Must a Texas state council report all the money it received even without a legislative appropriation?

Texas AG Opinion JC-0030: Annual Reporting of All Council Funds

Plain-English summary

The chairman of the Texas Council on Purchasing from People with Disabilities asked a narrow question about the agency's annual financial report. Human Resources Code section 122.022 requires the Council to file a "complete and detailed written report accounting for all funds received and disbursed by the council during the preceding year." The Council gets no legislative appropriation; it runs on a percentage of the management fee paid to a central nonprofit agency that carries out the State Use Program. Earlier annual reports had not mentioned money received and disbursed by the Council or its predecessor committee. The chairman asked whether the statute still required the Council to account for that money even though none of it was appropriated.

The Attorney General concluded that it did. Read by its ordinary meaning, "all funds" means exactly that, from whatever source, and nothing in the statute limits it to appropriated money. The second sentence of section 122.022(a), which directs that the report meet the financial-reporting standards in the General Appropriations Act, sets the format the report must follow; it does not narrow the report to appropriated funds. So the absence of a legislative appropriation made no difference: the Council had to account for everything it received and spent.

Currency note

This opinion was issued in 1999. Subsequent statutory amendments, court decisions, or later AG opinions may have changed the analysis. Treat this page as historical context, not current legal advice. Verify current law before relying on any specific rule, deadline, or remedy mentioned here.

Common questions

Does "all funds" in the reporting statute include money that was not appropriated by the Legislature?
Yes. The opinion read "all funds received and disbursed" by its ordinary meaning, covering money from whatever source, and found nothing limiting it to legislative appropriations. The Council had to account for its non-appropriated funds.

Did the reference to the General Appropriations Act limit the report to appropriated funds?
No. The opinion explained that the requirement to "meet the reporting requirements applicable to financial reporting provided in the General Appropriations Act" simply sets the standard the report must follow. It does not restrict the report to appropriated money.

Background and statutory framework

The Council approves community rehabilitation programs through which people with disabilities produce goods or perform services for compensation, and it determines the fair market value of those products and services offered to state agencies (citing Opinion DM-496). The General Services Commission provides the Council legal, clerical, and administrative support under Human Resources Code section 122.012(a), and the Council is funded under section 122.019(f) by a share of the management fee paid to the central nonprofit agency rather than by appropriation. Section 122.022(a) sets the annual reporting duty.

The opinion resolved the question with ordinary tools of statutory construction: words in common use are read by their natural and ordinary meaning (Government Code section 311.011(a); Commissioners Court of Titus County v. Agan), and the dictionary meaning of "all" is the whole quantity or every component. Reading the statute that way, the report must account for all funds from whatever source, and the General Appropriations Act reference governs only the report's format.

Citations

Statutes:

• TEX. HUM. RES. CODE ANN. §§ 122.012(a), 122.019(f), 122.022(a) (Vernon Supp. 1999)
• TEX. GOV'T CODE ANN. § 311.011(a) (Vernon 1998)

Cases:

• Commissioners Court of Titus County v. Agan, 940 S.W.2d 77 (Tex. 1997)

Prior Attorney General opinions discussed: DM-496 (1998).

Source

• Landing page: https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/opinions/john-cornyn/jc-0030
• Original PDF: https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/opinion-files/opinion/1999/jc0030.pdf

Original opinion text

Best-effort transcription from a scanned PDF. Minor errors may remain — the linked PDF is authoritative.

OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL, STATE OF TEXAS
JOHN CORNYN

March 31, 1999

Robert A. Swerdlow, Ph.D.
Chairman, Texas Council on Purchasing from People with Disabilities
P.O. Box 13047
Austin, Texas 78711-3047

Opinion No. JC-0030

Re: Financial reporting requirements applicable to Texas Council on Purchasing from People with Disabilities under section 122.022 of the Human Resources Code (RQ-1217)

Dear Dr. Swerdlow:

You have asked this office to interpret the language of section 122.022 of the Human Resources Code, which requires the Texas Council on Purchasing from People with Disabilities ("the Council") annually to file with the Governor and each house of the legislature "a complete and detailed written report accounting for all funds received and disbursed by the council during the preceding year." You ask whether section 122.022 "requires the Council to include its accounting of monies received regardless of the absence of a legislative appropriation." Letter from Robert A. Swerdlow, Ph.D., to Honorable Dan Morales, Attorney General (Oct. 28, 1998) (on file with Opinion Committee) [hereinafter Swerdlow letter of 10/28/98]. We conclude that it does.

