Senate Transcript, May 29, 2011

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Senate will come to order. The secretary will call the roll.

PATSY SPAW: Birdwell, Carona, Davis, Deuell, Duncan, Ellis, Eltife, Estes, Fraser, Gallegos, Harris, Hegar, Hinojosa, Huffman, Jackson, Lucio, Nelson, Nichols, Ogden, Patrick, Rodriguez, Seliger, Shapiro, Uresti, Van de Putte, Watson, Wentworth, West, Whitmire, Williams, Zaffirini.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: A quorum is present. All on the floor and in the gallery please rise for the invocation to be delivered by Bishop Lawrence Wilkerson, Agafe Ministries of Austin.

PASTOR: Bow our heads. Almighty God, we pray that You bless these proceedings with Your presence, we pray for Your precious glory and your heavenly power to fill this room. Please empower and anoint everyone here today with a supernatural ability to govern the affairs of this great state of Texas. Help them to meet the needs of all the people of this state. Glorious God, please do something special here today that will create a ripple effect that will positively affect this state and this nation in years to come. God bless here today. Bless everyone here today. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Thank you, Bishop. Those in the gallery may be seated. Members, Senator Whitmire moves to dispense with the reading of yesterday's journal. Is there objection? The Chair hears none, so ordered. Mr. Doorkeeper.

MR. DOORKEEPER: Mr. President, there's a message from the House.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Admit the messenger.

MESSENGER: Mr. President, I am directed by the House to inform the Senate that the House has taken the following action, the House has passed following measures, HR168 by Miller --

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: The Chair announces the signing of the following in the presence of the Senate.

PATSY SPAW: Senate Bill 1178, Senate Bill 1185, Senate Bill 1196, Senate Bill 1209, Senate Bill 1216, Senate Bill 1233, Senate Bill 1251, Senate Bill 1271, Senate Bill 1449, Senate Bill 1551, Senate Bill 1605, Senate Bill 1637, Senate Bill 1649, Senate Bill 1732, Senate Bill 1920, Senate Bill 1796, House Bill 1046, House Bill 1071, House Bill 1080, House Bill 1113, House Bill 1528, House Bill 1568, House Bill 1622, House Bill 1756, House Bill 1757, House Bill 1758, House Bill 1797, House Bill 1822, House Bill 1844, House Bill 2047, House Bill 2096, House Bill 2194, House Bill 2193, House Bill 2238, House Bill 2964, House Bill 2784, House Bill 2819, House Bill 2972, House Bill 3085, House Bill 3116, House Bill 3324, House Bill 3421, House Bill 3422, HCR115, HCR165, Senate Bill 5, Senate Bill 49, Senate Bill 71, Senate Bill 78, Senate Bill 209, Senate Bill 222, Senate Bill 303, Senate Bill 321, Senate Bill 322, Senate Bill 391, Senate Bill 407, Senate Bill 480, Senate Bill 498, Senate Bill 502, Senate Bill 573, Senate Bill 594, Senate Bill 629, Senate Bill 663, Senate Bill 731, Senate Bill 760, Senate Bill 736, Senate Bill 809, Senate Bill 844, Senate Bill 859, Senate Bill 924, Senate Bill 942, Senate Bill 943, Senate Bill 978, Senate Bill 981, Senate Bill 988, Senate Bill 993, Senate Bill 1,003, Senate Bill 1035, Senate Bill 1048, Senate Bill 1094.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Chair recognizes Senator Hinojosa for a motion on the conference committee report for House Bill 2608.

SENATOR JUAN HINOJOSA: Thank you, Mr. President and members. I move that we adopt the conference committee report on House Bill 2660. This is the Texas Department of Community and House Affairs --

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Senator Hinojosa, you were recognized on 2608.

SENATOR JUAN HINOJOSA: 2608?

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Correct. Yes, sir.

SENATOR JUAN HINOJOSA: I was reading from the wrong heading, Mr. President, but I got it now.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: All right. Chair recognizes Senator Hinojosa for a motion on conference committee report on House Bill 2608.

SENATOR JUAN HINOJOSA: Thank you, Mr. President and members. I move that we adopt the conference committee report on House Bill 2608. This is the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs. And members, let me explain what happened in the conference committee. There was an issue dealing with the letters that provided to housing groups who wanted to construct houses, the Senate wanted those letters eliminated in term of being given credit. Those letters are out for senators, the House letters remain in place for the House Representatives. We also have letters from neighborhood organizations, went with the sunset recommendation to have a resolution city council or county commissioner's court in trying to recommend and help out with housing authority groups. We also did away with the administering and housing education requirements, they remain the same as in the original bill. We also moved homeless housing facility programs section from the committee substitute. The House added a provision dealing with the long-term discovery -- long-term disaster recovery plan, the language determines the intent of the long-term success recovery program required by the bill should not create a public or private cause of action. Unless there's any questions, Mr. President, I would move adoption.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Senator Hinojosa moves adoption of the conference committee report on House Bill 2608. The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: 31 ayes, zero nays, the conference committee report is adopted.

SENATOR JUAN HINOJOSA: Thank you, Mr. President.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: The Chair lays out the following resolution. Secretary will read the resolution.

PATSY SPAW: Senate Resolution 1248 by Huffman suspending limitation on conference committee jurisdiction on House Bill 2605.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Chair recognizes Senator Huffman to explain the resolution.

SENATOR JOAN HUFFMAN: Thank you, members. SR1248 is the outside the bounds resolution for the conference committee on House Bill 2605 which is the sunset bill for the division of worker's compensation. The conference committee needed to make non substantive technical corrections to the bill. The Senate adopted a provision on the floor that has duplicative conflicting language to another section of the bill dealing with medical necessity disputes to employees of political subdivisions. The conference committee will remove that conflicting language. I move adoption.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: The question on adoption of Senate Resolution 1248. The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: 31 ayes, zero nays, the resolution is adopted. Thank you, Senator Huffman. The Chair recognizes Senator Huffman for a motion on the conference committee report for House Bill 2605.

SENATOR JOAN HUFFMAN: Thank you, Mr. President. Members, this is the conference committee report to House Bill 2605, which is the sunset bill for divisions of worker's compensation. The conference committee made only two changes to the version of the bill passed by the Senate last week. First the conference committee removed the provision that clarified that if an employee opts out of traditional workers comp and opts into an alternative benefit plan offered by the employer, the employer must adhere to nonsubscription requirements. This provision was substantially similar to SB1714 by Senator Duncan which passed both chambers and was signed in the House on May 27th. The House parliamentarian suggested that this language was not germane to the bill. The conference committee also made a technical change to the correct -- two correct duplicative language dealing with medical necessity disputes involving employees of political subdivisions. I move adoption of the conference committee report to House Bill 2605.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: 31 ayes, zero nays, the conference committee report is adopted.

SENATOR JOAN HUFFMAN: Thank you, Mr. President.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: The Chair recognizes Senator Duncan on a motion for the conference committee report for Senate Bill 1664.

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: Thank you, Mr. President and members. This Senate Bill 1664 is what we call the omnibus ERS bill. We do this every session to deal with an issue to either make appropriations decisions or problems that occur during the interim. The conference committee report before you is substantially similar to what we passed in the Senate with a couple of changes. We retained a House amendment that extended when the ERS reports member data to the comptroller for cross referencing to the unclaimed property database annually from every five years. The conference committee report also retains a provision to deposit funds from the operators and (inaudible) fund to the credit of law enforcement and custodial officer or we call it LEKO's retirement fund beginning in 2014. The conference committee report also contains a provision regarding the eligibility for retirement benefits for certain ERS retirees. With that explanation, unless there are any questions, I move that we adopt the conference committee report for Senate Bill 1664.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: 31 ayes, zero nays, the conference committee report is adopted. Thank you, Senator. Senator Duncan is recognized for a motion on the conference committee report for House Bill 2817.

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: Thank you, Mr. President and members. This bill is the secretary of state's election cleanup bill. The conference committee report reflects the Senate version of the bill with two additions from the House version. In section two the election code is amended adding a provision preventing a person who has been convicted of identity theft from being appointed from being volunteer deputy registrar. In section 14 we opted for the House version of the language allowing a person to fax in their application for a mail in-ballot to the clerk. With that explanation, I move adoption of the conference committee report for House Bill 2817.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: : 31 ayes, zero nays, the conference committee report is adopted. Chair lays out the following resolution by Wentworth. Secretary will read the resolution.

PATSY SPAW: Senate Resolution 1252 by Wentworth suspending limitation on conference committee jurisdiction on House Bill 2327.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Chair recognizes Senator Wentworth to explain the resolution.

