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Here is more information about the agency, including who leads it, how many staff the department employs and what the department does as a whole.
FAST FACTS
Budget: Estimated at $48 million overall, with a $1.8 million IT budget, according to Industry Navigator.*
Leadership: George Stolard is the department’s chief information officer.
Staff: As of September 2020, the commission employed 611 full-time equivalent state employees.
MORE ABOUT THE AGENCY
On Dec. 5, 1933, the 21st Amendment of the Constitution was ratified, ending Prohibition. As a result, states began regulating their own alcoholic beverage industries. In Texas, the state Legislature passed the Texas Liquor Control Act, creating the Texas Liquor Control Board in 1935.
At the time, the board’s main goal “was to promote temperance, protect the public interest, encourage observance of the Liquor Control Act, collect alcoholic beverage taxes and discourage socially undesirable activities such as bootlegging, underage drinking and organized crime,” according to the Texas State Historical Association.
However, this changed when the agency was renamed the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission in 1970, and the state Legislature updated the Texas Liquor Control Act into the now-used Alcoholic Beverage Code in 1977.
After 1977, the commission started monitoring the distribution and sales of alcoholic beverages within the state and regulating the flow of alcoholic beverages from manufacturers to consumers.
So, how does technology come into play? Below are several goals listed in the department’s FY 2023 - FY 2027 agency strategic plan:
- Support businesses and improve customer service by rolling out new features to TABC’s online hub, the Alcohol Industry Management System (AIMS)
- Empower staff to be more efficient and adopt best practices for using AIMS for investigations and case management
- Launch a new point-of-sale technology for ports of entry to process payments, document disallowed products and provide receipts
- Add compliance reporting features in AIMS to make it easier for businesses to have a single online hub for all TABC interactions
- Replace the agency’s out-of-date tax collection system with modern point-of-sale technology
- Implement a new point-of-sale system to reduce errors, cut down on paperwork and allow regulatory compliance officers to conduct customer interactions more quickly
- Adopt flexible analytics to provide agency leaders with business-oriented data
*Industry Navigator is a product of e.Republic, which also produces Industry Insider — Texas.
