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Senate Bill 473 |
Senate Author: Estes |
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Effective: 5-23-09 |
House Sponsor: Crownover |
Senate Bill 473 amends the Education Code to authorize the University of North Texas System board of regents to charge each student enrolled at the University of North Texas an intercollegiate athletics fee in an amount not to exceed $10 per semester credit hour, up to a maximum of 15 semester credit hours, for each semester or summer session. The bill restricts the use of revenue from the fee to financing, constructing, operating, maintaining, or improving an athletic facility or the operation of an intercollegiate athletics program at the university and prohibits the fee from being charged before the first semester a new football stadium is available for use at the university. The bill caps the fee for a student enrolled in more than 15 semester credit hours and requires the total amount of compulsory student services fees charged to a student to be reduced by $3 per semester credit hour for the first semester in which an intercollegiate athletics fee is charged.
The bill makes the initial levy and any increase of 10 percent or more in the amount of the fee subject to approval by a majority vote of the students voting at an election held for that purpose and prohibits the fee from being considered in determining the maximum amount of student services fees charged each student at the university. The bill requires the university's chief fiscal officer to collect the fee and to deposit the revenue from the fee in an account to be known as the intercollegiate athletics fee account. The bill prohibits the fee from being charged after the fifth academic year in which the fee is first charged unless, before the end of that academic year, the university has issued bonds payable from the fee, in which event the fee may not be charged after the academic year in which all such bonds, including refunding bonds for those bonds, have been fully paid.