SENATOR JEFF WENTWORTH: Mr. President, I move that we adopt this resolution allowing the conference committee to go outside the bounds. The only thing we did was add about six words, and with the effective participation of, that's the only thing we added that permits local metropolitan grant transit authorities, county transportation authorities, municipal authorities to transit departments to decide whether or not they want to participate, so it's totally permissive in this motor bus only shoulder lane. I move adoption of SR1252.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: The question is on the adoption of Senate Resolution 1252. The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: There being 30 ayes and one nay, the resolution is adopted. Chair recognizes Senator Wentworth for a motion on the conference committee report for House Bill 2327.

SENATOR JEFF WENTWORTH: Mr. President, I move that we adopt the committee -- conference committee report on House Bill 2327. I outlined what we did before. This is the motor bus only lane, it affects only four of the 254 counties: Bexar, Travis, Tarrant, and El Paso and it gives permission to these local transit authorities to decide whether or not they want to participate. I move adoption.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Senator Wentworth moves adoption of conference committee report to House Bill 2327. The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: There being 28 ayes and three nays, the conference committee report is adopted. Chair recognizes Senator Seliger for a motion on the conference committee report on House Bill 3109.

SENATOR KEL SELIGER: Thank you, Mr. President. This conference committee report essentially restored the bill to the House engrossed version. The only change is the elimination of the floor of the population bracket restoring to current law and only up stating a population ceiling based on the 2010 census numbers and therefore I move adoption of the conference committee report to House Bill 3109.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: 31 ayes, zero nays, House Bill -- the conference committee report on House Bill 3109 is adopted. Thank you, Senator.

SENATOR KEL SELIGER: Thank you, Mr. President.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: The Chair recognizes Senator Carona for a motion on conference committee report on House Bill 2226.

SENATOR JOHN CARONA: Thank you, Mr. President. House Bill 2226, members, updates the Public Funds Investment Act and it makes the act more reflective of the changes in the investment security today to both increased transparency and disclosure in the investment of public funds. The House author was concerned that the amendment which allowed the Department of Agriculture to solicit programs for economic development programs. One of two amendments added here on the Senate side would actually void the two subject rule and requested to remove the amendment. We did this, and I move to adopt the conference committee report now on House Bill 2226.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: 31 ayes, zero nays, the conference committee report on House Bill 2226 is adopted. Chair recognizes Senator Wentworth for a motion on the conference committee report for Senate Bill 1543.

SENATOR JEFF WENTWORTH: Thank you, Mr. President. I move adoption of the conference committee report on Senate Bill 1543. Mr. President and members, the House amendments to Senate Bill 1543 and you may remember this was the bill that allows independent school districts to take advantage of the same option that institutions of higher education already hae and that is to invest in corporate bonds. The House amendments to that bill removes several of the safety provisions that we had, so the conference committee report adds s back in the following three safeguards. No. 1, it added senior secured by into the definition of the type of bond the school district can purchase. No. 2 it added back in the school district identified the funds eligible to be invested in corporate bonds; and third and last, it added back in the restriction that corporate bonds are not ineligible for investment corporate pool. And I'd like to thank -- I don't her on the floor right this minute, but I'd like thank Senator Davis for her help in reaching this consensus in the conference committee report. Mr. President, I move adoption of the conference committee report for Senate Bill 1543.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: 31 ayes, zero nays, the conference committee report on Senate Bill 1543 is adopted.

SENATOR JEFF WENTWORTH: Thank you, Mr. President and thank you members.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Chair recognizes Senator Nelson for a motion on the conference committee report to House Bill 300.

SENATOR JANE NELSON: Thank you, Mr. President and members. House Bill 300 ensures that Texans' confidential health information is protected against health fraud and theft. The conference committee report changes the word permitted to authorized to address a concern raised by the bill's author. I move to adopt the conference committee report on House Bill 300.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: 31 ayes, zero nays, the conference committee report on House Bill 300 is adopted. Chair recognizes Senator Williams for a motion on the conference committee report on House Bill 2357.

SENATOR TOMMY WILLIAMS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman -- Mr. President and members. I'm going to move to adopt the conference committee report on House Bill 2357. The conference committee report modernizes the motor vehicle statutes that have become outdated with regard to automation of systems and payments and it adds new language to create an expiration date of August 31st, 2014, for section 304.85A of the transportation code and it makes it permissive for the Department of Motor Vehicles to enter into a contract with a vendor. The conference committee report also removes an amendment which allowed the Department of Public Safety to establish southbound checkpoints. The House parliamentarian to everyone's surprise determined that that amendment was not germane because it was a Senate amendment. So with that I would move to adopt the conference committee report to House Bill 2357.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Senator Williams moves the adoption of the conference committee report on House Bill 2357. The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: : There being 31 ayes, no nays, the conference committee report for House Bill 2357 is adopted.

SENATOR TOMMY WILLIAMS: Thank you, Mr. President, thank you members.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Chair recognizes Senator Carona for a motion on the conference committee report on House Bill 2490.

SENATOR JOHN CARONA: Thank you, Mr. President. Among other things, this House version of 2490 requires a person engaging in the business of purchasing and selling crafted and precious metals to a dealer's license. The conference committee report keeps this registration system that we created in the Senate and it also adds back certain provisions that were passed out of the Senate. It also -- and in no way conflicts with the terms and provisions of another bill that passed at the same time, that of my colleague Senator Harris, we were very careful to ensure what had been added back in no way conflicted. So the two bills operate in harmony and I move that we adopt the conference committee report to House Bill 2490.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: 31 ayes, zero nays, the conference committee report for House Bill 2490 is adopted. Thank you, Senator. The Chair recognizes Senator Watson for a motion on the conference committee report for Senate Bill 293.

SENATOR KEL SELIGER: Thank you, Mr. President. Members, this is the bill which Senator Nelson and I co-authored which the Senate passed unanimously to expand the use of home telemonitoring for certain Medicaid recipients living with chronic diseases. The conference committee report corrects an amendment in Senate Bill 293 which would have resulted in the expiration of the existing telemedicine and telehealth programs that were cost effective for years. The conference report ensures that the sunset provision applies only to the telemonitoring provision as was entered by the House. I move adoption.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Senator Watson moves adoption of the conference committee report for Senate Bill 293. The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Being 31 ayes, zero nays, the conference committee report adopted. The Chair recognizes Senator Shapiro for a motion on the conference committee report for House Bill 2380.

SENATOR FLORENCE SHAPIRO: Thank you, Mr. President and members. I move to adopt the conference committee report on House Bill 2380. This amends the education code so that school districts can place an individual assigned to a new professional capacity as a probationary contract. On the Senate floor we added an amendment that created a new three year provisional certificate for beginning teachers which also details what certifications may or may not receive probationary contracts. The House determined that this amendment was not germane, seems to be a very frequent occurrence on the other side and we made the decision to remove the professional certificate amendment. You surprised, Senator West? Not at all. I move adoption of the conference committee report on House Bill 2380 at this time reluctantly.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: 31 reluctant ayes, zero nays, the conference committee report on House Bill 2380 adopted.

SENATOR FLORENCE SHAPIRO: Thank you.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: : The Chair recognizes Senator Zaffirini for a conference committee report on Senate Bill 28.

SENATOR JUDITH ZAFFIRINI: Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President and members, I move that the Senate adopt the conference committee report for Senate Bill 28. The conference committee agreed to remove a House amendment that would have changed the distribution of Texas grants and accepted the House amendment providing priority status for students who wouldn't have otherwise been priority eligible but for a lack of adequate state funding and accepted the House amendment requiring the coordinating board to conduct annual studies regarding the annual Texas grants. I move adoption.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Senator Zaffirini moves adoption of the conference committee report for Senate Bill 28. The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: 31 ayes, zero nays, the conference committee report is adopted. Thank you, Senator.

SENATOR JUDITH ZAFFIRINI: Thank you, Mr. President and members.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: The Chair recognizes Senator -- the secretary will read the resolution by Jackson.

PATSY SPAW: Senate Resolution 1256 by Jackson suspending limitation on conference committee jurisdiction on House Bill 2457.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Chair recognizes Senator Jackson to explain the resolution.

SENATOR MIKE JACKSON: Thank you, Mr. President and members. This resolution allows for additional language to be added to the financial statement disclosure section of the bill. Based on recommendations made by the state auditors office, House Bill 2547 adds new requirement for the emerging tech advisory commission to file individual financial statements with the office of the governor. The new language in the bill will assist the governor's office with handling records and protecting personal information. I move adoption of the resolution.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: All right. The question is on the adoption of the resolution, Senate Resolution 1256. The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: 31 ayes, zero nays, the resolution is adopted. The Chair recognizes Senator Jackson for a motion on the conference committee report on House Bill 2457.

