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 a Texas county have to rebid a county facility management contract before renewing or extending it?
The AG's view: not if the contract rests on the county's chapter 319 authority. The Midland County Attorney asked whether a county must follow the competitive procedures of Local Government Code chapt…
When must a Texas county combine separate purchases to reach the $50,000 competitive bidding threshold?
Only in narrow circumstances. The AG advised that the County Purchasing Act's anti-splitting rule, Local Government Code section 262.023(c), forces a county to treat separate, sequential, or component…
Does a Texas criminal district attorney's office have to follow the county purchasing agent's rules?
Only some of them, the AG advised. The Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney asked whether her office had to comply with purchasing procedures and rules adopted by the county purchasing agent. The…
Can TxDOT still add to the North Tarrant Express toll project after the 2017 contract deadline?
Yes, the AG advised. Two state senators asked whether the Texas Department of Transportation could still enter a new facility agreement under the North Tarrant Express Comprehensive Development Agreem…
Does a Texas county have to take competitive bids before signing a contract to run its municipal airport?
Maybe not, the AG advised, but it depends on the facts and the AG would not rule on the specific contract. A Presidio County attorney asked whether the county could accept a $108,000 contract (three $…
Can a Texas school district refuse to do business with vendors that work with charter schools?
Likely not, the AG advised. A state senator was concerned that some school districts might be requiring vendors to agree not to work with Texas charter schools as a condition of contracting. Section 4…
Can a Texas county require its contractors to pay workers a living wage above the state minimum?
The AG concluded that a court would likely find Dallas County is not expressly authorized by section 62.0515 of the Labor Code to require its contractors to pay a higher 'living' wage as a condition o…
Can a Texas city sell a building and land sitting in the middle of a city street?
The AG did not resolve the City of Ivanhoe's specific sale, because deciding who actually owned the tract and building in the street turned on factual title questions the opinion process cannot answer…
Can a local mental health authority take part in the state's vendor selection for behavioral health services in Texas?
The AG concluded that the North Texas Behavioral Health Authority had no legal right to take part in the Texas Department of State Health Services' (DSHS) process for selecting the vendor that deliver…
Does Texas require competitive bidding for Permanent School Fund investments?
The chair of the State Board of Education asked whether the board must use the competitive bidding process in the State Purchasing and General Services Act for three kinds of Permanent School Fund act…
Can a Texas city require contractors to sign a project labor agreement to bid on public work?
The Attorney General did not give a yes-or-no answer. The opinion concluded that whether requiring a project labor agreement (PLA) as a condition of bidding violates section 271.121 of the Local Gover…
Can a Texas county lease county office space to a nonprofit for less than fair market value?
Yes, as far as the bidding statute goes, the Attorney General concluded. Local Government Code section 263.007 lets a commissioners court use competitive bids to sell or lease county property. Its fai…
Can a Texas county sell road equipment to a private company without competitive bidding?
Generally no. Medina County wanted to end a Caterpillar motor-grader lease by taking title to the grader and passing it to a dealer that paid the county $15,000, treating the move as just a way to exe…
Can a Texas county split a project into phases to avoid competitive bidding?
A county attorney asked whether a project could be split into 'phases' each under $25,000 to escape the County Purchasing Act when the whole project exceeded $25,000, and whether the county auditor ha…
How can a Texas county legally sell seized eight-liner gambling machines?
By competitive bid or auction, not a private bulk sale. The Attorney General concluded that article 18.18 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which allows forfeited gambling contraband to be destroyed …
Do unpaid Texas property taxes count as 'debt' to a county?
It depends on which statute. The Attorney General concluded that under section 154.045 of the Local Government Code (the warrant-withholding rule for larger counties), delinquent taxes that have not b…
Can a Texas school district hire a company to run its cafeteria and buy the food?
The Attorney General concluded that a Texas school district participating in federal school nutrition programs may contract with a food service management company that provides food as part of its ser…
Can Texas university systems buy printing services without competitive bidding?
The Attorney General concluded that The University of Texas System and The Texas A&M University System may, if they choose, acquire printing services under Government Code chapter 2155 and the Texas B…
Can a Texas appropriations rider force a state agency to competitively bid small contracts that general law exempts from bidding?