The Council, as this office recently noted in Attorney General Opinion DM-496, "is authorized to approve community rehabilitation programs under which persons with disabilities produce goods or perform services for compensation" and "is charged with determining the fair market value of products and services manufactured or provided by persons with disabilities and offered for sale to state agencies by community rehabilitation programs." Tex. Att'y Gen. Op. No. DM-496 (1998) at 1-2. To effect these ends, the Council, as you put it, "contract[s] with a [central nonprofit agency] to carry out the day to day functions of the State Use Program." Swerdlow letter of 10/28/98, supra. The statute requires the General Services Commission ("the Commission") to provide the Council with "legal, clerical, administrative, and other necessary support." TEX. HUM. RES. CODE ANN. § 122.012(a) (Vernon Supp. 1999). The Council has not received a legislative appropriation; rather, we understand it relies upon, under section 122.019(f), a percentage of the management fee paid to the central nonprofit agency, which is set "in the amount necessary to reimburse the general revenue fund for direct and reasonable costs incurred by the commission in administering its duties under this chapter." Id. § 122.019(f).

Human Resources Code section 122.022, about which you ask, reads in relevant part:

On or before November 1 of each year, the council shall file with the governor and the presiding officer of each house of the legislature a complete and detailed written report accounting for all funds received and disbursed by the council during the preceding year. The annual report must meet the reporting requirements applicable to financial reporting provided in the General Appropriations Act.

Id. § 122.022(a) (emphasis added).

As you inform us, the central nonprofit agency with which you contract has prepared the annual reports referenced in section 122.022(a) as part of its contractual obligations. However, "[i]n previous reports filed there was no reference to monies received and disbursed by the Council nor its predecessor, the Texas Committee on Purchases of Products and Services of Blind and Severely Disabled Persons." Swerdlow letter of 10/28/98, supra. You ask whether the Council is obliged to include in its annual report an accounting of all funds received and disbursed "regardless of the absence of a legislative appropriation." Id. We conclude that the Council is so obliged.

Nothing in the statutory requirement that the Council must account in its annual report for "all funds received and disbursed . . . during the preceding year" restricts the definition of funds to legislative appropriations. In interpreting the statutory language, we must read words in common use "according to their natural, ordinary, and popular meaning," 67 TEX. JUR. 3D Statutes § 100 (1989); see also TEX. GOV'T CODE ANN. § 311.011(a) (Vernon 1998) (words and phrases to be "construed according to the rules of grammar and common usage"); Commissioners Court of Titus County v. Agan, 940 S.W.2d 77, 80 (Tex. 1997) (unambiguous statutory language given "common everyday meaning"). The word "all" is defined by Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary as meaning, inter alia, "1 a: the whole amount or quantity of . . . b: as much as possible . . . 2: every member or individual component of . . . 3: the whole number or sum of . . . 4: EVERY 5: any whatever." WEBSTER'S NINTH NEW COLLEGIATE DICTIONARY 70-71 (1985) (examples omitted). We therefore read the statute as requiring an accounting of all funds, from whatever source derived.

Nor is our conclusion affected by the second sentence of section 122.022(a), which requires that the report "meet the reporting requirements applicable to financial reporting provided in the General Appropriations Act." TEX. HUM. RES. CODE ANN. § 122.022(a) (Vernon Supp. 1999). The legislature here has simply set the standard which the report is to follow, not required that it refer solely to appropriated funds.

Accordingly, then, we conclude that section 122.022 of the Human Resources Code requires the Texas Council on Purchasing from People with Disabilities to account on an annual basis for all funds received and disbursed, from whatever source derived, and the absence of legislatively appropriated funds has no effect on this requirement.

SUMMARY

The Texas Council on Purchasing from People with Disabilities must account on an annual basis for all funds received and disbursed, from whatever source derived.

JOHN CORNYN
Attorney General of Texas

ANDY TAYLOR
First Assistant Attorney General

CLARK KENT ERVIN
Deputy Attorney General - General Counsel

ELIZABETH ROBINSON
Chair, Opinion Committee

Prepared by James E. Tourtelott
Assistant Attorney General