BILL ANALYSIS

S.B. 1457

By: Duncan

State Affairs

Committee Report (Unamended)

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

The Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired and the Texas School for the Deaf  provide educational services to blind and visually impaired students in Texas and to students who are deaf or hard of hearing and who may have additional disabilities, respectively.  Currently, the schools provide for the maintenance of their facilities but interested parties contend that the schools should focus on educational needs and that the Texas Facilities Commission, an agency that maintains other state facilities in Austin, should provide these services to the schools.  S.B. 1457 seeks to transfer management services for the physical facilities of the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired and the Texas School for the Deaf to the Texas Facilities Commission.

RULEMAKING AUTHORITY

It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly grant any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency, or institution.

ANALYSIS

S.B. 1457 amends the Education Code to require the Texas Facilities Commission (TFC) to provide facilities maintenance services for the physical facilities of the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired and the Texas School for the Deaf, including facilities construction, cabling, facility reconfiguration, and any other services as provided by separate memoranda of understanding between the TFC and the boards of each school.

S.B. 1457 amends the Government Code to make statutory provisions relating to certain state facilities for which the TFC has a statutory duty to provide facilities management services inapplicable to facilities owned or operated by the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired or the Texas School for the Deaf.

S.B. 1457 transfers, not later than January 1, 2014, from the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired and the Texas School for the Deaf to the TFC the following: powers, duties, functions, programs, and activities of those schools relating to the maintenance of the schools' physical facilities; any obligations and contracts of the schools that are directly related to implementing such a transferred power, duty, function, program, or activity; and all property and records in the custody of the schools that are related to such a transferred power, duty, function, program, or activity and all funds appropriated by the legislature for that power, duty, function, program, or activity. The bill requires the TFC to enter into a separate memorandum of understanding with each school that identifies in detail the applicable powers and duties that are transferred between the agencies and that establishes a plan for the identification and transfer of the records, personnel, property, and unspent appropriations of the respective school that are used for purposes of TFC powers and duties directly related to the maintenance of the schools' physical facilities.

EFFECTIVE DATE

September 1, 2013.