 2025 and added the odd-year restriction; both survived in the final act. The floor-amendment index lists no amendments. Although the history records Senate concurrence in a House amendment, the House committee and enrolled operative texts match, so this is a committee-substitute change, not a separately indexed floor proposal. Introduced; Senate committee; Senate-passed; House substitute; Final law; Version index; Amendment index.

Compare the published text versions in the official text index. A change is not attributed to a specific amendment here without a verified record.

Eligible local governments gained flexibility to coordinate elections with November voting if they acted within the deadline. The Secretary of State says joint elections with a county may reduce costs and increase turnout; neither result is guaranteed. If an entity runs its own November election instead, the guidance says it must use the county’s election-day polling places. Voters, candidates and administrators need to follow the resulting local schedule, not assume the bill changed it automatically. Secretary of State guidance; Final law.

Both the March 20 introduced-version fiscal note and the May 22 House-substitute note anticipate no state fiscal implication and no significant local-government fiscal implication. Neither supplies a dollar savings estimate. The act does not appropriate election funding. Original fiscal note; House-substitute fiscal note; Final law.