| TO: | Honorable John Carona, Chair, Senate Committee on Transportation & Homeland Security |
| FROM: | John S. O'Brien, Director, Legislative Budget Board |
| IN RE: | SB1077 by Carona (Relating to driver education and driver's licensing requirements for minors.), Committee Report 1st House, Substituted |
The bill would require all school districts to consider offering driver education and traffic safety courses each year. The bill states if the district offers the course, they may conduct the course and charge a fee for the course or contract with a driver education school that holds a license to conduct the course. The bill directs the Commissioner of Education to establish or approve standard minimum number of actual driving hours required in the curriculum. The bill also provides process and procedures for when a provisional license expires. The bill states that the fee for issuance of a provisional license is $15 per permit. The bill would take effect on September 1, 2009.
The Texas Education Agency estimates that 2.0 FTEs would be required to conduct training and compliance monitoring for new driver education programs resulting from the provisions of the bill.
The bill would require the Department of Public Safety to publish collision rate statistics regarding the students trained by each driver education program and would restrict the ability of persons with certain traffic violations from serving either as certified instructors or from conducting a "Parent-taught" course. The bill changes the fee for issuance of a provisional license to $15 per permit verses current law that states a $5 fee for issuance or renewal of a provisional license. DPS states these bill provisions would be revenue neutral since current law charges $5 per year for either an issuance or renewal up to three years maximum. The provisions state only one issuance fee of $15 with no renewal requirement which leaves the state collecting the same amount of revenue as the currently collect. This analysis assumes no significant fiscal impact to DPS.
| Source Agencies: | 304 Comptroller of Public Accounts, 405 Department of Public Safety, 701 Central Education Agency
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| LBB Staff: | JOB, KJG, GG, LG, JSp, JSc
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