79th Regular Session –
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Bill No. |
Sponsor |
Caption – SENATE BILLS |
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SB 1 HB 1 |
Pitts, Waxahachie |
Relating
to the General Appropriations Bill. |
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SB 5 |
Staples, |
Relating
to the continuation and operation of the workers’ compensation system of this
state, including changing the name of the Texas Workers’ Compensation
Commission to the Texas Department of Workers’ Compensation, the powers and
duties of the governing authority of that department, the provision of
workers’ compensation benefits to injured employees, and the regulation of
workers’ compensation insurers. |
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Summary: |
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SB 9 |
Staples, |
Relating to homeland
security. |
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Summary: |
This
bill would establish the Governor’s interoperable radio communications
program for a statewide integrated public safety radio communications system
that promotes interoperability within and between all first responders. Effective date: |
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SB 24 HB 292 |
Zaffirini, McClendon |
Relating
to the creation of a donor education, awareness, and registry program and the
establishment of an organ donor and tissue council. |
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Summary: |
These
amendments would authorize an individual to designate on the individual’s driver’s
license or personal identification certificate the intention of the
individual to be a donor with respect to an organ, tissue, or eye
donation. The bill requires the
Department of Public Safety to establish the Donor Education, Awareness, and
Registry Program of Texas. The
department is directed to enter into an agreement with the Living Bank
International or other organization selected by the public service director
under a competitive proposal process for the establishment and maintenance of
a statewide Internet-based registry of organ, tissue, and eye donors. The department is also directed to
establish the Texas Organ, Tissue, and Eye Donor Council. The council would be comprised of the
executive commissioner of the Health and Services Commission, a
representative of DPS, a representative of the
Texas Department of Transportation, and eight members appointed by the
Governor. The duties of the council
are to advise the public safety director of the need for and efforts to
increase the number of resident donors, increase the number of transplants
performed, and decrease the difference between the number of donors and the
number of candidates on the waiting list.
The council shall also establish and prioritize the initiatives to
implement the donor education, awareness, and registry program. See HB 120,
Dawson. Effective date: |
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SB 30 |
Zaffirini, |
Relating
to tuition and fee exemptions for students contracting to graduate in a
timely manner from public institutions of higher education. |
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Summary: |
Amends
Education Code by adding Section 54.202.
This bill would require the governing board of each institution of
higher education to create a graduate on time contract. The institution would be required to notify
the undergraduate students about the contract not later than the sixth week
of the student’s first semester or term and the student would be required to
enter into the contract prior to the end of the student’s first semester or
term at the institution. No student
would be required to enter into a contract under this section. Each
contract under this section would require a student to: (1) earn at least 30 required or elective credit hours
each academic year, (2) enroll in any specified courses or types of courses
prescribed by the contract at the times required by the contract, (3) maintain good academic standing as prescribed in the
contract, (4) the student must declare a major not later than the
end of the student’s second academic year, (5) earn additional credit hours if the student’s degree program
requires more than 120 credit hours for a bachelor’s degree program as
prescribed in the contract. A student who has entered into and satisfies the
requirements of the contract is exempt from the payment of tuition for the
final fifteen credit hours required for the student’s bachelor’s degree
program or the final nine hours required for the student’s associate degree
program. In addition to the tuition
exemption, each contract would require the institution to exempt a student
from the payment of any tuition and fees for a course required in the
student’s degree program that was unavailable to the student at the
appropriate time as specified by the institution in the contract. If a student withdraws from the institution, the
contract is void. A student may not
receive an exemption from tuition or fees under this section for a semester
or session before the 2006 fall semester.
Effective date: |
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SB 31 |
Zaffirini, |
Relating
to requiring students receiving certain financial aid at institutions of
higher education to meet timely graduation and academic progress
requirements. |
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Summary: |
Amends
Education Code, Sections 56.304(e), 56.305(e) and (g), 56.462, and
61.225. This bill attempts to
standardize the eligibility requirements for a The
bill also amends the time of eligibility for The
bill makes corresponding changes to the limitations on tuition equalization
grant eligibility. The bill makes
similar provisions for students with hardship provisions. Effective date: September 1, 2005. |
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SB 32 |
Zaffirini, |
Relating
to certain special tuition rates at institutions of higher education. |
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Summary: |
Amends
Education Code, Section 54.072 and adds Section 54.0514. This bill amends the section authorizing UT
Austin’s flat rate tuition pilot project to now authorize the governing board
of any institution of higher education to charge the same amount of tuition
to all undergraduate students enrolled in a college or degree program at the
institution. The tuition could not
exceed the average amount of tuition a student would pay for enrolling in the
institution for fourteen semester credit hours. The
bill would authorize the governing board of an institution of higher
education to charge a resident undergraduate student a lesser amount for
tuition in a summer term or session for state tuition. The amount of tuition could not be less
than ½ of that amount. Effective date: |
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SB 33 |
Zaffirini, |
Relating
to graduate stipends awarded as part of the Texas B-On-Time loan program. |
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Summary: |
Amends
Education Code by adding Section 56.466.
