74R10537 E
          By Thompson, et al.                                    H.B. No. 170
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to the requirement that certain child support payments be
    1-3  forwarded by electronic funds transfer.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Section 154.242(b), Family Code, as added by H.B.
    1-6  No. 655, Acts of the 74th Legislature, Regular Session, 1995, is
    1-7  amended to read as follows:
    1-8        (b)  A local registry may transmit child support payments to
    1-9  the Title IV-D agency by electronic funds transfer if the Title
   1-10  IV-D agency agrees to accept electronic payment. An obligor may
   1-11  make payments, with the approval of the court entering the order,
   1-12  directly to the bank account of the obligee by electronic transfer
   1-13  and provide verification of the deposit to the local registry.  A
   1-14  local registry in a county that makes deposits into personal bank
   1-15  accounts by electronic funds transfer as of April 1, 1995, shall
   1-16  transmit a child support payment to an obligee by electronic funds
   1-17  transfer if the obligee maintains a bank account.
   1-18        SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect January 1, 1996.
   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.