By Puente                                              H.B. No. 458
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to the application for monthly survivor benefits under the
    1-3  Teacher Retirement System of Texas for certain persons whose
    1-4  remarriage disqualified them from those benefits.
    1-5        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-6        SECTION 1.  Subchapter E, Chapter 824, Government Code, is
    1-7  amended by adding Section 824.4041 to read as follows:
    1-8        Sec. 824.4041.  BENEFITS FOR CERTAIN SURVIVING SPOUSES.  (a)
    1-9  A person is eligible to receive benefits under this section if the
   1-10  person:
   1-11              (1)  is the designated beneficiary of a deceased
   1-12  member;
   1-13              (2)  elected before September 1, 1980, to receive for
   1-14  life a monthly benefit of $75 beginning at the age of 65;
   1-15              (3)  became ineligible for the benefits because the
   1-16  person remarried before September 1, 1980; and
   1-17              (4)  reapplies for benefits under this section.
   1-18        (b)  The retirement system shall:
   1-19              (1)  verify whether a person is eligible to receive
   1-20  benefits under this section; and
   1-21              (2)  if the person is eligible, make payments to the
   1-22  person of a monthly benefit in the amount specified in Section
   1-23  824.404.
   1-24        (c)  The retirement system shall make payment to a person
    2-1  eligible to receive benefits under this section beginning with the
    2-2  month after the month in which the person reapplies for benefits
    2-3  under this section.
    2-4        SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1993.
    2-5        SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
    2-6  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
    2-7  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
    2-8  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
    2-9  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
   2-10  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   2-11  passage, and it is so enacted.