73R5675 RJA-F
          By Haggerty                                           H.B. No. 1438
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to the audit and expenditure of fund balances of certain
    1-3  executive and administrative agencies.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Subchapter B, Chapter 403, Government Code, is
    1-6  amended by adding Section 403.022 to read as follows:
    1-7        Sec. 403.022.  LICENSE FUND AUDIT.  (a)  At the end of the
    1-8  first fiscal year of each biennium the comptroller shall audit the
    1-9  balance of each special fund in the state treasury that contains
   1-10  fees received from professional or occupational licenses issued by
   1-11  executive or administrative agencies funded under Article 1 of the
   1-12  General Appropriations Act.
   1-13        (b)  Not later than November 1 of each even-numbered year the
   1-14  comptroller shall report the results of the audit performed under
   1-15  Subsection (a) to the legislature.  The comptroller shall send the
   1-16  legislature's report to the lieutenant governor, the speaker of the
   1-17  house of representatives, and the presiding officers of the Senate
   1-18  Finance Committee and the House Appropriations Committee.
   1-19        SECTION 2.  Subchapter C, Chapter 316, Government Code, is
   1-20  amended by adding Section 316.023 to read as follows:
   1-21        Sec. 316.023.  CERTAIN ACROSS-THE-BOARD REDUCTIONS.  The
   1-22  presiding officer of either house of the legislature may not lay
   1-23  before that house a bill that makes across-the-board reductions in
   1-24  appropriations to executive or administrative state agencies if the
    2-1  bill applies the percentage reduction to an executive or
    2-2  administrative state agency that:
    2-3              (1)  is funded under Article I of the General
    2-4  Appropriations Act; and
    2-5              (2)  issues professional or occupational licenses and
    2-6  deposits the fees collected for those licenses in a special fund in
    2-7  the state treasury.
    2-8        SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
    2-9  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   2-10  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   2-11  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   2-12  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
   2-13  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   2-14  passage, and it is so enacted.