The State Board of Dental Examiners asked whether a rider attached to its 2006-07 appropriation could require competitive bidding on all of its contracts, no matter how small, when Government Code sec…
Can a Texas school district build on leased private land and lease out its unused land?
The Port Neches-Groves ISD wanted a 50-year (renewable to 100-year) deal with Huntsman Petrochemicals: lease Huntsman's land for $1 a year to build schools on it, and in return let Huntsman use a trac…
Can a Texas city pay a private developer from a tax increment fund for work that wasn't competitively bid?
Only in limited circumstances. The opinion concluded a tax increment fund is a 'municipal fund' under Local Government Code chapter 252, so chapter 252's competitive bidding rules can apply to it. If …
Could Weatherford College lease campus land on favorable terms to a Methodist-affiliated nonprofit for a student center and chapel?
Potentially. The college district had implied authority to lease land to a private nonprofit, including a religiously affiliated one, but the lease could not impair college use or surrender board cont…
Could a Texas county auditor approve payment on a contract awarded without following the County Purchasing Act?
A county auditor who determined that a contract violated the County Purchasing Act had to reject payment claims under section 113.065. The contract was not automatically void from inception, but a cou…
Can a Texas county make contractors disclose their business ties to county officials?
The Attorney General concluded yes. Neither the County Purchasing Act (chapter 262 of the Local Government Code) nor the Professional Services Procurement Act expressly says a county may require this,…
Can a Texas school district join with cities and counties in a political subdivision corporation to buy electricity in bulk?
Not for a contract worth $25,000 or more over a twelve-month period. The Attorney General concluded that Education Code section 44.031 gives a school district an exclusive list of nine purchasing meth…
Can a Texas land surveyor submit a competitive bid to a prime contractor on a government project?
The Attorney General concluded that the Professional Services Procurement Act covers any government contract that includes professional services as a component, including services bought through a pri…
Can a Texas city use its own crews to run utility lines to a new subdivision instead of hiring a contractor?
The Attorney General concluded yes. Local Government Code sections 402.001 and 402.002 give a city express authority to own, construct, and operate utility systems, so a city may extend utility mains …
Can a Texas port navigation district limit how many years a contract can keep automatically renewing?
The Attorney General concluded yes. The Port of Port Arthur Navigation District's express power to adopt rules to manage its affairs implies the power to limit, by policy, the number of times a loadin…
Does the Texas rule requiring a city to treat all proposers fairly apply to every request for proposals?
The Attorney General concluded that because his office cannot make findings of fact, it could not determine whether San Antonio broke the law in awarding a roughly $4.6 million advertising contract fo…
Can a Texas county require bidders to attend a mandatory prebid conference for a public works contract?
The Attorney General concluded that a county commissioners court could not condition acceptance of public-works bids on attendance at a mandatory prebid conference. The County Purchasing Act (chapter …
Can Texas state agencies buy goods through online reverse auctions?
The Attorney General concluded that a 'reverse auction,' where prequalified vendors watch each other's prices fall and keep underbidding online, is not the sealed-bid competitive bidding Texas law req…
Does a Texas city have to bid out a contract for temporary garbage collection workers?
The Attorney General concluded that a city's contract with a temporary day labor agency for garbage collection workers can be exempt from competitive bidding under Local Government Code section 252.02…
Who enforces Texas's rule against awarding architect and other professional-services contracts by competitive bid?
The Attorney General concluded that enforcement of the Professional Services Procurement Act is split among several officials. At the state level the Comptroller (and, as a backstop, the State Auditor…
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…
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…
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…
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 county bid on a state highway maintenance contract?
The Attorney General concluded that counties have neither express nor implied statutory authority to bid on state highway maintenance contracts, so they may not do so. A commissioners court can contra…
What can a Texas county do with the interest earned on motor vehicle inventory tax escrow accounts?
The Attorney General concluded that interest earned on a motor vehicle inventory tax escrow account could be used only to defray the cost of administering the tax-prepayment procedure, not for general…
Can a Texas county skip competitive bidding for an ambulance service contract?
The Attorney General concluded that a Texas commissioners court may exempt a contract for ambulance service from the County Purchasing Act's competitive-bidding requirement, because ambulance service …
Can a state agency write a bidding specification that only one company's product can meet?
