Enrolled Bill Summary

Senate Bill 709	Senate Author:  West et al.
Effective:  8-31-19	House Sponsor:  Frullo et al.

            Senate Bill 709 amends the Education Code to revise provisions governing the annual amounts allocated to certain higher education institutions under the equitable allocation formula, including establishing the amounts of such allocation for, respectively, the 2020 state fiscal year and each state fiscal year beginning with the 2021 state fiscal year. Among other provisions, the bill does the following:

·         removes the requirement that a governing board participating in such distribution of funds receive prior approval from the legislature or approval, review, or endorsement, as applicable, from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to expend the funds for new construction, for land acquisition projects, and for major repair and rehabilitation projects in excess of $600,000;

·         includes the purchase or contract for certain cloud computing services or other intangible assets among the purposes for which amounts allocated under the formula may be spent by an institution's governing board; and

·         includes Texas State Technical College‑‑Fort Bend and Texas State Technical College‑‑North Texas among the component campuses of the Texas State Technical College system to which amounts are allocated under the equitable allocation formula.