Enrolled Bill Summary

            House Joint Resolution 68 proposes two state constitutional amendments. One amendment would authorize the Veterans' Land Board (VLB) to use excess assets from the Veterans' Land Fund, Veterans' Housing Assistance Fund, or Veterans' Housing Assistance Fund II for various purposes relating to veterans homes. It would also delete a provision that has limited the circumstances under which the VLB may use excess receipts from the funds to pay the principal of and interest on revenue bonds or to make bond enhancement payments.

            The other amendment would revise the Available School Fund (ASF) to include not just Permanent School Fund (PSF) interest but distributions made from the total return on all PSF investment assets, including capital gains. The distribution rate would be determined by two-thirds vote of the State Board of Education (SBOE), acting before the legislative regular session, or by the legislature by general law or appropriation if the SBOE did not act. The amendment would limit the total distribution in each year of a fiscal biennium to not more than six percent of the average of the market value of the PSF, excluding real property, on the last day of each of the 16 fiscal quarters preceding the regular session and would not allow the total distribution over the current and nine preceding fiscal years to exceed the total return on all PSF assets over those 10 fiscal years. For fiscal years 2004 and 2005, a temporary constitutional provision would set a fixed distribution rate of 4.5 percent of the average of the market value of the PSF, excluding real property, on the last day of each of the 16 fiscal quarters preceding the 2003 regular session of the legislature. The amendment requires that PSF management expenses be paid by appropriation from the PSF.