Texas Attorney General Opinions
Free plain-English summaries of attorney general opinions issued in Texas, with full citations and the original source on every page.
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Does Texas's salary cap on rehired state retirees apply if they did the same work for only part of their last year before retiring?
The Attorney General concluded the section 659.0115 salary cap does apply to a retiree rehired to do work substantially similar to what he did during any part of his last twelve months of state servic…
Can a Texas county exempt certain land divisions from the subdivision plat requirement, and who must be notified before a plat is revised?
The Attorney General reached three conclusions for Parker County. First, Local Government Code section 232.0015(a) does let a county 'define and classify' land divisions so as to except a specific div…
Can a Texas court clerk prepare a criminal judgment, and does the 1999 law require an attorney to supervise?
The Attorney General concluded that the 1999 amendment to article 42.01, section 2 of the Code of Criminal Procedure did not stop a court clerk from preparing a criminal judgment, but a clerk could no…
Can Texas police pull over a motorcyclist who isn't wearing a helmet and has no exemption sticker?
The Attorney General concluded that a peace officer may stop a motorcyclist (or a rider carrying a passenger) who is not wearing a helmet when the motorcycle does not display the Department of Public …
Can a Texas police officer or firefighter appeal a written reprimand to the civil service commission?
The Attorney General concluded that in most Texas cities a civil-service commission has no power to hear an appeal of a written reprimand, because chapter 143 of the Local Government Code provides app…
Does a Texas county clerk have to file a UCC lien that lists the same person as both debtor and secured party?
The Attorney General concluded that a county clerk does not have to accept a purported UCC financing statement that names the same person as both the debtor and the secured party, because such a docum…
Can a Texas county quietly raise elected officials' salaries by more than the amount in the public notice?
The Attorney General concluded that section 152.013(b) of the Local Government Code requires a commissioners court to publish notice of the maximum proposed salary increases for elected county and pre…
Can a Texas county put probation department employees under its civil service system?
The Attorney General concluded that a county cannot include community-supervision-and-corrections department employees (probation officers and staff) in a county civil-service system, even one expande…
How does a Texas county split national forest money among its school districts?
The Attorney General concluded that under section 130.906 of the Local Government Code, a county that receives federal national forest revenue must divide the school share among all its school distric…
Can a city park board let a public hotel sell gym memberships to local residents?
The Attorney General concluded that a municipal park board may adopt rules letting a hotel it manages under section 306.032 of the Local Government Code sell health and fitness center memberships to n…
Does Texas's disabled parking placard law require two accessible spaces in a small lot?
The Attorney General concluded that section 681.009(e) of the Transportation Code does not require two disabled parking spaces where the federal ADA and Texas accessibility guidelines require only one…
Can a Texas county move car registration fee money into its general fund?
The Attorney General concluded that motor vehicle registration fees allocated to a county must be credited to the county road and bridge fund and used for road and bridge construction, maintenance, an…
Does a Texas judge auto-resign just by seeking a party's nomination for another office?
The Attorney General concluded that a county court at law judge who merely seeks a political party's executive committee nomination to be the party's general-election candidate for a new office does n…
Does a Texas agency post its own meeting notice when its board attends a Sunset hearing?
The Attorney General concluded that when a quorum of a state agency's governing board attends a Sunset Advisory Commission public hearing and one or more of them testifies, answers questions, or other…
Can a Texas hospital district hold an election to raise the maximum tax rate set when it converted?
The Attorney General concluded that a hospital district governed by chapter 286 of the Health and Safety Code has no authority to hold an election to raise the maximum property tax rate its voters app…
How much jail-time credit do you get for an unpaid Class C misdemeanor fine in Texas?
The Attorney General concluded that a defendant jailed for failing to pay a fine on a Class C misdemeanor must be credited at a rate of not less than $100 for each day, or part of a day, served. Becau…
Can a large Texas county build or replace a cattle guard on a county road?
The Attorney General concluded that section 251.009 of the Transportation Code authorizes only counties with fewer than 60,000 residents to build cattle guards on county roads. Because Webb County's p…
Can a Texas licensing board outsource its scholarship program to a private nonprofit?
The Attorney General reached three conclusions. The legislative appropriation for the architectural-examination scholarship fund was backed by pre-existing law (section 7A of article 249a), so it did …
Can Texas punish someone for handing out anonymous campaign flyers?
The Attorney General concluded that section 255.001(a) of the Election Code, which requires political advertising to identify who paid for it, cannot constitutionally be enforced against a private ind…
Can the state demand a jury trial in a Texas juvenile case?
The Attorney General concluded that the state has no right to a jury trial in a juvenile proceeding. Under the Family Code, only the child and the child's attorney can waive the child's right to a jur…
Can a Texas state agency turn its website into a portal for outside online courses?
