According to the Legislative Budget Board (LBB), HB 2486 is not expected to have a significant fiscal impact on the State of Texas. The bill requires law enforcement agencies to maintain an additional “department file” for each peace officer they employ, separate from the standard personnel file. While this could involve some administrative workload, the LBB anticipates that agencies can absorb any related costs within their existing budgets and operational capacities.

Similarly, the bill is not expected to result in significant costs to local governments. While local law enforcement agencies may need to develop or modify recordkeeping procedures to accommodate the new file requirements, the LBB projects that these changes will be minor and manageable without the need for new funding or substantial resource allocation.

Agencies consulted in the fiscal note—including the Department of Public Safety, the Commission on Law Enforcement, the Attorney General’s Office, and others—did not foresee any need for additional appropriations, staffing, or technological systems to comply with the bill’s provisions. Overall, HB 2486 presents a negligible financial burden to both state and local entities.

Texas Policy Research recommends that lawmakers vote NO on HB 2486 due to its adverse impact on government transparency, accountability, and individual liberty. While the bill intends to create a uniform system for maintaining internal records of law enforcement officers, referred to as “department files,” it significantly expands confidentiality in a way that shields important misconduct-related information from meaningful oversight and public scrutiny. This structure is a departure from existing practice in most agencies, where public information laws and well-established exemptions strike a balance between officer privacy and the public’s right to know.

HB 2486 borrows from the “g-file” model used in certain civil service municipalities governed by Chapter 143 of the Local Government Code. However, that system only applies to a narrow subset of police departments—78 out of over 2,000 Texas agencies. The bill now proposes to extend a more sweeping confidentiality rule statewide, without preserving access for oversight entities such as the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, local prosecutors, or legislative investigative bodies. As a result, even credible but unresolved allegations of misconduct could be shielded from those with a legal or ethical obligation to ensure justice and prevent abuse.

While the bill permits hiring agencies and TCOLE to view the files under limited conditions, it explicitly prohibits any other agency or person from accessing them, referring requests instead to the agency head or designee. This includes agencies investigating in-custody deaths, preparing criminal cases, or examining systemic failures, undermining the role of public institutions tasked with law enforcement oversight and reform. In effect, the bill codifies secrecy in a sector of government that relies heavily on public trust.

Moreover, the bill does not establish procedural safeguards for officers whose names appear in these department files. There is no requirement for notice, rebuttal, or appeal, even if the file includes controversial or reputationally damaging material that was never proven. This not only jeopardizes officers’ due process rights but also risks misuse or misinterpretation of unsubstantiated content in hiring or investigatory contexts.

Finally, this measure runs counter to fundamental liberty principles. A limited government should not insulate itself from legitimate scrutiny, particularly in areas like law enforcement, where public accountability is paramount. By unnecessarily concealing misconduct records and removing them from oversight, H.B. 2486 fosters a lack of transparency that can erode public confidence and institutional integrity.

For these reasons, HB 2486 is not aligned with principles of open government or fair governance. The bill should be rejected unless significantly restructured to ensure that oversight agencies retain meaningful access and that officers are protected by due process in the handling of sensitive records.

• Individual Liberty: At its core, the principle of individual liberty protects people from unjust harm or state overreach. The bill allows law enforcement agencies to retain internal records of alleged misconduct, even if deemed unsubstantiated, without giving the affected officer the right to rebut, amend, or even be notified about the file’s contents. These files could be shared with other agencies during hiring or licensing decisions and could impact careers based on unverifiable or unchallenged claims. This violates basic due process and undermines the presumption of innocence, particularly troubling when applied to public servants whose reputations and mobility are at stake.
• Personal Responsibility: In theory, maintaining internal records could encourage accountability within law enforcement by documenting patterns of problematic behavior. However, the lack of external review, transparency, or disciplinary consequences for documented misconduct, especially when findings are unofficial or unresolved, means that personal responsibility is not meaningfully enforced. Officers may have their reputations harmed without recourse, while agencies may use the file punitively or defensively without procedural fairness.
• Free Enterprise: While the bill applies to public employment, it does affect the labor mobility of licensed peace officers, who depend on transparent and fair hiring processes. The creation of confidential files that follow officers across agencies, containing potentially damaging, unverifiable claims, can chill employment opportunities and skew hiring decisions. This indirectly disrupts the merit-based dynamics of labor in the public safety workforce and reduces fair competition among candidates.
• Private Property Rights: This principle relates to the right to control one’s possessions and property without arbitrary interference. The bill doesn’t affect property rights in the traditional sense, but it may touch on broader concepts of informational privacy or the right to control one’s professional dossier, which could be viewed as an extension of one's personal liberty.
• Limited Government: Limited government requires transparency, accountability, and constrained authority. The bill does the opposite—it expands government discretion to maintain secret records and shields those records from nearly all forms of external scrutiny. By denying access even to legislative bodies, oversight commissions, and prosecutors, the bill concentrates control in the hands of unelected agency heads, creating a structure where misconduct may be hidden rather than corrected. It effectively removes a layer of public accountability from law enforcement operations, contradicting the very idea of constrained governmental power.

• SB 781 (Same As)