By Culberson H.B. No. 714 74R1483 ESH-D A BILL TO BE ENTITLED 1-1 AN ACT 1-2 relating to exempting a school district from the obligation to 1-3 comply with certain unfunded state educational mandates. 1-4 BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS: 1-5 SECTION 1. Subchapter Z, Chapter 21, Education Code, is 1-6 amended by adding Section 21.940 to read as follows: 1-7 Sec. 21.940. EXEMPTION FROM CERTAIN STATE EDUCATIONAL 1-8 MANDATES. (a) A school district is exempt from a state 1-9 educational mandate for which the legislature has not appropriated 1-10 funds estimated to be sufficient to meet the expenditure required 1-11 by the mandate at the time the mandate is effective unless the 1-12 legislature has determined that the mandate fulfills an important 1-13 state interest and: 1-14 (1) the expenditure is required to comply with a law 1-15 that applies to all persons similarly situated, including entities 1-16 other than a school district; or 1-17 (2) the mandate is necessary either to comply with 1-18 federal law or to meet eligibility standards for a federal 1-19 entitlement, and the federal law specifically contemplates action 1-20 by a district for compliance or eligibility. 1-21 (b) In this section, "state educational mandate" means a 1-22 statutory provision the implementation of which requires an 1-23 expenditure by a school district that would not have been required 1-24 in the absence of the statutory provision and rules adopted under 2-1 that provision. 2-2 SECTION 2. The importance of this legislation and the 2-3 crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an 2-4 emergency and an imperative public necessity that the 2-5 constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several 2-6 days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended, 2-7 and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its 2-8 passage, and it is so enacted.