The Attorney General concluded that the State Board for Educator Certification has no authority to use its official website as a portal giving direct access to distance-learning courses developed and …
Can a Texas university move donated endowment funds to its private foundation?
The Attorney General concluded that money donated to a state university for a restricted purpose, like endowed faculty positions or scholarships, is held in a charitable trust. To shift control of tho…
Can a Texas county stop an elected official from sending staff home early?
The Attorney General concluded that an elected county official can dismiss the employees in his or her office for all or part of a day, for any reason, as long as the closure serves some public purpos…
Can a Texas county let oil companies run temporary water lines along a county road right-of-way?
The Attorney General concluded that a county's right to allow public utility lines on or under its road right-of-way does not, by itself, give it the legal right to grant a separate easement to a thir…
Is a Texas oyster-bed lease permanent, and can it be sold or passed to heirs?
The Attorney General concluded that an oyster-bed lease under chapter 76 of the Parks and Wildlife Code is a year-to-year (periodic) lease, not a perpetual one, so the state can end it at the close of…
When does a Texas city tax abatement end if the owner joins the city council?
The Attorney General clarified that a municipal property tax abatement ends on the date the owner assumes office as a member of the city council, not on election day and not at the end of the year. Be…
Can dedicated cemetery land in Texas be sold or used for something else?
The Attorney General concluded that land dedicated as a cemetery must be used as a cemetery unless and until the dedication is removed, and selling the land does not change that. Moving remains to ano…
If my Texas dig is delayed, do I have to call the line-locate center again?
The Attorney General concluded yes. Section 251.151 of the Utilities Code requires an excavator to notify a notification center no earlier than 14 days before digging begins, so if the start date slip…
Can a Texas public board go into closed session to discuss a contract?
The Attorney General concluded that under section 551.071 of the Government Code a governmental body may meet privately with its attorney in executive session to get advice on the legal issues raised …
Does a Texas county auditor's salary cap include the state salary supplement?
The Attorney General concluded yes. A county auditor's compensation may not exceed what the highest paid elected county officer (in Henderson County, the county attorney) receives, and section 152.032…
Who can electronically transfer county tax money to the Texas county treasury?
The Attorney General concluded that county tax funds can be moved electronically from the tax assessor-collector's account at the county depository to the county treasury, even though no statute spell…
Does repeal of the federal supply schedule program change Texas local government purchasing authority?
The Attorney General concluded that when Congress repealed the federal program that let states and local governments buy off the General Services Administration's federal supply schedules, the one Tex…
Do Texas police have to take a missing 17-year-old into custody if the teen does not want to go?
The Attorney General concluded that article 63.009(g) of the Code of Criminal Procedure requires an officer who locates a seventeen-year-old reported as a missing child to take possession of the child…
In Texas, who pays to bury an indigent person, the county or the family?
The Attorney General concluded that under section 694.002 of the Health and Safety Code, the county must provide for and pay to dispose of a deceased pauper's remains according to its own rules, even …
Can a Texas county use a state salary supplement to pay the employer's payroll taxes on it?
The Attorney General concluded that section 46.0031 of the Government Code does not permit a county to pay the employer's share of employment taxes (such as FICA) on a county attorney's state 'supplem…
What standard must a Texas state agency meet to override a parent's rights over their child?
The Attorney General concluded that a state agency that tries to interfere with a parent's fundamental right to direct the upbringing of his or her child must satisfy the 'compelling state interest' s…
Can a city council member be appointed to a separate government board by their own council?
The Attorney General concluded that the common-law doctrine of incompatibility bars an officer who holds appointing power from appointing himself to another office, so a San Antonio city council membe…
How must a Texas school district procure a single 'program manager' for a big building program?
The Attorney General concluded that a school district may not use the Professional Services Procurement Act (Government Code chapter 2254) to contract for bundled 'guaranteed program management' servi…
What makes a newspaper one of 'general circulation' for publishing legal notices in Texas?
The Attorney General concluded that a 'newspaper of general circulation' is one with more than a de minimis number of subscribers within a geographic region, a diverse subscribership, and some news of…
Does a county clerk have to bill another county for mental health hearing costs?
The Attorney General concluded that section 571.018(b) of the Health and Safety Code, as amended in 1999, requires the clerk of the court conducting a mental health services proceeding to bill the cou…
When is a payment to a departing school superintendent a 'severance payment'?
The Attorney General concluded that a 'severance payment' under section 11.201(c) of the Education Code is compensation paid to a superintendent beyond wages upon early termination by a school distric…
Can a hospital district keep collecting taxes after it closes its hospital?
