By Noriega                                            H.B. No. 2260
         76R6784 BDH-F                           
                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 1-1                                   AN ACT
 1-2     relating to contracts for the replacement or repair of public
 1-3     school equipment or portions of public school facilities.
 1-4           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
 1-5           SECTION 1.  Section 44.031(h), Education Code, is amended to
 1-6     read as follows:
 1-7           (h)  If school equipment or a portion of a school facility is
 1-8     destroyed, [or] severely damaged, or experiences a major unforeseen
 1-9     operational or structural failure, and the board of trustees
1-10     determines that the delay posed by the contract methods required by
1-11     this section [competitive bidding process] would prevent or
1-12     substantially impair the conduct of classes or other essential
1-13     school activities, then contracts for the replacement or repair of
1-14     the equipment or portion of the school facility may be made by a
1-15     method other  than the methods [without competitive bidding as
1-16     otherwise] required by this section.
1-17           SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
1-18     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
1-19     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
1-20     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
1-21     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
1-22     and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
1-23     passage, and it is so enacted.