This bill would authorize a student who previously qualified for
forgiveness of a Texas B-On-Time loan and who enrolls in a graduate or
professional degree program at an institution to be eligible to receive a
stipend of $2,500 in the student’s first academic year in the program to be
used toward expenses associated with the program. The
stipend will be paid for money appropriated for these purposes. The Coordinating Board is directed to
allocate the amount to eligible institutions and if the amount is
insufficient to provide a stipend to each eligible student, the Coordinating
Board shall proportion the number of full-time equivalent graduate students
enrolled at each institution. The
institution shall allocate the stipends based on financial need. The Coordinating Board would be required to
adopt rules to administer this program.
Effective date: |
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SB 34 HB 2332 |
Zaffirini, Morrison, |
Relating
to the tuition rebate program for certain undergraduates at certain public
institutions of higher education. |
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Summary: |
Amends
Education Code, Sections 54.0065(a), (c), and (i). This bill amends the sections regarding the
$1,000 rebate of tuition program for undergraduates. For students beginning after the effective
date of this bill, they will be required to complete the baccalaureate degree
within the same time period prescribed to qualify for forgiveness of a Texas
B-On-Time loan which is either four or five years depending upon the degree
program. The bill also authorizes the
Coordinating Board to adopt rules providing for hardship or other good cause
provisions. Effective date: |
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SB 35 |
Zaffirini, |
Relating
to a study regarding credit hour requirements for undergraduate certificate
and degree programs at public institutions of higher education. |
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Summary: |
This
bill would require the Coordinating Board to conduct a study to examine the
need for and feasibility of developing uniform credit hour requirements for
undergraduate certificate and degree programs in any academic field common to
two or more public institutions of higher education. The study must include an evaluation of
reducing credit hour requirements for programs that exceed typical or
traditional credit hour requirements for similar programs. The report is due |
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SB 39 HB 298 |
Zaffirini, McClendon, |
Relating
to forensic evidence training for students enrolled in certain medical or
nursing degree programs. |
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Summary: |
Amends
Education Code by adding Section 51.310.
Each institution of higher education that offers a degree program
leading to a doctor of medicine or doctor of osteopathy degree or to a degree
that satisfies the educational requirement for licensure as a registered
nurse would be required to establish a course in forensic evidence collection
and require completion of the course as a prerequisite to receiving the
degree. The institution could
determine to accept a substantially similar course successfully completed at
another public or accredited private institution. The Coordinating Board shall establish
standards for the course. Effective
date: |
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SB 41 HB 299 |
Zaffirini, McClendon, |
Relating
to the right of an employee to time off from work to participate in certain
activities of the employee’s child. |
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Summary: |
This
bill defines employee as a person other than an independent contractor who,
for compensation, performs services for an employer. Employer is defined as a person who employs
ten or more employees at the same workplace, including a public
employer. The bill entitles employees
to unpaid time off, up to one hour in each calendar month, to meet with a
teacher of the employee’s child or with a caregiver of the child or to
participate in a facility or school activity of the child. The employee is required to provide
documentation of the actual participation in the activity on the employer’s
request. Notice of an employee’s right
to this time off must be posted in a prominent location in the
workplace. Retaliation is prohibited. Currently,
state employees are authorized to use up to eight hours of sick leave each
calendar year to attend parent-teacher conference sessions for the employee’s
children (Government Code, Section 661.206).
(See HB 426 and HB
430). Effective date: |
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SB 44 |
Nelson, Flower Mound |
Relating to the Indigent
Health Care Advisory Committee |
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Summary: |
This
bill requires the executive commissioner of the Health and Human Services
Commission to establish an advisory committee to advise the commission on
rules and policies concerning indigent health care services. The committee shall consist of eleven
members, including four consumer and seven other representatives, appointed
by the executive commissioner. Effective date: |
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SB 50 |
Nelson, Flower Mound |
Relating
to contracts between health care providers and certain health benefit plans. |
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Summary: |
This
bill would prohibit a health maintenance organization or an insurer from
including a provision in a contract with a participating physician or a
preferred provider that would allow HMO or the insurer to refuse to pay an
individual clean claim because of the provider submitted a previous claim
that was deemed not a clean claim.
