By Chisum                                             H.B. No. 3133
         76R10141 CMR-F                           
                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 1-1                                   AN ACT
 1-2     relating to contracts and obligations of the Stratford Hospital
 1-3     District.
 1-4           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
 1-5           SECTION 1.  Section 10, Chapter 470, Acts of the 61st
 1-6     Legislature, Regular Session, 1969, is amended to read as follows:
 1-7           Sec. 10.  The board of directors of such district shall have
 1-8     the power to prescribe the method and manner of making purchases
 1-9     and expenditures by and for such hospital district, and shall also
1-10     be authorized to prescribe all accounting and control procedures.
1-11     All contracts for construction or purchases involving the
1-12     expenditure of more than $15,000 [$2,000] may be made only after
1-13     advertising in the manner provided by Chapter 252, Local Government
1-14     Code [Chapter 163, Acts of the 42nd Legislature, Regular Session,
1-15     1931, as amended (Article 2368a, Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes)].
1-16     The provisions of Chapter 2253, Government Code, [Article 5160,
1-17     Revised Civil Statutes of Texas, 1925, as amended] relating to
1-18     performance and payment bonds shall apply to construction contracts
1-19     let by the district.  The district may acquire equipment for use in
1-20     its hospital system and mortgage or pledge the property so acquired
1-21     as security for the payment of the purchase price, but any such
1-22     contract shall provide for the entire obligation of the district to
1-23     be retired within five years from the date of the contract.  Except
1-24     as permitted in the preceding sentence and as permitted by Sections
 2-1     7 and 8, the district may incur no obligation payable from any
 2-2     revenues of the district, taxes or otherwise except those on hand
 2-3     or to be on hand within the then current and following fiscal year
 2-4     of the district.
 2-5           SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1999.
 2-6           SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
 2-7     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
 2-8     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
 2-9     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
2-10     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.