SENATOR MIKE JACKSON: Thank you, Mr. President. This is one we use adopted the resolution for on out of the bounds, it deals with emerging tech fund enterprise fund it's the omnibus bill that puts a lot more sunshine into the whole process. I would move adoption.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Senator Jackson moves adoption of the conference committee report on House Bill 2457. The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: There being 30 ayes and one nay, the conference committee report for House Bill 2457 is adopted. The Chair recognizes Senator Zaffirini for a motion on the conference committee report to House Bill 3025.

SENATOR JUDITH ZAFFIRINI: Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President and members, I move that the Senate adopt the conference committee report related to House Bill 3025 which relates to measures to facilitate the timely degree of students of public institutions of higher education. In conference we struck a Senate amendment because it was not germane and other than that I believe that the bill is similar to what we passed in the Senate. Accordingly I move adoption of the -- oh, it includes Senator Patrick's floor amendment related to reverse transfers, that was one of our sticking points. I move to adopt the conference committee report.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: All right. Senator Zaffirini moves the adoption of conference committee report on House Bill 3025. The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: 31 ayes, zero nays, the conference committee report is adopted.

SENATOR JUDITH ZAFFIRINI: Thank you, Mr. President and members.

SENATOR DAVID DEWHURST: Members, the Chair lays out the following resolution. Secretary will read the resolution. Senate Resolution No. 1249.

PATSY SPAW: Senate Resolution 1249 by Van de Putte suspending the limitation on conference committee jurisdictions on Senate Bill 100.

SENATOR DAVID DEWHURST: The Chair recognizes Senator Van de Putte to explain the resolution.

SENATOR LETICIA VAN DE PUTTE: Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President and members, Senate Resolution 1249 is an out of bounds resolution on SB100 the Move Act. Members, if you remember correctly, when we were uncertain as to progression of Senate Bill 100 and how it was going to finally be addressed in the House, as a way to make sure that we would pass this very important bill, we added it on to Representative Torres' bill here. But when we did that, we took a few amendments that were very important to members on this floor. The first one was that Senator Shapiro brought forth which ensured that school board trustees can have staggered terms, also that home rule cities can adopt a resolution to have those staggered terms. The third change was Senator Watson's allowing the city of Austin to move their city elections to November as they have them in May now. So this resolution takes into those three changes that were put on as amendments on this floor when we thought we might have to use the House Bill for a vehicle. Therefore, with that explanation, members, I move to adopt Senate Resolution 1249 suspending the limitations on the conference committee jurisdiction report of SB100 known as the Move Act.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Senator Watson for what purpose do ow rise?

SENATOR KIRK WATSON: I have a question of Senator Van de Putte.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Will Senator Van de Putte yield?

SENATOR LETICIA VAN DE PUTTE: I yield, sir.

SENATOR KIRK WATSON: And I know you just laid this out but I must admit I didn't understand. I am looking at page one line 16, can you explain again the change that superceded the city charter provision? I just want to make sure what you said about that. Yes. The first change that is on line 16 subsection C makes sure that home rule cities can adopt a resolution that supercedes charty provisions that requires staggered terms, that's only with regard to staggered terms. But if you look at page -- let's see, look on the second page.

SENATOR LETICIA VAN DE PUTTE: If you look over there that the -- they have language on the second page that was actually your amendment to allow the city of Austin to move their city election.

SENATOR KIRK WATSON: I understood that. I'm just trying to make sure I understand the staggered. What -- the city itself that would supercede the city charter provision?

SENATOR LETICIA VAN DE PUTTE: That's correct, because for -- they may not be able to have a charter revision in time --

SENATOR KIRK WATSON: I see what you're saying, I now understand.

SENATOR LETICIA VAN DE PUTTE: Because they're moving from a May to November and if they do they can go back and correct their charter but some of them have to do it for the November election.

SENATOR KIRK WATSON: I understand what you're doing. Thank you.

SENATOR LETICIA VAN DE PUTTE: That's correct.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Senator Shapiro for what purpose do you rise, ma'am?

SENATOR FLORENCE SHAPIRO: To ask the author a question.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Will Senator Van de Putte yield?

SENATOR LETICIA VAN DE PUTTE: I yield.

SENATOR FLORENCE SHAPIRO: Senator Van de Putte, I just wanted to clarify, we put an amendment on the bill about the school boards and having staggered terms, this doesn't affect that in any way does it?

SENATOR LETICIA VAN DE PUTTE: Actually the resolution 1249 has your amendment in it. That is the out of bounds resolution. We put those amendments on Representative Torres' bill, we laid on SB100. At the time we didn't know that SB100 was going to be passed completely out of the House and so to make sure what the senators put on the SB100 over here matched over there, so it has both the staggered terms for school board members, staggered terms for home rule cities and also Senator Watson's amendment on the city of Austin.

SENATOR FLORENCE SHAPIRO: And thank you for doing that for the school.

SENATOR LETICIA VAN DE PUTTE: Thank you, it has been a great change, great amendment.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Members, the question before us is the adoption of the out of bounds resolution. Is there any objection from any member? The Chair hears -- I'm sorry. The secretary will call the roll.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: There being ayes, zero nays, the resolution is adopted. The Chair recognizes Senator Van de Putte for a motion on the conference committee report for Senate Bill 100.

SENATOR LETICIA VAN DE PUTTE: Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President and members, I move that we adopt the conference committee report on Senate Bill 100. Members, this is the Military Overseas Voters Empowerment Act or known as the Move Compact. With that we are complying to make sure that our military voters have the 45 day transmittal of ballot requirements both for any primary and general election. I want to thank the members particularly of the state affairs committee who worked on this for a period of about six weeks and made sure we adhered to three things. First, the priority was to make sure that we complied and that gave every opportunity for our military voters to participate in voting. The second thing is we wanted to make sure that our constituents and the folks in Texas would not necessarily be so confused by the amount of change and the third goal that we met was to make sure that we did it in the most cost effective manner and not to add cost to our elections. Members, I bring to you today a conference committee report that brings to you all three objectives. With that, I bring to you the conference committee report on Senate Bill 100.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Thank you, Senator Van de Putte. Members, you heard the motion by Senator Van de Putte. The secretary will call the roll.

REPRESENTATIVE DAVID DEWHURST: There being 31 ayes, no nays, the conference committee report on Senate Bill 100 is adopted.

SENATOR LETICIA VAN DE PUTTE: Thank you, Mr. President, thank you members.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Thank you, Senator. The Chair recognizes Senator Ellis for a motion on the conference committee report on Senate Bill 1103. 1103.

SENATOR RODNEY ELLIS: Thank you, Mr. President. And I think it's actually House Bill 1103. Let's see when it goes up. It is House Bill 1103.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Senator Ellis, I stand corrected. You're right. It is House Bill 1103.

SENATOR RODNEY ELLIS: Thank you, Mr. President. This bill would allow judges to require persons granted community supervision by animal cruelty offenses to attend a responsible pet owner course sponsored by a local animal shelter. The conference committee report has removed the provisions creating the animal cruelty registry which was added at the behest of Dean Whitmire. Sorry about that. I move to adopt the conference committee report on House Bill 1103.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Members, the issue before us is the adoption of the conference committee report on House Bill 1103. The secretary will call the roll.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: There being ayes, zero nays, the conference committee report on House Bill 1103 is adopted.

SENATOR RODNEY ELLIS: Thank you.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: The Chair recognizes Senator Lucio for a motion to adopt the conference committee report for Senate Bill 89.

SENATOR EDDIE LUCIO: Thank you, Mr. President. Members, the conference committee report for Senate Bill 89 would return the bill to the engrossed version of the bill with two exceptions. No. 1, TDA will only be required to report electronically instead of delivering hard copy reports and two, TDA will report not only profits made by the school districts from the summer boot program but also any losses incurred from the program. After working with the interested groups involved in this bill, we feel that this is the best possible version of the bill. Move adoption of the conference committee report of Senate Bill 89.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Thank you, Senator Lucio. The issue before us is the adoption of the conference committee report on Senate Bill 89. The secretary will call the roll.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: There being ayes, no nays, the conference committee report on Senate Bill 89 is adopted.

SENATOR EDDIE LUCIO: Thank you, Mr. President, thank you members.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: The Chair recognizes Senator Harris for a motion to adopt the conference committee report on House Bill 2900.

SENATOR CHRIS HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. President. Members, House Bill 2900 relating to guardianships, we had already passed out of the Senate, Senate Bill 286, we placed it on the 290 -- I mean 2900. The House and I adjusted the wording to where it was acceptable through the House. I move adoption of the conference committee report, Mr. President and members.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Thank you, Senator Harris. Members, the issue before us is the adoption of the conference committee report on House Bill 2900. The secretary will call the roll.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: There being ayes and one nay, the conference committee report on House Bill 2900 is adopted. Members, the Chair lays out the following resolution. Senate Resolution No. 1257 by Senator Lucio. Secretary will read the resolution, it's an out of bounds resolution.

