By Counts, et al.                                     H.B. No. 1782

         75R6945 GJH-F                           

                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED

 1-1                                   AN ACT

 1-2     relating to professional services in regard to certain state and

 1-3     local contracts and fund management.

 1-4           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:

 1-5           SECTION 1.  Section 2254.002(2), Government Code, is amended

 1-6     to read as follows:

 1-7                 (2)  "Professional services" means services:

 1-8                       (A)  within the scope of the practice, as defined

 1-9     by state law, of:

1-10                             (i)  accounting;

1-11                             (ii)  architecture;

1-12                             (iii)  land surveying;

1-13                             (iv)  medicine;

1-14                             (v)  optometry;  [or]

1-15                             (vi)  professional engineering; or

1-16                             (vii)  real estate appraising; or

1-17                       (B)  provided in connection with the professional

1-18     employment or practice of a person who is licensed as:

1-19                             (i)  a certified public accountant;

1-20                             (ii)  an architect;

1-21                             (iii)  a land surveyor;

1-22                             (iv)  a physician, including a surgeon;

1-23                             (v)  an optometrist;  [or]

1-24                             (vi)  a professional engineer; or

 2-1                             (vii)  a state certified or state licensed

 2-2     real estate appraiser.

 2-3           SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1997.

 2-4           SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the

 2-5     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an

 2-6     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the

 2-7     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several

 2-8     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.