The Attorney General concluded that, as a general rule, the Texas Department of Transportation may not restrict a material specification to suit only one vendor's product when equal-quality material i…
Does a Texas sheriff have to use competitive bidding to spend jail commissary money?
The Attorney General concluded that a sheriff may spend jail-commissary proceeds under section 351.0415 of the Local Government Code without following the competitive procurement rules of the County P…
Can a Texas county trade its surplus equipment for goods instead of cash?
The Attorney General concluded that a county has no authority to exchange surplus property for non-monetary consideration. Sabine County had received a bid offering rock worth $20,000 for surplus equi…
How do Texas school districts choose a purchasing method, and when must they competitively bid?
The Attorney General concluded that under Education Code section 44.031 a school district adopts its own rules to pick which of eight purchasing methods gives the 'best value,' and competitive bidding…
How did Texas school districts have to procure insurance and related administrator services under Education Code section 44.031?
Under the 1996 statute, a school district had to use one of section 44.031’s six best-value procurement methods for a nonexempt contract worth at least $25,000 in a twelve-month period. Insurance was …
When does a Texas school district have to use formal competitive bidding for construction?
The Texas Education Agency commissioner asked how two purchasing laws fit together: Education Code section 44.031, which lets a school district pick from six purchasing methods based on best value, an…
Can vendors sell phone or pager service to Texas agencies through the catalogue purchase method?
The General Services Commission asked whether vendors of local telephone, long-distance, cellular, mobile-radio, or pager service could sell those services to state agencies through the 'catalogue pur…
Can a Texas county or school district skip competitive bidding by buying through the state catalogue?
The Attorney General concluded in 1995 that a local government (a county, city, school district, junior college district, or other political subdivision) that takes part in the state's cooperative pur…
Does a Texas school district have to take competitive bids before buying insurance?
The Attorney General concluded in 1995 that a Texas school district must put a contract for the purchase of insurance out for competitive bids if the contract is worth $25,000 or more over a twelve-mo…
Does a Texas city have to use competitive bidding when it spends federal CDBG grant money, including on nonprofits?
The Attorney General concluded in 1995 that a Texas city spending federal Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) money had to follow the state's municipal competitive bidding laws whenever the spend…
Did a Texas county prosecutor have to use the County Purchasing Act when buying equipment with asset-forfeiture money?
Yes. DM-246 concluded that the County Purchasing Act applied to purchases from a prosecutor's forfeiture fund held in the county treasury. The commissioners court had to start the bidding process and …
Can a Texas school district act as its own general contractor on a renovation instead of hiring one out for competitive bids?
The Attorney General concluded yes. The competitive-bidding statutes (Education Code section 21.901 and Local Government Code section 271.024) apply when a school district awards a contract to an outs…
When two 1991 Texas laws on minority-business contracting goals conflicted, which one controlled cities?
The Attorney General concluded that two 1991 amendments to the same statute conflicted, and that House Bill 338 prevailed, because a special instruction in Senate Bill 992 overrode the usual rule favo…
Can a Texas county set goals for awarding contracts to minority and women-owned businesses?
The Attorney General concluded that Local Government Code section 381.004, which lets counties set up programs to reasonably increase minority and women-owned business participation by establishing a …
Can a Texas school district pick a bidder who isn't lowest because they're local or grow the tax base?
The Attorney General concluded that an independent school district could not award a competitively-bid construction contract to a bidder who was not the lowest based on the bidder's residence or locat…
Are auctioneer services 'professional services' that a Texas city can exempt from competitive bidding?
Not automatically. The Attorney General concluded that, except for the services covered by the Professional Services Procurement Act, a municipality decides in the first instance whether particular se…
Can a budget rider change the competitive bidding rules that Texas school districts must follow?
No. The Attorney General concluded that Rider 30 to the 1991-1992 General Appropriations Act was unconstitutional. The Texas Constitution lets an appropriations bill cover the single subject of spendi…
Can a Texas city buy excess or surplus insurance without competitive bidding under Local Government Code 252.024?
No, not on the strength of that section alone. The Attorney General concluded that section 252.024 of the Local Government Code does not by itself exempt a municipality's purchases of excess or surplu…
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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.