PATSY SPAW: Senate Resolution 1257 by Lucio suspending limitations on conference committee jurisdiction on House Bill 213.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Chair recognizes Senator Lucio to explain the resolution.

SENATOR EDDIE LUCIO: Thank you, Mr. President and members. I'd like to move that we adopt the resolution to allow the conference committee to go outside the bounds which will delete language requested by the governor's office which will eliminate the private cost of action found in HB213. Move adoption.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Members, you've heard the motion by Senator Lucio. The secretary will call the roll.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: There being ayes, zero nays, the out of bounds resolution is adopted. The Chair recognizes Senator Lucio for a motion to adopt the conference committee report on House Bill 213.

SENATOR EDDIE LUCIO: Thank you, Mr. President. Members, I'd like to move that we adopt a conference committee report on HB213. This is a bill that deals with nonfederally regulated mortgage loans that went unanimously out of -- was voted out unanimously out of the business and commerce committee as well as the Senate. We went to conference to include another amendment by the governor's office which eliminates the private cause of action found in House Bill 213. I move adoption, Mr. President.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Members, the issue before us is the adoption of conference committee House Bill 213. The secretary will call the roll.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: There being ayes, no nays, the conference committee report on House Bill 213 is adopted.

SENATOR EDDIE LUCIO: Thank you, Mr. President, thank you members.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Senator Nichols 635. The Chair recognizes Senator Nichols for a motion to adopt president conference committee report on Senate Bill 635.

SENATOR ROBERT NICHOLS: Thank you, Mr. President. I move to adopt the conference committee report for Senate Bill 635. This bill allows the executive director of TCEQ to establish an interim rate, to provide tax rate relief taxpayer rate on water and waste issues. It is not mandatory, it is permissive. This also moves the water waste water issues and CCN issues from TCEQ to PUC. It allows small utility water issues with less than 15 connections, they can register as exempt utility and do not have to obtain a CCN. Allows rate change notification to meet delivery electronically for customers who use electronics. This provision -- also has provisions of opting out of CCN which was the exact language that was in Senate Bill 573 we did the other day. Put the bittering agent in antifreeze to help protect children and pets. I move adoption of the conference committee report.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Thank you, Senator Nichols. Members, the issue before us is the adoption of the conference committee report on Senate Bill 635. The secretary will call the roll.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: There being ayes, no nays, the conference committee report on Senate Bill 635 is adopted.

SENATOR ROBERT NICHOLS: Thank you, Mr. President and members.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Thank you, Senator. The Chair recognizes -- the Chair lays out the following resolution. Out of bounds resolution, the Senate Resolution No. 1247 by Senator Ellis. The secretary will read the resolution.

PATSY SPAW: Senate Resolution 1247 by Ellis suspending limitations on conference committee jurisdiction on House Bill 3275.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: The Chair recognizes Senator Ellis to explain the resolution.

SENATOR RODNEY ELLIS: Thank you, Mr. President. I move to move passage of Senate Resolution 1247 to suspend rule 1203 in part as provided by Senate rule 1208 so the conference committee can go outside the bounds to make three changes to House Bill 3275. Section one, increase the percentage of land within a city that can be within a tax increment reinvestment zone. This provision was in House Bill 2853 sponsored by Senator Jackson which was passed by the Senate. Sections eight and nine address an issue with the greater southeast management district obtaining a quorum by the increasing amount of members needed for a quorum and restoring the initial members of the board. That provision was in House Bill 2316 sponsored by Senator West which passed the intergovernmental relations committee but died on the intent calendar the last day for the intent calendar in the House. Section ten resolves an issue which estimates contained in the project plan for reinvestment zone financing plan by removing conflicting and confusing provisions that were added to section 311.011 of the tax code by House Bill 2853. The section that was added is being removed so it reverts back to current law. Mr. President, I move passage of SR1247 to suspend rule 12.03 as provided by Senate rule 12.08. I think that does it. Unless I'm skipping something. No, it doesn't.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Senator Ogden, for what purpose do you rise, sir?

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: To ask the author a question.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Will Senator Ellis yield?

SENATOR RODNEY ELLIS: Yes, sir.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Now, this bill is supposed to do what? What's the purpose of this bill?

SENATOR RODNEY ELLIS: The initial -- Senator, the initial bill would allow a taxing jurisdictions that approved payment to a tax increment fund to appoint a member of the board, it was in House and Senate versions, allows a conservation and reclamation district to have some flexibility and who it appoints to the board of the tax reinvestment zone in which the district participates. That was in both House and Senate versions. Amending sections of the tax code to add the word county which was not included by mistake in a prior session's amendments. Extends the time period in which a city must provide reports or audits from the year -- from 90 days to 150 days. Allows a member of the legislature to be a nonvoting ex officio member of the governing board of any reinvestment zone in that legislator's district. That was an amendment that I added on the floor of the Senate, so I think Senator West's (inaudible) allows Flyingerville to designate a renewable energy reinvestment zone. That was an amendment that Senator Watson added on the floor. Expands the territory allows in a territory or city's population over 100,000 that was from House Bill 2853 to go outside the bounds resolution is what I went through. Reorganizing the southeast management district board in my district which is what I made reference to, removing controversial, removing -- now, we get to your part and we did run this by your staff, Senator Ogden, removing the controversial provision in House Bill 2853 allowing

(inaudible) expenditures to exceed estimates, that was the part that you were concerned about, I believe, and that's it.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Well, one of the things that I am concerned about on TERs and IFS is that these are -- look to me like tools that allow cities to borrow money without voter approval because the way we set these up is we create these zones and we go out and say that the taxes that are collected inside these zones can be used to retire the debt for the improvements that are made in these zones, but every time we do this we never bothered to ask the voters if it's okay. I've always been worried about these things because it always looks to me like it's some kind of an end run around the general provision that you go out with a bond issue and people vote and then the bonds are used for improvements. And so with that preamble, your outside the bounds resolution is greatly expanding the size of these zones, and I am wondering why this looks like a real substantive change to a bill that you just explained and a change in a way that the bill didn't really address. I mean, how come now in current law a municipality may not designate a reinvestment zone if more than 10 percent of the property used for residential purposes. Now, it's gone to 30, you tripled that. The next one is 25 to 20, what is the purpose for greatly expanding the areas that these TERs can be created?

SENATOR RODNEY ELLIS: Senator, that's the legitimate difference of opinion, but I would say to you that that bill is already on its way to the governor. My point outside, which I think you're making reference to 2851 -- 2853 Senator Jackson's bill which is headed to the governor. What I do in this is remove some conflicting language, but the part you're concerned about is already heading to the governor.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Well, what about on -- there's a change on your resolution that says instead of 15 percent of the total appraised value of taxable real property in industrial districts, it now goes to 50. What does that mean, a change like that? Fifty percent of the total appraised value of taxable real property in the municipality. If the municipality has a population of less than 100,000, what is this doing?

SENATOR RODNEY ELLIS: Well, here's what I would suggest, Senator. I'd be more than happy to pull it down to visit with you, I am referencing language that's already in that bill of Senator Jackson's to make sure we don't have a conflict with the other things I was doing in this bill. That's legitimate difference of opinion, but that's pulling language out of the bill that is headed to the governor's desk. If you'd like, I can slow this down, we can visit on it to see if you'd be supportive on it and then I'd like to come back in maybe about three hours at a time certain.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: The truth is that I don't understand it but I am worried about the legislature and particularly out of bounds resolutions that substantively change on the original intent of the bill. I mean, the questions I've been asked on this out of bounds resolution. Your answer is, well, that doesn't have anything to do with my bill, it has to do with another bill and so I am real confused.

SENATOR RODNEY ELLIS: Okay. I would like to, Mr. President, pull this down until 5:00 o'clock this evening. We can visit on it.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Okay. Thank you.

SENATOR RODNEY ELLIS: So I'll pull this down, Mr. President and at 6:00 clock, we'll be here 6:00 clock this evening. Yeah, 6:00 clock, I'd like to pull this down until 6:00 clock this evening.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Members, Senator Ellis pulls down the Senate Resolution 1247. Senator Seliger, do you mind approaching? The Chair recognizes Senator Huffman, 1010, the Chair recognizes Senator Huffman for a motion to adopt the conference committee report on Senate Bill 1010.