The Attorney General concluded that closing a hospital does not end a hospital district's constitutional duty to provide and pay for medical care for its needy residents, so the Garza Hospital Distric…
Can cities agree to cut off utility service to people who owe another city?
The Attorney General concluded that the Interlocal Cooperation Act did not authorize local governments that run utilities or landfills to sign a contract where each would collect the others' unpaid fe…
Does a city taxicab ordinance apply to a government-run Medicaid van service?
The Attorney General concluded that if the City of Midland's taxicab ordinance covered the Medicaid transport service the Concho Valley Council of Governments ran under a contract with the Texas Depar…
Can Randall County have fewer than four justice of the peace precincts?
The Attorney General concluded that a 1999 amendment to the Texas Constitution added Randall County (alongside Chambers County) to a clause letting those counties set their justice of the peace and co…
Can an elected college trustee also serve as a city municipal judge?
The Attorney General concluded that an elected junior college trustee may serve at the same time as a city municipal judge. The trustee post is unpaid, so it is not an 'office of emolument' that the c…
Can a judge make a defendant post part personal bond and part surety bail?
The Attorney General concluded that a Texas magistrate may not require a 'split bond,' meaning one bond that is partly a personal bond supervised by a pretrial services office and partly a secured bai…
Who controls a sheriff's budget and vehicles, the sheriff or the commissioners court?
The Attorney General concluded that a commissioners court holds the county's budgetary power and may fund a sheriff's function less than he requests, but it may not cut so deep that it prevents him fr…
Do the Business and Commerce Code's fraudulent-filing penalties apply to transactions excluded from UCC chapter 9?
No. The Attorney General concluded that because section 9.104 of the Business and Commerce Code excludes thirteen kinds of transactions from all of chapter 9, and the fraudulent-filing provision in se…
Can a Texas home-rule city use tax money to pay for school children's out-of-state trips?
It depends. The Attorney General concluded that a home-rule city may spend public funds on an activity its charter authorizes without separate legislative permission, but every expenditure has to serv…
Who decides whether trimming sideburns counts as cutting hair or a beard under Texas barber law?
The Attorney General concluded that the State Board of Barber Examiners, not the AG's office, holds the power to define where 'hair' ends and 'the beard' begins under section 1601.002(1)(A) of the Occ…
Must a hospital district board member who leads a labor council recuse from prevailing-wage votes?
No. The Attorney General concluded that chapter 171 of the Local Government Code, the local conflict-of-interest law, did not bar a Harris County Hospital District board member from voting on prevaili…
Can a county juvenile board hire its own lawyer and pay the fees without commissioners court approval?
Yes. The Attorney General concluded that the Potter County Juvenile Board, a separate statutory entity, had implied authority to hire private counsel to defend itself, including in a suit brought agai…
Can Texas police secretly record or broadcast what suspects say in the back of a patrol car?
Yes. The Attorney General concluded that a person sitting in a police car has no expectation of privacy that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable, so what they say there is not a protected '…
Can a Texas school district charge tuition for prekindergarten or under-age kindergarten students?
No, not just because of the student's status. The Attorney General concluded that a school district may not charge tuition for a prekindergarten student, or for a kindergarten student who is not betwe…
Does the County Purchasing Act cover a local government corporation a county sets up?
No. The Attorney General concluded that 1999 amendments to the Transportation Code, in section 431.101(e), exempt the contracts of a local government corporation from the competitive-bidding requireme…
Can a Texas junior college buy insurance through a single designated broker of record?
It depends on the dollar amount. The Attorney General concluded that a junior college district may not use a designated broker of record to buy insurance when the premiums total $10,000 or more in a t…
Can a Texas state licensing board inspect a polygraph examiner's office without a search warrant?
No. The Attorney General concluded that the Polygraph Examiners Board had no power to inspect a polygraph examiner's work product at the examiner's place of business without a warrant. A routine on-si…
Does the Open Meetings Act apply when a quorum of a Texas public board committee attends an outside speech?
It depends on what gets discussed. The Attorney General concluded that when a quorum of a public board's standing committee attends a speech or meeting run by someone else and a member takes part in d…
Can a Texas navigation district accept easements from the Army Corps just to hand them back to landowners?
No. The Attorney General concluded that the Port of Bay City Authority of Matagorda County, a special purpose district with only the powers the Legislature gave it or that are clearly implied, had no …
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Attorney general opinions in Texas are written by the Texas Attorney General's office in response to questions from state agencies, legislators, and prosecutors. They are not binding like court decisions, but courts and agencies treat them as persuasive guidance on how state law applies. Every opinion above has a plain-English question and short answer, plus a link to the full original text.