§ 102.001.Definitions

Two definitions, and the first is drawn wide on purpose.

"Employee" includes an officer, volunteer, or employee, a former officer, volunteer, or employee, and the estate of any of them. The term also includes a member of a governing board.

Volunteers are the notable inclusion. A person serving a city without pay is exposed to the same suits as a paid employee, and a chapter confined to employees would leave them to answer alone.

Former officers and employees matter for the same reason. Liability often arrives years after the conduct, and a person who has left cannot be left outside the protection.

Including the estate keeps the protection alive after death, so a claim against a deceased official’s estate is within the chapter.

Members of a governing board are named expressly — city council members, school trustees, district directors — who are not employees in the ordinary sense.

One exclusion is stated: a county extension agent. Those agents work through the state agricultural extension service and are covered by the state indemnification chapter instead.

"Local government" means a county, city, town, special purpose district, including a soil and water conservation district, and any other political subdivision of the state.

The closing phrase carries the definition, reaching hospital districts, water districts, school districts and every other subdivision without naming them.