SENATOR JOAN HUFFMAN: Thank you, Mr. President. Members, I move that the Senate adopt the conference committee report on Senate Bill 1010. This bill was taken to conference to remove an unacceptable House amendment that would have entitled an immediate family member of a deceased peace officer who died as a result of certain activity to make a statement which was not part of the original bill. Also removed the House amendment that contained a drafting error which would have created a conflict in the laws relating to victim impact statement. So I move adoption of the conference report.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Members, the issue before us is the adoption of conference committee report on Senate Bill 1010. The secretary will call the roll.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: There being ayes, zero nays, the conference committee report on Senate Bill 1010 is adopted.

SENATOR JOAN HUFFMAN: Thank you, Mr. President.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Thank you, Senator Huffman. The president signs in the presence of the Senate the following.

PATSY SPAW: Senate Bill 76, Senate Bill 81, Senate Bill 144, Senate Bill 156, Senate Bill 197, Senate Bill 221, Senate Bill 1179, Senate Bill 1234, Senate Bill 1285, Senate Bill 1286, Senate Bill 1338, Senate Bill 1413, Senate Bill 1416, Senate Bill 1432, Senate Bill 1499, Senate Bill 1546, Senate Bill 1616, Senate Bill 1620, Senate Bill 1733, Senate Bill 1736, Senate Bill 1706, Senate Bill 1810, Senate Bill 1909, Senate Bill 249, Senate Bill 263, Senate Bill 313, Senate Bill 332, Senate Bill 337, Senate Bill 385, Senate Bill 425, Senate Bill 223, Senate Bill 1170, Senate Bill 462, Senate Bill 469, Senate Bill 563, Senate Bill 467, Senate Bill 767, Senate Bill 773, Senate Bill 776, Senate Bill 803, Senate Bill 875, Senate Bill 932, Senate Bill 1068.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: 472. Chair recognizes Senator West for a motion to adopt the conference committee report on Senate Bill 472.

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: Mr. President, at this time I move to adopt the committee's report on committee substitute to Senate Bill 472. Mr. President and members, the conference committee report on Senate Bill 472 represents agreed to language regarding the voting practices and homeowner's association, specifically the boards, the provisions, certain delegatory instruments that disqualify owners, homeowners from voting in association elections. It allows homeowners convicted of a felony or crime to run for a position on the association board, it provides that homeowners can vote via proxy through a delegated voting and ensures the integrity of the ballot by requiring that it be signed by the individuals casting the ballot and we have agreed upon the language that basically makes those ballots confidential unless there is a recount. I move adoption of the conference committee report.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Thank you, Senator West. Members, the issue before us is the adoption of the conference committee report on Senate Bill 462. The secretary will call the roll.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: There being ayes, no nays, the conference committee report on Senate Bill 472 is finally adopted. Senator Patrick 516. The Chair recognizes Senator Patrick for a motion to adopt the conference committee report on Senate Bill 516.

SENATOR DAN PATRICK: Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President and members, this is a real great day for us to approve this bill with Memorial Day weekend being here. Senate Bill 516 guarantees the right of a surviving spouse of a military veteran who has been 100 percent disabled to keep that property tax exemption that we give disabled veterans. In conference there was an amendment in the House that would have required her to refile every year, we took that amendment out and so I would ask members to approve the conference committee report of Senate Bill 516.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Members, the issue before us is the adoption of the conference committee report of Senate Bill 516. The secretary will call the roll.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: There being ayes, zero nays, the conference committee report on Senate Bill 516 is adopted. 1788. The Chair recognizes Senator Patrick for a motion to adopt the conference committee report on Senate Bill 1788.

SENATOR DAN PATRICK: Thank you, Mr. President and members. I move that we adopt the conference committee report on Senate Bill 1788. The House kept in all of my language creating a model IEP form intact which will save school districts thousands of dollars. We also kept in the amendment from Senator Zaffirini, from Senate Bill 35 the changes of starting age for transitioning planning for special educations students from age 16 to 14 and we deleted an amendment regarding a recalculation of the TERs payments for certain school districts. I move adoption.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Thank you, Senator Patrick. Members, the issue before us is the adoption of the conference committee report on Senate Bill 1788. The secretary will call the roll.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: There being ayes, zero nays, the conference committee report on Senate Bill 1788 is adopted.

SENATOR DAN PATRICK: Thank you, Mr. President.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Thank you, Senator Patrick. Senator Hegar 242. The Chair recognizes Senator Hegar for a motion to adopt the conference committee report on House Bill 242.

SENATOR GLENN HEGAR: Thank you, Mr. President and members. House Bill 242 would provide that a federal law enforcement officer with less than 15 years of service who is in good standing (inaudible) duty service in connection with disabilities may demonstrate weapons proficiency, the Senate added four amendments, s all of which are included in the conference committee report. Senator Williams' authorizing DPS to utilize special rangers, Senator Wentworth enhancing penalties for reckless drivers, Senator Ogden for retired law enforcement officers having served 15 years honorably to demonstrate weapons proficiency and also by Senator Zaffirini crediting a texting ban. And I would move adoption of the conference committee report on House Bill 242.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Thank you, Senator Hegar. Members, the issue before us is the adoption of conference committee report on House Bill 242. The secretary will call the roll.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: There being ayes and three nays, the conference committee report on House Bill 242 is adopted. Senator, 414. The Chair recognizes Senator Hegar for a motion to adopt the conference committee report on House Bill 414.

SENATOR GLENN HEGAR: Thank you, Mr. President and members. House Bill 414 clarifies the Texas State Board of Medical Examiners is not required to hold a regular meeting at least twice a year to conduct vet licensing exams. The bill had cleanup outdated language. The Senate added an amendment on the floor of the Senate that would include language of provisions of Senate Bill 1032 by Seliger relating to the licensing and regulation of equine dentistry. The conference committee report simply made some minor changes that all stakeholders agreed to as regarding Senate Bill 1032 by Senator Seliger. And I would move adoption of conference committee report of House Bill 414.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Thank you, Senator Hegar. The issue before us is the adoption of the conference committee report of House Bill 414. The secretary will call the roll.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: There being ayes, no nays, the conference committee report on House Bill 414 is finally adopted. 542. The Chair recognizes Senator Hegar for a motion to adopt the conference committee report on Senate Bill 542.

SENATOR GLENN HEGAR: Thank you, Mr. President and members. Senate Bill 542 is a cleanup bill requested by the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement Officer standards and education, the conference committee report removed two amendments that the House had added and returned the bill back to the form that the Senate passed out earlier this year and I would move to adopt the conference committee report on Senate Bill 542.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Thank you, Senator Hegar. Members, the issue before us is the adoption of the conference committee report on Senate Bill 542. The secretary will call the roll.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: There being ayes, no nays, the conference committee report on Senate Bill 542 is adopted. Twenty-three. The Chair recognizes Senator Nelson for a motion to adopt the conference committee report on Senate Bill 23.

SENATOR JANE NELSON: Thank you, Mr. President and members. Senate Bill 23 reflects months of work in which we nearly identified $3 billion in cost savings. This bill implements the cost savings initiative that required statutory changes of a savings of almost $500 million. These initiatives including allowing carve in of prescription drugs in south Texas region, the Medicaid managed care, implemented electronic visit verification technology, transferred children and state kids insurance program to the children's insurance program, eliminated existing electronic finger imaging requirements for (inaudible), prevented over utilization of waiver services. Mr. President, I move to adopt the conference committee report on Senate Bill 23.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Members, the issue before us is the adoption of the conference committee report on Senate Bill 23. The secretary will call the roll.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: There being ayes, no nays, the conference committee report on Senate Bill 23 is adopted.

SENATOR JANE NELSON: Thank you.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: And thank you, Senator Nelson.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: The Chair recognizes Senator Hegar for a motion to adopt the conference committee report on Senate Bill 1130.

SENATOR GLENN HEGAR: Thank you, Mr. President and members. Senate Bill 1130 would ensure that residents of rural counties have access to comparable sales information so they can determine whether or not to protest their homestead values. This is a bill we passed out earlier. The conference committee report simply removed two amendments to the House side. So I would move to adopt the conference committee report on Senate Bill 1130.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Thank you, Senator Hegar. The issue before us is the adoption of the conference committee report on Senate Bill 1130. The secretary will call the roll.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: There being ayes, no nays, the conference committee report on Senate Bill 1130 is adopted. Members, the Chair recognizes Senator Estes for a motion to discharge the conferees on Senate Bill 408 and to concur with the House amendment.

