Section 6243e.2 of the Texas Civil Statutes was enacted on June 19, 1975 as a result of Houston firefighter efforts to attain their own separate statutory authority. This act applied to cities with a firemen’s pension fund, having a population of no less than 1.2 million. Houston was the only city in Texas which satisfied that requirement at the time and is the only department covered by Article 6243e.2 today. This use of population as a means of attaining separate privileges for Houston was a common strategy for firefighters’ legislative battles for the Fund. Also, this separate authority made passing bills much easier in the future because any prospective legislative changes would only affect the Houston area. Through Section 6243e.2, the firefighters were granted the ability to make changes which applied specifically to their Fund. This move showed tremendous foresight on the part of these pension forefathers and later had a tremendous impact on Fund operations. More than a decade later, this greater autonomy allowed the board of the Houston Firefighters' Relief and Retirement Fund to take full control of the administration of the Fund. Some of the firefighters who were instrumental in achieving this legislative change were Bill Whatley, Alcus Greer, Earl McWilliams, Billy Drohan, "Hoot" Gibson and George Lowdermilk.

The road to achieving this success was not easy. Even before the team of firefighters arrived in Austin, heavy discussion took place among the firemen themselves, as it often did for other issues. Conservative and liberal factions of the Fire Department argued almost ceaselessly about different directions that benefit legislation for the Fund should take. The more conservative members wanted to keep the Fund at status quo to ensure the greatest actuarial soundness, while the more liberal members wanted to use the Fund’s growth in assets to achieve more benefits. An advantage to this in-fighting, though, was that any legislative change or proposal brought before the state Legislature had been thoroughly thought out and argued before the legislative agents even set out for Austin. In the end, a happy medium was usually struck, and the legislation was successfully passed.

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