By Hunter of Taylor                                    H.B. No. 495
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to abandoned personal property at private institutions of
    1-3  higher education.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  Section 51.213, Education Code, is amended to
    1-6  read as follows: (a.)  The governing board of each state
    1-7  institution of higher education, including public junior colleges,
    1-8  is authorized to promulgate rules and regulations providing for the
    1-9  disposition of abandoned and unclaimed personal property coming
   1-10  into the possession of the campus security personnel where the
   1-11  personal property is not being held as evidence to be used in any
   1-12  pending criminal case.
   1-13        (b)  The authority granted to governing boards under
   1-14  subsection (a) of this section may also be exercised by governing
   1-15  boards of private institutions of higher education as defined by
   1-16  Section 61.003(15) of this code.
   1-17        SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
   1-18  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   1-19  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   1-20  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   1-21  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
   1-22  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   1-23  passage, and it is so enacted.