SENATOR CRAIG ESTES: Thank you, Mr. President and members. That is what I move. This bill, members, pertains to the John Graves scenic riverway, a section wholly inside my Senate district, Senate district 30. Members, Representative Kepper added a House amendment to add a penalty to the provision in the bill that banned the use of airboats on the Joan Graves scenic riverway. Under the Kepper amendment, a prohibition of airboats on the John Graves scenic riverway is a class C misdemeanor. The House also specified that any peace offer included a law enforcement officer commissioned by the Parks and Wildlife Commission can enforce the prohibition. The conference committee attempted to renegotiate that a violation of the provisions of this bill a class C misdemeanor if the violation occurred only in a specific shorter section of the John Graves scenic riverway, between the Moore Shepherd dam and Highway 180 and not the entire stretch of the scenic riverway. Regrettably the conferees could not agree, therefore I move to discharge the conferees on the conference committee to Senate Bill 408 and further move to concur with House amendments on SB408.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Members, you have heard the motion by Senator Estes to discharge the conferees on Senate Bill 408 and to concur with the House amendments on that bill. The secretary will call the roll.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: There being ayes, no nays, the motion is adopted.

SENATOR CRAIG ESTES: Thank you, Mr. President. I would also move that my explanation be reduced to writing and placed in the journal.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Members, you heard the motion by Senator Estes, is there objection from any member? The Chair hears no objection and the motion is adopted.

SENATOR CRAIG ESTES: Thank you, Mr. President and members.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Mr. Doorkeeper.

MR. DOORKEEPER: Mr. President, there's a message from the House.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Admit the messenger.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: The Chair recognizes Senator Williams for a motion to adopt the conference committee report on House Bill 2770.

SENATOR TOMMY WILLIAMS: Thank you, Mr. President and members. I am going to move to adopt a conference committee report on House Bill 2770. This is an omnibus bill that clarifies and makes changes to the powers and duties of the port authorities. It was brought to me by the Port Association. We adopted the House version of the bill and kept the Senate amendments which struck language permitting closed door meetings as well as the facility contract language that was controversial. We kept the Senate amendment to 2771 with some modifications. We retained the sunset provision for the Port of Houston Authority, we modified that provision so the Port of Houston Authority would go through sunset review as if the authority were to be abolished in 2013, struck the language requiring sunset review in 2019, lastly we struck the amendment authorizing the state auditor to audit the promotional and development accounts and navigation districts. Mr. President, I move to adopt the conference committee report for Senate Bill 2770.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Senator Whitmire and Senator Ellis, you're in agreement on 2770?

SENATOR JOHN WHITMIRE: I'd like to thank Senator Williams for working with us.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: The Chair recognizes Senator Whitmire.

SENATOR JOHN WHITMIRE: I'm fine, Mr. President. I guess does the Senator yield?

SENATOR TOMMY WILLIAMS: I yield.

SENATOR JOHN WHITMIRE: And I'm sorry, I was off the floor but had the provisions that we discussed to the delegation.

SENATOR TOMMY WILLIAMS: Yes, sir.

SENATOR JOHN WHITMIRE: Okay. Thank you, Senator Williams for working with us.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Members, Senator Williams moves to adopt the conference committee report on House Bill 2770. The secretary will call the roll.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: There being ayes, zero nays, the conference committee report on House Bill 2770 is adopted. Members, the Chair lays out the following resolution, HCR No. 176 by Hegar. Secretary will read the resolution.

PATSY SPAW: HCR176 instructing the enrolling clerk of the House to make corrections in House Bill 1517.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: The Chair recognizes Senator Hegar to explain the resolution.

SENATOR GLENN HEGAR: Thank you, Mr. President and members. House concurrent resolution 176 for House Bills 1517 corrects a drafting error by inserting the words or county added by Senator Lucio's amendment and I would ask adoption of House concurrent resolution 176 so I can really finally be finished with this bill that I think I've had on the floor about five times now, this is my Groundhog Day bill. And my desk will officially be clear and I sign dine after this if we adopt this. Thank you.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: You know, with friends like this -- members, the issue before us is the adoption of the technical corrections, the concurrent resolution with the House to clear up language on House Bill 1517. The secretary will call the roll.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Did you --

SENATOR DAN PATRICK: Yes Mr. President, I just wanted -- Senator Hegar, will this officially sunset your session?

SENATOR GLENN HEGAR: And if it doesn't I'll be really upset, yes, it does. Thank you for pointing that out, Senator.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Members, there being 31 ayes, zero nays, the resolution is adopted.

SENATOR RODNEY ELLIS: Mr. President.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Senator Ellis, for what purpose, sir?

SENATOR RODNEY ELLIS: Parliamentary inquiry.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: State your inquiry.

SENATOR RODNEY ELLIS: When is Senate Bill 1811 eligible? House Bill -- the conference committee report. Senate Bill 1811, what time?

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Unless we agree to suspend the rules, 9:00 clock this evening.

SENATOR RODNEY ELLIS: And Mr. President, what would the votes be -- how many votes would be needed to suspend the rules?

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Two-thirds of members that are present and voting.

SENATOR RODNEY ELLIS: I know yesterday there was a discussion or something about we would not suspend on the 24-hour posting matter if a member requested that, am I mistaken or was there some discussion about that?

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Senator Ellis, I am advised that the only discussion on that point was in caucus and I wasn't present. So I am advised that there was discussion in the caucus on that issue.

SENATOR RODNEY ELLIS: Okay. The reason is I wanted to ask is one member for the courtesy of that bill not coming up until it is eligible under the rules. So I am just asking for that courtesy, if not, I can certainly go work the lineup for 21 - work the lines and make sure it doesn't come up, but I don't want it to come up before it's eligible.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Senator Ellis, I obviously -- neither I or the parliamentarian were in the caucus but we're advised and I'll be delighted to stand corrected.

SENATOR RODNEY ELLIS: Dean Whitmire.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: That if a member passes, it will strictly enforce the time.

SENATOR RODNEY ELLIS: Okay. Well this member is officially asking with regard to Senate Bill 1811 that we strictly enforce our rules. Rules are wonderful and they help us know the parameters in which we all operate. This member is officially asking that Senate Bill 1811 not come up until it is eligible under the rules at 9:00 clock or later, if that works for members. I certainly want to recognize any members that may have dinner plans or anything else.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: We will strictly enforce the time on Senate Bill 1811.

SENATOR RODNEY ELLIS: Thank you, Mr. President and members.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Senator Zaffirini, are you ready on 753? Chair recognizes Senator Zaffirini for a motion to adopt the conference committee report on House Bill 753.

SENATOR JUDITH ZAFFIRINI: Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President and members, House Bill 753 by Representative Raymond relates to the recruitment and retention of certain caseworkers employed by the Department of Family and Protective Services. The House added an amendment to the bill. They removed an amendment by Senator West because they believed it was not germane, that was an amendment that created a child welfare task assessment force. Accordingly I move to adopt the conference committee report for House Bill 753.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Members, the issue before us is the adoption of the conference committee report on House Bill 753. The secretary will call the roll.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: There being ayes and two nays, the conference committee report on House Bill 753 is adopted.

SENATOR JUDITH ZAFFIRINI: Thank you, Mr. President and members.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Thank you, Senator Zaffirini. Members, I was asked by the press a few minutes ago and it's been on the stations and in Dallas, but if you don't know Governor Bill Clements passed away this morning. Ninety-four years old. The Chair recognizes Senator Rodriguez for -- I'm sorry. The Chair lays out the following resolution. Senate Resolution No. 1254 by Senator Rodriguez. Secretary will read the resolution.

PATSY SPAW: Senate Resolution 1254 by Rodriguez suspending limitations on conference committee jurisdiction on Senate Bill 1198.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Chair recognizes Senator Rodriguez to explain the resolution which is an out of bounds resolution.

SENATOR JOSE RODRIGUEZ: Thank you, Mr. President and members. The conference committee report for Senate Bill 1198 adds language regarding decedents' estates that was included in language in House Bill 2899 which passed the full House and the Senate's jurisprudence committee unanimously. This language is supported by the probate judges and the State Bar of Texas. Accordingly I move adoption of Senate resolution 1254.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Members, the issue before us is the adoption of the out of bounds resolution. The secretary will call the roll.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: There being ayes, zero nays, the resolution is adopted. The Chair recognizes Senator Rodriguez for a motion to adopt the conference committee report on Senate Bill 1198.

SENATOR JOSE RODRIGUEZ: Mr. President, members, conference committee report on Senate Bill 1198 is the decedent's estate bill that passed both the Senate and the House unanimously. The conference committee kept the House amendments and added the language of House Bill 2899. Mr. President, I move adoption of the conference committee report to Senate Bill 1198.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Members, the issue before us -- the question before us is the adoption of the conference committee report on Senate Bill 1198. The secretary will call the roll.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: There being ayes, no nays, the conference committee report on Senate Bill 1198 is adopted.

SENATOR JOSE RODRIGUEZ: Thank you, Mr. President and members.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Members, the Chair recognizes Senator Nelson for a education to adopt the conference committee report on Senate Bill 8.

