1-1 By: Pitts, Kamel (Senate Sponsor - Ratliff) H.B. No. 634 1-2 (In the Senate - Received from the House March 20, 1997; 1-3 March 24, 1997, read first time and referred to Committee on 1-4 Finance; April 25, 1997, reported favorably by the following vote: 1-5 Yeas 13, Nays 0; April 25, 1997, sent to printer.) 1-6 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED 1-7 AN ACT 1-8 relating to installment payments on a prepaid college tuition 1-9 contract. 1-10 BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS: 1-11 SECTION 1. Section 54.626(a), Education Code, is amended to 1-12 read as follows: 1-13 (a) The board may provide for the receipt of payments under 1-14 prepaid tuition contracts in lump sums or installment payments. If 1-15 the board allows payments under a contract to be made in 1-16 installments over a period longer than one year, it must provide 1-17 for those payments to be made in single annual installments in 1-18 addition to any other permitted installment plans. 1-19 SECTION 2. (a) The Prepaid Higher Education Tuition Board 1-20 shall begin offering single annual installment payment plans under 1-21 new prepaid tuition contracts as required by this Act not later 1-22 than January 1, 1998. 1-23 (b) The board shall permit a person making payments under a 1-24 prepaid tuition contract entered into before January 1, 1998, that 1-25 provides for installment payments to be made more frequently than 1-26 once each year to convert to single annual installment payments if 1-27 the person in writing so requests before January 1, 1999. In 1-28 converting a contract to provide for annual installment payments, 1-29 the board shall adjust the amount of each payment as necessary to 1-30 comply with Section 54.620(b), Education Code, taking into account 1-31 the different frequency with which the installment payments are to 1-32 be made. 1-33 SECTION 3. The importance of this legislation and the 1-34 crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an 1-35 emergency and an imperative public necessity that the 1-36 constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several 1-37 days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended, 1-38 and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its 1-39 passage, and it is so enacted. 1-40 * * * * *