1-1     By:  Chisum (Senate Sponsor - Bivins)                 H.B. No. 3133
 1-2           (In the Senate - Received from the House April 19, 1999;
 1-3     April 20, 1999, read first time and referred to Committee on
 1-4     Intergovernmental Relations; May 6, 1999, reported favorably by the
 1-5     following vote:  Yeas 5, Nays 0; May 6, 1999, sent to printer.)
 1-6                            A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 1-7                                   AN ACT
 1-8     relating to contracts and obligations of the Stratford Hospital
 1-9     District.
1-10           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
1-11           SECTION 1.  Section 10, Chapter 470, Acts of the 61st
1-12     Legislature, Regular Session, 1969, is amended to read as follows:
1-13           Sec. 10.  The board of directors of such district shall have
1-14     the power to prescribe the method and manner of making purchases
1-15     and expenditures by and for such hospital district, and shall also
1-16     be authorized to prescribe all accounting and control procedures.
1-17     All contracts for construction or purchases involving the
1-18     expenditure of more than $15,000 [$2,000] may be made only after
1-19     advertising in the manner provided by Chapter 252, Local Government
1-20     Code [Chapter 163, Acts of the 42nd Legislature, Regular Session,
1-21     1931, as amended (Article 2368a, Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes)].
1-22     The provisions of Chapter 2253, Government Code, [Article 5160,
1-23     Revised Civil Statutes of Texas, 1925, as amended] relating to
1-24     performance and payment bonds shall apply to construction contracts
1-25     let by the district.  The district may acquire equipment for use in
1-26     its hospital system and mortgage or pledge the property so acquired
1-27     as security for the payment of the purchase price, but any such
1-28     contract shall provide for the entire obligation of the district to
1-29     be retired within five years from the date of the contract.  Except
1-30     as permitted in the preceding sentence and as permitted by Sections
1-31     7 and 8, the district may incur no obligation payable from any
1-32     revenues of the district, taxes or otherwise except those on hand
1-33     or to be on hand within the then current and following fiscal year
1-34     of the district.
1-35           SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1999.
1-36           SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
1-37     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
1-38     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
1-39     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
1-40     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.
1-41                                  * * * * *