SENATOR JANE NELSON: Thank you, Mr. President and members. Senate Bill 8 improves the quality, efficiency and transparency of health care in texas by creating a form for health care providers payers and consumers to study and make recommendation on -- recommendations on these topics and by eliminating existing regulatory barriers and inhibiting innovative and collaborative payment and delivery model. There were a number of amendments added to Senate Bill 8 in the House, a conference committee was appointed to work out these differences. The conference committee accepted several amendments, it provided technical improvements to existing conditions of the bill, we also accepted other amendments that were in line with the original intent of the bill such as an amendment that will reduce the risk of patients contracting vaccine preventable diseases from other health care workers, there were also several amendments that were unacceptable. These amendments were either not in line with the intent of the bill, needed further bedding or had a cost. Members, I move to adopt the conference committee report on Senate Bill 8.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Members, the question before us is the adoption of the committee -- the conference committee report on Senate Bill 8. The secretary will call the roll.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Members, there being 24 ayes and seven nays, the conference committee report on Senate Bill eight is adopted. Congratulations, Senator Nelson.

SENATOR JANE NELSON: Thank you, Mr. President.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Mr. Doorkeeper.

MR. DOORKEEPER: Mr. President, there's a message from the House.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Admit the messenger.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Members, the Chair recognizes Senator Carona for a motion to suspend the Senate Rule 802 on a very important resolution.

SENATOR JOHN CARONA: Thank you, Mr. President and members. House concurrent resolution 144 will honor and celebrate the 500,000 Italian Americans who have chosen Texas as their home by designating June 2nd for the next ten years as Italian Heritage Day. I move passage of HCR144.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Members, you have heard the motion by Senator -- members, you have heard the motion by Senator Carona to suspend the Senate rule 802 so we can take up for consideration his Italian resolution. Is there objection from any member? Chair hears no objection from any member and the rule is suspended. The Chair -- the Chair lays out the following resolution. HCR144 by Senator Carona. The secretary will read the resolution in full. No, I am kidding, I'm kidding.

PATSY SPAW: HCR144 designating June 2nd as Italian Heritage Day for a ten year period beginning in 2011.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Senator Carona to explain --

SENATOR JOHN CARONA: Mr. President, these are my people and I move adoption.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Members -- Senator Hegar, for what purpose do you rise?

SENATOR GLENN HEGAR: Would the gentleman yield?

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: After such an eloquent speech?

SENATOR GLENN HEGAR: Very eloquent speech because. I just want to know if he's going to have an annual festival on this day, invite his colleagues so we can have good Italian food, wine, enjoyment or do we have to celebrate on our own?

SENATOR JOHN CARONA: Senator, we already do and we're going to put you on the list now.

SENATOR GLENN HEGAR: Thank you so much. And after the ten years can we renew it for another ten years since it's such a good party?

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Very gracious of you, Senator Carona. Members, you heard the motion by Senator Carona. Is there objection from any member? The Chair hears no objection from any member, and the resolution is adopted. The Chair recognizes Senator Duncan for a motion to adopt the conference committee report on Senate Bill 1717.

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: Thank you, members. You recall Senate Bill 1717 was the court reorganization bill that we passed out of this Senate now for the third time. This time we were able to work with the House sponsor Representative Louis who has done a nice job in the House of shepherding this legislation through. When it went to the floor there were a number of amendments that went on and he and I met several times with different conferees also trying to determine whether or not -- trying to maintain amendments that would not be controversial and so here's what this does. The conference committee report eliminates provisions that had a fiscal note. Both Senator Seliger and I had a matter on there that would have caused a small fiscal note but we chose to remove those things that cost a fiscal note. This also continues court jurisdiction for extended foster care past the 18th birthday of the foster child. This was similar to Senator Uresti's legislation passed out of here. It helps to draw down $5 million of title E4 funds. Lastly the JPs in Harris County to transfer cases to neighboring precincts aimed at dealing with their truancy backlog, provides the defense by the attorney general presiding probate judge who serves a statewide function. It, for inmate litigation, applies the same rules to appellate as trial cases, family court associate judges are also would now be permitted like district judges to -- if they have a CHL or concealed handgun license to carry those with 0exempt with limitations. Updates references to petition for review, this is simply a leg counsel type clean up, phases in the prohibition of county court at law judge private practice at law. We have a couple of county court of law guys that actually practice law and we actually chose to end that practice, but we allowed them to serve out the end of their term. We added a Webb county -- House added a Webb county court of law creation, this doesn't cost the state. We left it in. With regard to (inaudible) litigants, this makes clear that they can appeal their status in underlying case, this was a proposal by the Texas Judicial Council and there are -- there was an omnibus committee amendment on probate language that we bedded through the Senate committee on jurisprudence and I wanted to thank Senator Harris and his staff for looking at that and working with Will Hartnett to make sure that amendment met what we would believe would be the requirements of the Senate on that. With that explanation, I would move that we adopt the conference committee report on Senate Bill 17.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: Senator Duncan moves adoption of the conference committee report on Senate Bill 1717. The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: 31 ayes, no nays, conference committee report on Senate Bill 1717 is approved, adopted. Thank you, Senator Duncan. Chair recognizes Senator West for a motion on the conference committee report on House Bill 1400.

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: Thank you very much. Mr. President and members, the conference committee report on House Bill 1400 is identical to the bill that passed the Senate earlier this week except it removes an amendment that we placed on in the Senate, specifically the conference committee report makes exemptions in statute regarding a public improvement district to allow the city of Dallas to create a PID for hotels of 100 rooms or more. Secondly, grants all municipalities the ability to defer assessments. The amendment that was taken off allows -- would have allowed the cities -- it was a provision that would have required cities with a population of less than 250,000 and counties of less than 100 million to have a financial feasibility set in. I'd move adoption of conference committee report.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: Senator Williams, for what purpose?

SENATOR TOMMY WILLIAMS: Ask Senator West a question.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: Senator West yield?

SENATOR TOMMY WILLIAMS: Senator West, I think that I had some -- I had talked to you earlier about some concerns I had but I believe that was on 3246, I heard Public Utility Commission and --

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: It's on 3246.

SENATOR TOMMY WILLIAMS: Okay, great. Thank you.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: Thank you, Senator Williams. Members, Senator West has moved adoption on the conference committee report on House Bill 1400. The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: 31 ayes, no nays, conference committee report on House Bill 1400 has been adopted. Thank you, Senator West. Senator Fraser, are you ready on House Bill 3328? Conference committee report? Conference committee report on House Bill 3328. The Chair recognizes Senator Fraser for a motion on the conference committee report on House Bill 3328.

SENATOR TROY FRASER: Mr. President and members, this is the hydraulic fracturing bill that passed the Senate except we took out the Railroad Commission language and gave the Railroad Commission more discretion on implementing nonMSDS rules. I would now move to adopt the conference committee report on House Bill 3328.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: Senator Fraser moves adoption of conference committee report on House Bill 3328. The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: 31 ayes, no nays, conference committee report on House Bill 3328 is adopted. Thank you, Senator Fraser. Chair lays out the following resolution. Secretary please read the resolution.

PATSY SPAW: Senate resolution 1250 by Hinojosa suspending limitation on conference committee jurisdiction on Senate Bill 660.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: The Chair recognizes Senator Hinojosa to explain the resolution.

SENATOR JUAN HINOJOSA: Thank you, Mr. President and members. This resolution deals with the Texas development -- Texas water development board sunset bill. Senate Bill 660 and the Senate engrossed version and the House amendment to Senate Bill 660 created different processes for desired future conditions and appeals. Neither bill concerned the process for appeals and notice requirements. Since the compromised language in Senate Bill 660 removes the desired future conditions for appeals proposals from both chambers willing to go outside the bounds to reinsert the required appeals and those requirements. This does not create new policy, it simply reverses and reverses back to the present statute that we have in place. And I would move adoption.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: Members, the question on the adoption of the resolution. The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: 31 ayes, no nays, the resolution adopted. The Chair recognizes Senator Hinojosa for a conference committee report on SB660.

SENATOR JUAN HINOJOSA: Mr. President and members, I move that we adopt the conference committee report on Senate Bill 660-6789 let me -- give you an explanation what we did we took out the fracking amendment that was placed in the House, that has been removed. We also took out the desired future conditions appeal process. That is out and one of the reasons is that the desired future conditions plans are not due for another four years. That gives the chance to continue working on the appeal process, on codifying a consensus. Those are the only two differences and I move that we adopt a conference committee report on Senate Bill 660.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: Senator Hinojosa moves adoption of conference committee report on Senate Bill 660. The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: 31 ayes, no nays, conference committee report on Senate Bill 660 is approved. Thank you, Senator Hinojosa.

