Amend CSHB 149 (senate committee report) by adding the following appropriately numbered SECTION to the bill and renumbering subsequent SECTIONS of the bill accordingly:

SECTION ____.  (a)  Notwithstanding any other section of this Act, in a state fiscal year, a state agency to which this Act applies is not required to implement a provision found in another section of this Act that is drafted as a mandatory provision imposing a duty on the agency to take an action unless money is specifically appropriated to the agency for that fiscal year to carry out that duty.  The agency may implement the provision in that fiscal year to the extent other funding is available to the agency to do so.

(b)  If, as authorized by Subsection (a) of this section, the state agency does not implement the mandatory provision in a state fiscal year, the state agency, in its legislative budget request for the next state fiscal biennium, shall certify that fact to the Legislative Budget Board and include a written estimate of the costs of implementing the provision in each year of that next state fiscal biennium.