Honorable Julian Montgomery 

State Highway Engineer 

dusttn, Texas 

Dear Sir: Opinion No. O-1968 

Re: Legality of a plan of group 

insurance for employees of the 

Highway Department. 

You have previously requested an opinion of this department concerning the legality of a plan of group insurance 

for employees of the Highway Department. The'plan as previously submitted provided for the Issuance of a~~warrant by the 

Comptroller of Public Accounts to the insurance company, which 

warrant would be made up of the various payments deducted from 

the salary warrants of the numbers of the insurance group. 

The proposed plan which you submitted necessitated, as you 

stated fn your letter, the use of various employees of the 

Highway Department to facilitate the same. Therefore, this 

department, ln Opinion No. o-1755, ruled that the plan could 

not be put fnto effect because it called for the use of State 

employees for a private purpose. 

In your letter of February 13, 1940, you have resubmitted your question concerning the legality of such a plan 

of group"insurance leaving out the objectionable feature of the 

first plan above pointed out. In your second letter you ask 

the following questions: 

"(1) Would it be legal for an insurance company to issue a policy of group insurance to employees of the Highway Department, which included life 

insurance? The Department, of course, could not 

pay any portFon of the premium. 

"(2) Can any portion of an employee's wages 

or salary, when assignment has been given, be paid 

to someone else?" 

In,answer to your first question, you are advised tha~t 

Article 4764a of the Revised Statutes reads, In part, as follows : 

“Set . 1: Group life insurance is hereby de'- 
Y 

Honorable Julian Montgomery, page 2 o-1968 

clared to be that form of life insurance covering 

not less than 25 employees written under a policy 

issued to the employer, the premium for which is two 

be paid by the employer or by the employer and employees jointly . . .'I 

You are therefore advised that under the above.quoted 

Article group insurance which would include life insurance 

coverage may.not be taken out unless at least part of the 

premium is pald by the employer. Of course; the State Hlghvay Department is unauthorized to make any such payment. You 

are therefore advised that such a proposed plan of group lnsurance may not be adopted by employees of the Highway Department. 

The answer to your second. question presents a much 

more difficult problem. According to the plan submitted It 

would be necessary for the Comptroller of Public Accounts to 

have the authority to issue a warrant to a third person In payment of a partial salary assignment. It is the opinion of 

this department that the Comptroller has no such authority and 

that he is allowed to issue a warrant only in the name of the 

employee himself. Our conclusion in this respect is based upon an analysis of our statutes which authorize the Comptroller 

to Issue pay warrants and authorFze hFm to keep books and records showing such payments. Article 4358 of Vernon's dnnotated Civil Statutes reads as follows: 

"The'~Comptroller shall have printed uniform 

pay warrants, which shall be of three classes: 

'general,' 'special' and 'pension.' Such warrants 

shaI1 be prepared in duplicate, and shall be 

marked"origina1' and 'duplicate,' respectively; 

and each class shall be serially numbered and 

shall be of a color of paper different from the 

other class. A separate .serFes of numbers may be 

used for warrants Issued for payrolls to be paid 

from the General Revenue Fund, and for warrants 

Issued for claims to be paid from 'highway' or 

other special funds, when the Comptroller deems 

such special series of members advisable. Such 

warrants shall be prepared so as to provide for 

entering thereon in addition to other appropriate 

matters, the following: 

"1 . Initials of the person in the Comptroller's 

Department comparing the warrant with the claim. 

"2 . Designation of the fund against which the 

warrant is drawn. 
c - 

Honorable Julian Montgomery, page 3 o-1968 

“3 . Appropriation against which disbursement is 

to be charged." 

Article 4359, V.A.C.S., reads in part as follows: 

"The Comptroller'shall provide a pay warrant register for each class of pay warrants, 

each volume of which shall be approprLately designated by class, number or otherwise. When a 

pay warrant is prepared, Ft shall be'reglstered 

in the pay warrant register for the class to 

which it belongs; and such reglstery shall-consist of an entry of the amount of the warrant, 

name of the payee, appropriation to which charged, 

and such other information as may be deemed advisable by the Comptroller." 

Senate Bill No. 427, Acts, 46th Legislature, 1939, is 

commonly called the Departmental Approprlatlon Bill. Said Act 

provides in part as follows: 

"Salary and other ProvIsIons, (a) All annual salaries shall be paid In twelve (12) equal 

monthly Installments, unless otherwise provided 

herein. . . . . 

"Salary Payments. No salary for which an 

appropriation is made herein shall be paid to 

any person unless such person actually discharges assigned duties. Every month the head 

of each department shall attach to the payroll 

for his department an affidavit, under oath, 

stating that the persons listed in said payroll 

actually performed the duties for which they 

were being paid. The Comptroller shall not lssue warrants for the payment of se'larles listed 

on said payroll unless this affidavit is filed 

with him. Each department haad shall number 

consecutively the salaried positions in his department for whkh an appropriation is made 

herein (either out of the General Revenue Fund, 

fees, receipts, special funds or out of other 

funds available for use by said department) and 

opposite the number of the position, he shall 

set out the title of the position and the name 

of the person employed to fill the same. This 

statement. shall be filed withy the Comptroller, 

who shall;when Issuing his warrant to any employee in payment of salary due said employee, 

number the warrant with the same number that is 
Honorable Julian Montgomery, page 4 o-1968 

assigned to the position filled by said employee...." 

An analysis of the duties of the Comptroller in the 

issuance of pay warrants as stated in the above quoted Articles 

indicates, ln‘the first place, that salaries are to be paid in 

twelve (12) equal monthly installments. Each warrant drawn 

shall be paid only in pursuance of an affidavit fLled by~the 

head of a department with the Comptroller. When the Comptroller issues the warrant the same shall be numbered with the 

same number that is assigned to the position filled by the 

employee. It is to be noted-.in this respect that this portion of the General Appropriation Bill reads: 

"when Issuing his warrant to any employee In payment of salary due." 

This language clearly indicates that the warrants are to be issued to the employees themselves. An accurate system is then 

set up'by which the warrants are registered by the Comptroller 

and records are kept on all salaries paid which records correspond to the actual warrants Issued. 

It can be seen from the above discussion that the 

legislative plan for the Issuance of pay warrants would be 

greatly~ hampered by the Comptroller having to recognize a partial assignment of wages and having to issue one warrant to 

the employee and another to a third party who is the assignee 

of the employee. To carry this same reasoning further, suppose the employee assigns several portion~s of‘his wages tom 

several different Individuals. This would require the Comp-~ 

trollerWto issue'to each a separate warrant for his partlcular portion. Even if the Comptroller could do this under the 

law and could fssue the warrants to the insurance company as 

contemplated in your plan 'it would require extra work on the 

part of some of his employees to keep the books straight. 

It ls the opinion of this department that the employees 

of the Comptroller are unauthorized to do this work. In effect, such employees would be performing private services for 

private Individuals, while being paid by the State. 

It is the opinion of this department, therefore, that 

the Comptroller of Public Accounts is unauthorized to issue 

warrants to the insurance company as contemplated In the proposed plan of group insurance which you submit. 
. - - 

Honorable Julian Montgomery, page 5 o-1968 

Yours very truly 

ATTORNEY GENERAL OF TEXAS 

By s/Billy Goldberg 

Billy Goldberg 

Assistant 

BG: jm:wc 

APPRO-m MAR 8, 1940 

s/Gerald C. Mann 

ATTORNEYGENERAL OF TEXAS 

Approved Opinion Committee By s/BWB Chairman