SBW H.B. 8 75(R)BILL ANALYSIS PENSIONS & INVESTMENTS H.B. 8 By: Stiles 3-5-97 Committee Report (Amended) BACKGROUND The 74th Legislature created the Texas Tomorrow Fund, which is a prepaid higher education tuition program. This program allows the purchaser to enter a contract to prepay the tuition and fees for the purchaser's beneficiary to attend a public institution of higher education. The fund assets are not currently guaranteed by the state constitution. Other investment funds that are guaranteed are the Employee Retirement System, Teacher Retirement System, Permanent University Fund and the Permanent School Fund. PURPOSE This constitutional amendment would extend the stat's full faith and credit to the Texas Tomorrow Fund. RULEMAKING AUTHORITY It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly grant any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency or institution. SECTION BY SECTION ANALYSIS SECTION 1. Amends Section 54.619(g), Education Code to provide that in any given fiscal year money to pay tuition and fees of a higher institution of learning of a beneficiary will be paid by the comptroller by transferring the first money coming into the state treasury to the fund if there is not enough in the fund to pay. SECTION 2. Effective date takes place on the date that constitutional amendment proposed by __ J.R. No.__ takes effect. If the voters do not approve the amendment, the Act has no effect. SECTION 3. Emergency Clause. EXPLANATION OF AMENDMENTS For clarity, the committee adopted Committee Amendment 1 to state that in SECTION 2, the constitutional amendment referred to is HJR 8 replacing the blanks in the bill.