SB2900

The comptroller must review entities whose primary function is advising an agency and that are part of, directed by or administratively attached to the comptroller’s office. The review asks whether each is necessary and supports efficient, effective operations. A report identifying those that fail those tests is due to the presiding officers of both legislative chambers by December 1, 2026. The review section expires December 31, 2026; that does not undo the act’s permanent repeals. Final law, section 1.

The act repeals the Community Reinvestment Work Group; the requirement for greenhouse-gas-strategy advisory committees; the separate tobacco-settlement investment advisory committee; the Jobs, Energy, Technology, and Innovation Act oversight committee; the separate Treasury Safekeeping Trust Company investment board and related provisions; and the broadband development office’s board of advisors. It also removes references to the abolished economic-development oversight committee from notices and audit recommendations. These are specific institutional changes, not a blanket repeal of the programs they advised. Final law, sections 3–4 and 8; Official section-by-section analysis, repealers.

Tobacco-fund investment advice moves to the existing administration advisory committee. The comptroller must annually present investment performance, expected distributions and policy or rule changes. The committee must advise on investments and distributions, within applicable legal and policy limits. Members remain unpaid but may receive actual, necessary expenses for meetings or other comptroller-authorized duties. Final law, sections 2 and 7.

The comptroller’s investment advisory board now advises both the comptroller and the trust company on investments made through the company. Members need financial knowledge or experience and training on assets and applicable law, including open meetings and public information. They serve as advisers, not investment fiduciaries. Appointment restrictions cover specified employment, management, ownership and income ties of members and spouses to entities receiving trust-company funds. The comptroller sets the board’s size and may make membership, term and removal rules; the whole state advisory-committee chapter is excluded, rather than only its size, composition and duration provisions. Final law, sections 5–6.

The Senate substitute narrowed the introduced review proposal to defined advisory entities and redirected tobacco-fund advice instead of simply deleting consultation language. Representative Geren’s adopted House amendment added the investment-board consolidation and additional repeals, but also proposed removing tobacco-fund consultation and committee approval of rules. The conference version kept those existing consultation and rule-approval requirements, made the new committee advice mandatory rather than optional, retained annual presentations, and placed expense reimbursement in the administration committee’s statute. It also clarified the spouse-income conflict rule. Those conference choices—not every adopted House proposal—are the final law. Introduced bill; Senate substitute; House amendment; Amendment index; Versions and conference report; Final law.

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

Consolidation may reduce duplicated advisory work and gives the comptroller more flexibility over the investment board. It also removes separate forums and statutory seats through which affected groups could advise government. The surviving tobacco administration committee retains an advisory and rule-approval role. The law does not demonstrate better investment returns, specific administrative savings or completion of the December 2026 review. Final law.

The conference fiscal note anticipates no significant state or local fiscal effect and assumes both costs and savings are insignificant. Earlier notes assumed costs could be absorbed within existing resources. These are estimates, not a promise of zero administrative work or quantified taxpayer savings. Conference fiscal note; Senate-stage fiscal note.