By Naishtat                                           H.B. No. 3629
         76R8516 KKA-D                           
                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 1-1                                   AN ACT
 1-2     relating to minimum salaries for interpreters employed in public
 1-3     schools to provide interpreting services to students who are deaf
 1-4     or hard of hearing.
 1-5           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
 1-6           SECTION 1.  Subchapter A, Chapter 22, Education Code, is
 1-7     amended by adding Section 22.006 to read as follows:
 1-8           Sec. 22.006.  MINIMUM SALARY FOR INTERPRETERS.  (a)  Except
 1-9     as provided by Subsection (b), a school district shall pay each
1-10     interpreter employed by the district to provide interpreting
1-11     services to district students who are deaf or hard of hearing a
1-12     monthly salary equal to not less than the following percentage of
1-13     the minimum monthly salary required under Section 21.402 to be paid
1-14     to a classroom teacher or full-time librarian with no experience,
1-15     as appropriate based on the interpreter's level of certification:
1-16     LEVEL OF CERTIFICATION               PERCENTAGE OF TEACHER'S OR
1-17                                              LIBRARIAN'S SALARY
1-18     No certification                             60 percent
1-19     Level I                                      71 percent
1-20     Level II                                     77 percent
1-21     Level III                                    83 percent
1-22     Level IV                                     88 percent
1-23     Level V                                      95 percent
1-24           (b)  The minimum monthly salary required under Subsection (a)
 2-1     is based on employment of an interpreter under a 10-month contract
 2-2     under which the interpreter provides the number of days of service
 2-3     required to be provided by an educator under Section 21.401.  A
 2-4     school district shall pay an interpreter employed under a different
 2-5     arrangement an adjusted salary that proportionately reflects the
 2-6     different number of days of service provided by the interpreter.
 2-7           (c)  In this section, an interpreter's level of certification
 2-8     is determined according to the level of the interpreter's
 2-9     certification issued by the Board for Evaluation of Interpreters or
2-10     the Texas Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing or other
2-11     comparable certification approved by the commission.
2-12           SECTION 2.  This Act applies beginning with the 1999-2000
2-13     school year.
2-14           SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
2-15     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
2-16     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
2-17     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
2-18     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
2-19     and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
2-20     passage, and it is so enacted.