By Salinas, Cuellar                                   H.B. No. 1346
                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 1-1                                   AN ACT
 1-2     relating to the adoption of a junior college branch campus
 1-3     maintenance tax by certain counties.
 1-4           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
 1-5           SECTION 1.  Section 130.087(b), Education Code, is amended to
 1-6     read as follows:
 1-7           (b)  On presentation of a petition for an election to
 1-8     authorize a junior college district branch campus maintenance tax
 1-9     signed by not fewer than five percent of the qualified voters of
1-10     the jurisdiction in which the proposed tax is to be levied, the
1-11     governing body of the school district or county, as applicable,
1-12     shall determine the legality and the genuineness of the petition
1-13     and, if it is determined to be legal and genuine, forward the
1-14     petition to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board[, Texas
1-15     College  and University System].  The governing body of a county
1-16     with a population of 50,000 or less, on completion of a needs
1-17     assessment analysis showing adequate need and on approval by the
1-18     coordinating board, on its own motion and without the presentation
1-19     of a petition, may propose an election to authorize a branch campus
1-20     maintenance tax.
1-21           SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
1-22     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
1-23     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
1-24     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
 2-1     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
 2-2     and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
 2-3     passage, and it is so enacted.