1-1     By:  Noriega (Senate Sponsor - Gallegos)              H.B. No. 2260
 1-2           (In the Senate - Received from the House May 5, 1999;
 1-3     May 6, 1999, read first time and referred to Committee on
 1-4     Education; May 14, 1999, reported favorably by the following vote:
 1-5     Yeas 8, Nays 0; May 14, 1999, sent to printer.)
 1-6                            A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 1-7                                   AN ACT
 1-8     relating to contracts for the replacement or repair of public
 1-9     school equipment or public school facilities.
1-10           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
1-11           SECTION 1.  Section 44.031(h), Education Code, is amended to
1-12     read as follows:
1-13           (h)  If school equipment, a school facility, or a portion of
1-14     a school facility is destroyed, [or] severely damaged, or
1-15     experiences a major unforeseen operational or structural failure,
1-16     and the board of trustees determines that the delay posed by the
1-17     contract methods required by this section [competitive bidding
1-18     process] would prevent or substantially impair the conduct of
1-19     classes or other essential school activities, then contracts for
1-20     the replacement or repair of the equipment, school facility, or
1-21     portion of the school facility may be made by a method other than
1-22     the methods [without competitive bidding as otherwise] required by
1-23     this section.
1-24           SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
1-25     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
1-26     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
1-27     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
1-28     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
1-29     and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
1-30     passage, and it is so enacted.
1-31                                  * * * * *