Effective date: |
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SB 61 |
West, R. |
Relating to the teaching of
foreign languages in public schools. |
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Summary: |
This
bill would authorize the commissioner of TEA to make grants from funds
appropriated for this purpose to educator preparation programs offered by
public senior colleges or universities to allow the programs to exempt from
the payment of tuition and fees a student seeking certification as a
bilingual education, dual language instruction, or English as a second
language teacher, and to reimburse a student for the cost of textbooks
required for the educator preparation program. The bill would also authorize a school
district to use state or local funds to supplement tuition and fees exemptions
for educational aid employees of the school district if the aide is enrolled
in courses leading to certification as a bilingual education, dual language
instruction, or English as a second language teacher. The board would be required to establish a
master language teacher certificate to teach bilingual education, dual
language instruction, or English as a second language at the elementary,
middle school, and high school grade levels.
The commissioner is directed to establish a master language teacher
grant program. Effective date: |
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SB 63 HB 2740 |
Staples, Guillen, |
Relating to a pay raise for
state employees. |
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Summary: |
This
bill would entitle each full-time employee of a state agency to an increase
in the employee’s gross salary for the state fiscal year beginning September
1, 2005, in an amount equal to $200 per month and each part-time employee to
an increase in the employee’s gross salary in an amount each month that is
equal to the ratio between the number of hours the employee works and the
number of hours required of a full-time employee times $200. This would not apply to a member of the
legislature or a member of the faculty of an institution of higher
education. Effective date: |
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SB 67 |
Shapleigh, |
Relating
to a program to promote the training and retention of health care
professionals in this state. |
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Summary: |
Amends
Education Code, by adding Sections 61.551—61.554 and repeals Government Code,
Chapter 487, Subchapter G. This bill requires the Coordinating Board to
establish a program to encourage the training, recruitment, and retention of
health care professionals and practitioners in health professional shortage
areas in the Texas-Mexico border region.
The practitioners eligible to participate in the program should be
trained in medicine, dentistry, or nursing and would be referred to as the
Border Health Corp. The program would
be a loan repayment assistance program for which an individual could receive
up to $10,000 in loan repayment assistance per year. The individual must agree to practice for
at least two years in the individual’s field or area of practice. The
Coordinating Board would be required to pay the loan repayment assistance
directly to the entity to which the loan obligation is due. The
bill abolishes the Texas Health Service Corp which is currently administered
by the Office of Rural Community Affairs.
Individuals receiving awards or stipends under this program would be
allowed to continue but no additional awards could be made. The appropriations for this program would
be transferred to the Border Health Corp program at the Coordinating
Board. Effective date: |
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SB 68 |
Shapleigh, |
Relating
to increasing the number of students in medical education in |
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Summary: |
Amends
Education Code by adding Sections 61.0903, 61.0904, and 61.0905. This bill requires the Coordinating Board
to examine the use of undergraduate programs that require more than four
years of undergraduate coursework to prepare students for graduate medical
education to determine whether such a program would be feasible or effective
in institutions of higher education in this state. The report is due The
board is also required to develop in coordination with institutions of higher
education a strategy to coordinate recruitment and retention of students from
backgrounds or geographic areas that are underrepresented in institutions in
this state. The
board is also directed to collaborate with the Texas Education Agency to
establish a pilot program to provide opportunities for secondary school
students in the Texas-Mexico border region who are enrolled in health science
technology and related courses to be mentored by health care professionals or
students enrolled in undergraduate or graduate health science technology
programs in at least three high schools in the first year and three
additional secondary schools in the second year. TEA
is authorized to establish a statewide network of summer study science instruction
programs for students from groups or geographic areas that are
underrepresented in the fields of science and medicine. Effective date: |
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SB 70 |
Shapleigh, |
Relating
to the provision of a preference in governmental purchasing decisions for
vendors that provide health benefits to employees. |
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Summary: |
Amends
Education Code, Section 44.031(b) and adds Section 44.0421; amends Government
Code, Section 2155.074(b) and adds Section 2155.452. This bill would require public schools and
state agencies, other than institutions of higher education, to give
preference to the goods or services of a vendor that demonstrates that the
vendor provides health benefits coverage to the vendor’s employees. This would not apply to a vendor with 50 or
fewer employees that does not provide health benefits coverage. Effective date: |
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SB 74 |
Shapleigh, |
Relating
to a prohibition on employment discrimination in compensation. |
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Summary: |
This
bill defines employer as a person who employs four or more employees,
including the state and a political subdivision of the state. This bill would make it an unlawful
employment practice if an employer discriminated among employees on the basis
of sex by paying wages to an employee at a rate less than the rate at which
the employer pays wages to another employee of the opposite sex for the same
or substantially similar work requiring equal skills, effort and
responsibility and which are performed under similar working conditions. An exception to this would be a seniority
system, a merit system, a system that measures earnings by quantity or
quality of production, or a differential based on a factor other than sex. The Texas Workforce Commission is directed
to adopt guidelines specifying the criteria for determining whether a job is
dominated by employees of a particular sex.
Each employer is required to provide to each employee a written
statement sufficient to inform the employee of the employee’s job title and
wage rate at least once annually.
