S.B. No. 297
                                        AN ACT
    1-1  relating to funding for school counseling programs.
    1-2        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-3        SECTION 1.  Subsection (j), Section 16.152, Education Code,
    1-4  is amended to read as follows:
    1-5        (j)  From the total amount of funds appropriated for
    1-6  allotments under this section, the commissioner of education shall,
    1-7  each fiscal year, withhold  $7,500,000 or a greater amount as
    1-8  determined in the General Appropriations Act <the amount of
    1-9  $5,000,000> and distribute that amount for programs under
   1-10  Subchapter V, Chapter 21, of this code.  A program established
   1-11  under that subchapter is required only in school districts in which
   1-12  the program is financed by funds distributed under this section or
   1-13  other funds distributed by the commissioner for a program under
   1-14  that subchapter.  In distributing those funds, preference shall be
   1-15  given to a school district that received funds for a program under
   1-16  this subsection for the preceding school year.
   1-17        SECTION 2.  This Act applies beginning with the 1993-1994
   1-18  school year.
   1-19        SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
   1-20  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   1-21  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   1-22  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   1-23  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
   1-24  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
    2-1  passage, and it is so enacted.