HBA-TYH H.B. 3295 76(R)BILL ANALYSIS Office of House Bill AnalysisH.B. 3295 By: Goolsby Economic Development 7/22/1999 Enrolled BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Prior to the 76th Legislature, Section 132.201 (Certificate and Registration Fees), Education Code, authorized the Texas Workforce Commission (commission) to collect fees for the regulation of proprietary schools and stated that all fees, interests, or other charges collected were required to be used for the administration of the proprietary school program. However, in past fiscal years, the fees collected by the commission have exceeded the amount necessary to administer the school program. Section 132.241 (Tuition Protection Fund), Education Code, provided that proprietary schools pay a fee to the credit of the "tuition protection fund" when the school pays its annual renewal fee. These schools were then subject to an additional assessed fee during any given year if the balance of the tuition fund was below $200,000. H.B. 3295 allows the commission to transfer any excess fees collected for the administration of the school program to the tuition protection fund. The bill prohibits the balance of the fund to exceed $250,000. The bill also excludes certain schools from the definition of "proprietary schools." RULEMAKING AUTHORITY It is the opinion of the Office of House Bill Analysis that this bill does not expressly delegate any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency, or institution. SECTION BY SECTION ANALYSIS SECTION 1. Amends Section 132.002(a), Education Code, to exclude from the definition of "proprietary school," the following: _a school that offers intensive review of a student's acquired education, training, or experience to prepare the student for an examination, other than a high school equivalency examination, that the student by law may not take unless the student has completed or substantially completed a particular degree program, or that the student is required to take as a precondition for enrollment in or admission to a particular degree program; and _a course of instruction in the use of technological hardware or software if the course is offered to a purchaser of the hardware or software or to the purchaser's employee by a person who manufactures and sells, or develops and sells, the hardware or software, and if the seller is not primarily in the business of providing courses of instruction in the use of the hardware or software, as determined by the Texas Workforce Commission (commission). Deletes from the exclusion for the definition of "proprietary school" a school that offers intensive review courses designed to prepare students for certified public accountancy tests, public accountancy tests, law school aptitude tests, bar examinations, or medical college admissions tests. SECTION 2. Amends Section 132.241, Education Code, by adding Subsection (e), as follows: (e) Authorizes the commission, if at the end of a fiscal year the commission determines that it has collected fees in excess of the amount necessary to defray the cost and expense of administering this chapter (Proprietary Schools), to transfer any portion of the excess amount to the tuition protection fund. Prohibits the balance of the tuition protection fund from exceeding an amount greater than $250,000. SECTION 3. Effective date: September 1, 1999. SECTION 4. Emergency clause.