By:  Moncrief                                         S.B. No. 1363
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
                                        AN ACT
    1-1  relating to the provision of educational materials in the public
    1-2  schools to blind or visually handicapped students.
    1-3        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-4        SECTION 1.  Subsection (e), Section 12.03, Education Code, is
    1-5  amended to read as follows:
    1-6        (e)  The Central Education Agency shall require a publisher
    1-7  of a textbook that is adopted by the State Board of Education to
    1-8  furnish the agency with computerized textbook files for the
    1-9  production of braille textbooks if such computerized textbook files
   1-10  are requested by the State Board of Education.  Publishers will
   1-11  arrange the computerized textbook files in one of several optional
   1-12  formats specified by the State Board of Education <computer
   1-13  diskettes for literary subjects in the American Standard Code for
   1-14  Information Interchange (ASCII) from which Braille versions of the
   1-15  textbook can be produced.  The publisher will furnish the agency
   1-16  with computer diskettes in ASCII for non-literary subjects, e.g.,
   1-17  natural sciences, computer science, mathematics, and music, when
   1-18  Braille specialty code translation software is available>.
   1-19        SECTION 2.  Subdivisions (3) and (6), Subsection (e-1),
   1-20  Section 12.03, Education Code, are amended to read as follows:
   1-21              (3)  Public members of the commission who are not
   1-22  employed by publishing companies that have contracts with the
   1-23  Central Education Agency are <shall serve at their own expense and
    2-1  are not> entitled to reimbursement by the state for their actual
    2-2  transportation and lodging expenses related to participation in the
    2-3  commission's activities, provided funds are available for such
    2-4  reimbursement from gifts and grants received by the Central
    2-5  Education Agency.  The Central Education Agency may accept gifts
    2-6  and grants to provide the reimbursement under this subdivision.
    2-7  The agency shall deposit the gifts and grants in the state treasury
    2-8  to the credit of a special fund to be used only for reimbursement
    2-9  under this subdivision.  Representatives of a state agency shall be
   2-10  reimbursed from the funds of that agency.
   2-11              (6)  Unless continued in existence by further Acts of
   2-12  the Texas Legislature, the commission is abolished on September 1,
   2-13  1995 <1993>.
   2-14        SECTION 3.  Section 12.03, Education Code, is amended by
   2-15  adding Subsection (f) to read as follows:
   2-16        (f)  The State Board of Education is authorized to acquire,
   2-17  purchase, and contract for free ancillary and supplementary
   2-18  instructional materials for the education of blind and visually
   2-19  handicapped public school students whenever publishers provide such
   2-20  materials to school districts for use by sighted students at no
   2-21  charge to the districts.  The State Board of Education shall not
   2-22  require publishers to provide computer diskettes for ancillary or
   2-23  supplementary instructional materials.
   2-24        SECTION 4.  The importance of this legislation and the
   2-25  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
    3-1  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
    3-2  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
    3-3  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
    3-4  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
    3-5  passage, and it is so enacted.