Effective date: |
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SB 79 |
Shapleigh, |
Relating
to tuition exemptions granted by public institutions of higher education to
children of certain classroom teachers. |
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Summary: |
Amends
Education Code by adding Section 54.220.
This bill would require the governing board of an institution of
higher education to exempt from the payment of tuition a resident of this
state enrolled as an undergraduate student at the institution who is the
child of a person who at the beginning of the semester or academic session
for which the exemption is sought holds a National Board Certification, as
defined by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, and has
ten or more years of experience as a classroom teacher in a critical teaching
shortage field in one or more school districts in this state and is currently
employed by a school district in a similar role. An individual is not eligible for this
exemption if the person has received an exemption for ten semesters or summer
sessions at any institution or has received a baccalaureate degree. An individual who becomes eligible to
receive the exemption from tuition could also be eligible for a refund of any
amount of tuition paid as a resident student in the three-year period
preceding the beginning of the first semester for which the person receives
the exemption. The bill does require
the Coordinating Board to take into account any tuition exempted or any
refund of tuition made in the preceding biennium when the board is
establishing the funding formulas for institutions for the upcoming biennium. See SB 1145, Shapiro. Effective date: |
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SB 80 |
Shapleigh, |
Relating
to the percentage of certain tuition set aside to fund financial assistance
for resident undergraduate and graduate students at public institutions of
higher education. |
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Summary: |
Amends
Education Code, Sections 56.011(a) and 56.012(a). These amendments would increase the
required set aside from the amount of designated tuition in excess of $46 per
semester credit hour for resident undergraduate students from 20% to 40% and
from 15% to 20% for resident students enrolled in graduate or professional
degree programs. This increase would
apply to tuition set aside for fall 2005.
Effective date: |
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SB 81 |
Shapleigh, |
Relating
to a joint partnership between the |
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Summary: |
Amends
Education Code by adding Sections 69.23 and 110.17. This bill would authorize the board of
regents of the |
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SB 95 |
Shapleigh, |
Relating
to the establishment of an asthma research center at the |
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Summary: |
Amends
Education Code by adding Section 110.151.
This bill requires the board of regents of Texas Tech University
System to establish an asthma research center at the |
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SB 101 HB 303 |
Van de Putte, McClendon, |
Relating
to electronically monitoring certain veterans’ and dependents’ tuition
exemption. |
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Summary: |
Amends
Education Code by adding Section 54.203(h) and Government Code by adding
Section 434.107. This bill would
require the governing board of each institution of higher education to
electronically report to the Texas Veterans Commission information on
veterans and their dependents who receive an exemption from tuition and fees
each semester and summer session. The
institution would be required to report the name of the institution, the name
of the individual, the number of semester credit hours for which the
individual received an exemption, the total cumulative number of credit hours
for which the individual has received an exemption at the institution, and
any other information required by the commission. Effective date: |
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SB 105 |
Shapleigh, |
Relating to a report on the
use of money from the Enterprise Fund. |
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Summary: |
Amends
Government Code by adding Section 481.079.
This amendment would require the Governor to submit to the Lt.
Governor, the Speaker, and each member of the Legislature a report on grants
from The Enterprise Fund prior to the beginning of each regular session. The report would include the number of
jobs, the wages for the jobs, the total number of grants, the total amount of
tax credits, the geographical distribution of the grants by county, and the
effect of the grants on employment, personal income, and capital investment
in the state and in each regional planning commission area. Effective date: |
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SB 111 HB 130 |
Shapleigh, Smith, T. |
Relating
to undergraduate course credit granted by certain public institutions of
higher education for completion of the international baccalaureate diploma
program. |
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Summary: |
Amends
Education Code by adding Section 51.968.
This bill would require the governing board of each institution of
higher education to adopt a policy to grant undergraduate course credit to
entering freshman students who have successfully completed the international
baccalaureate diploma program. Each
institution would be required to grant at least 24 semester credit hours or
the equivalent in appropriate subject areas to an entering freshman
student. The institution would be
allowed to grant fewer than 24 semester credit hours if the student received
a score of less than four on an examination administered as part of the
diploma program. The governing board
would be required to report to the Coordinating Board the policy adopted and
to make the policy available on the institution’s Internet site. Effective date: |
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SB 121 HB 223 |
Gattis, |
Relating to a requestor’s
right of access to investment information. |
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Summary: |
Amends Government Code by adding Section 552.030. This amendment establishes thirteen categories of information relating to a governmental body’s investments held by that would become public information. The information includes the name of any fund or investment entity, the dates for investments, the amount of dollars the governmental body committed to any fund or investment entity, the internal rate of return realized, the names of principals of any fund or investment entity, the fees, expenses, charges, and other compensation assessed or paid by the governmental body t |