SENATOR JUAN HINOJOSA: Thank you, Mr. President.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: Chair lays out the following resolution. Secretary would please read the resolution.

PATSY SPAW: Senate resolution 1204 by Van de Putte suspended pending limitations on conference committee jurisdiction on House Bill 3726.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: The Chair recognizes Senator Van de Putte to explain the resolution.

SENATOR LETICIA VAN DE PUTTE: Mr. Chairman -- I'm sorry, I mean Mr. President, I no longer need this resolution. So I withdraw resolution 1204.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: Senator Van de Putte withdraws the resolution 1204. Thank you, Senator Van de Putte. The Chair recognizes Senator Van de Putte for a motion on the conference committee report on House Bill 3726.

SENATOR LETICIA VAN DE PUTTE: Thank you, Mr. President and members. I move to adopt the conference committee report on House Bill 3726. Members, this is the bill that deals with the Alamo and the fiduciary responsibilities and now, it's attachment administratively to the general land office. This is exactly what we voted on on the floor which keeps the Daughters of the Republic of Texas as the custodians of the Alamo and adds the necessary financial structure and fiduciary transparency that will be provided by the general land office. I'd like to thank Senator Wentworth and the other members of the Bexar county delegation and particularly the Daughters of the Republic of Texas who worked with us on this bill. With that I move adoption of conference committee to Senate Bill 3726.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: Senator Wentworth, for what purpose?

SENATOR JEFF WENTWORTH: Question for Senator Van de Putte.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: Senator Van de Putte yield?

SENATOR LETICIA VAN DE PUTTE: Yes.

SENATOR JEFF WENTWORTH: Did this conference committee report have removed that provision that went outside the bounds to permit a third party nonprofit to take over in case the general land office and the Daughters don't come to an agreement by the end of this year?

SENATOR LETICIA VAN DE PUTTE: No, Senator Wentworth. The original one that the general land office thought that they might need, which is what I had filed originally, before we even had a conference committee report in discussions with the general land office decided they did not need that. So I do not have a Senate resolution on that. The general land office has decided that they are working very diligently with and the Daughters have already appointed a transition committee. They are working with their general counsel, so I do not have that language in there.

SENATOR JEFF WENTWORTH: Good. So we think the general land office and the Daughters are going to come to an agreement when?

SENATOR LETICIA VAN DE PUTTE: By January 1st.

SENATOR JEFF WENTWORTH: Okay. Thank you, Senator.

SENATOR LETICIA VAN DE PUTTE: Thank you, Senator.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: Thank you, Senator Wentworth. Members, Senator Van de Putte has moved adoption of the conference committee report of House Bill 3726. The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: 31 ayes, no nays, conference committee report on House Bill 3726 adopted. Thank you, Senator Van de Putte.

SENATOR LETICIA VAN DE PUTTE: Thank you, Mr. President, thank you members.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: The Chair lays out the following resolution. Secretary would please read the resolution.

PATSY SPAW: Senate resolution 1253 by West suspending limitations on conference committee jurisdiction on House Bill 362.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: Senator West to explain the resolution.

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: Thank you very much, Mr. President. Mr. President and members, this resolution is needed to implement agreed to language between the home builders, myself and the House regarding installation of solar panels by individuals residing in property owners association specifically. The resolution provides a definition of development period which it did not exist and under the Senate and House version of the bill, this bill will allow the conference committee report to exempt this period from the provisions of HB362. The resolution also allows the conference committee to make a substantive change and to -- or in the section of the bill regarding school roof language, this was an oversight on the part of the author that needs to be corrected in the conference committee report. I move adoption of Senate resolution 1252.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: Members, the question on the adoption of the resolution. The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: 31 ayes, no nays, the resolution is adopted. The Chair recognizes Senator West for a motion on the conference committee report on House Bill 362.

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: Members, as I discussed in my comment on the outside the bounds resolution, this bill was negotiated to all interests stakeholders and represents consensus language, so at this time I'd move the adoption of conference committee report to House Bill 362.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: Senator West moves adoption of conference committee report on House Bill 362. The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: 31 ayes, no nays, conference committee report on House Bill 362 is adopted. Thank you, Senator West. The Chair lays out the following resolution. Secretary would please read the resolution.

PATSY SPAW: Senate resolution 1259 by Lucio suspending the limitations on conference committee jurisdiction on Senate Bill 1320.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: Chair recognizes Senator Lucio to explain the resolution.

SENATOR EDDIE LUCIO: Thank you, Mr. President and members. At this time I'd like to move that we adopt this resolution to allow the conference committee to go outside the bounds to delete a provision and include language that is being suggested by the governor's office. Language to assist the title industry in residential transaction is also included and was signed off by the governor's office. I move adoption.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: Members, the question is on the adoption of the resolution. The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: 31 ayes, zero nays, the resolution is adopted. The Chair recognizes Senator Lucio for a motion on the conference committee report on SB1320.

SENATOR EDDIE LUCIO: Thank you, Mr. President and members. I'd like to move that we adopt the conference committee report on Senate Bill 1320. Senate Bill 1320 is the deed in lieu of foreclosure bill that went unanimous out of the business and commerce committee as well as the Senate earlier this year. At the request of the governor's office we went to conference to delete the individual cost of action found in Senate Bill 1320. It is their belief that it would be more effective to empower the attorney general to go out to the bad actors rather than allow precarious individual private lawsuits. Additionally we are assisting the title industry in residential real estate transactions by giving notaries permissive ability to use a foreign passport in the identification of an individual in such residential transaction which the governor's office signed off and approved. Move adoption, Mr. President.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: Members, Senator Lucio moves adoption of the conference committee report on Senate Bill 1320. The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: 31 ayes, no nays, conference committee report on SB1320 is adopted. Thank you, Senator Lucio.

SENATOR EDDIE LUCIO: Thank you, Mr. President and members.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: Chair recognizes Senator Fraser for a motion on the conference committee report for House Bill 725.

SENATOR TROY FRASER: Mr. President and members, the conference committee report for House Bill 725 removes the following Senate amendments which have been passed by both Houses: Senate Bill 332 by Fraser which is the groundwater ownership bill, Senate Bill 573 which is by Nichols which is the CCN opt out bill. Senate Bill 1180 by Huffman which is the imperial redevelopment district bill, Senate Bill 978 by Hinojosa which is the dissolution of the Hidalgo county improvement district No. 3 bill. The report does not include the amendment that removes Edwards Aquifer Authority from chapter 36. Finally last week I attached an amendment to House Bill 725 that simply restated that the LCRA adjudicated water permit in the law. This amendment is not in the committee report that we're about to adopt. As a chairman of Senate natural resources which oversees water rights, I would like to state for the record that it is my intent for the LCRA, its water management plan and TCEQ to abide by the terms of the LCRA's court ordered adjudicated water permit. I will pursue this issue throughout the interim and plan on holding several hearings to discuss this further. I will continue to remind LCRA and the water management planning committee of the responsibility to follow the terms of their adjudicated water permit. With that I will move adoption of the conference committee report on House Bill 725.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: Senator Fraser moves adoption of the conference committee report on House Bill 725. The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: Thirty ayes, one nay, the conference committee report on House Bill 725 is adopted. Thank you, Senator Fraser. The Chair lays out the following resolution. Secretary would please read the resolution.

PATSY SPAW: Senate resolution 1255 by Watson suspending limitation on conference committee jurisdiction on House Bill 2439.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: Chair recognizes Senator Watson to explain the resolution.

SENATOR KIRK WATSON: Thank you, Mr. President and members. I ask for your consideration and approval of the resolution to allow the conference committee on House Bill 2439 to go outside the bounds. Doing so is necessary in order to clean up technical issues and implement agreed upon provisions in amendments that were added to the bill. This bill was unanimously approved by the Senate and will help the state function more efficiently and transparently through Internet resources. Specifically the resolution before us will clarify notice provisions regarding the powertochoose.com web site which was the focus of an amendment Senator Carona added to the bill. It also will allow the bill to conform with language that was agreed upon in the House in Senate Bill 1811, the fiscal matters bill that require the legislative budget board to post public documents on line. I move adoption of resolution 1255 at this time.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: Members, the question is on the adoption of the resolution. The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: Twenty-nine ayes, two nays, resolution adopted. The Chair recognizes Senator Watson for a motion on conference committee report on House Bill 2439. We're now going to ask for a motion to adopt the conference committee report on House Bill 2439.

SENATOR KIRK WATSON: So moved.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: Thank you, Senator Watson. Senator Watson moves adoption of conference committee report of House Bill 2439. The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: 31 ayes, no nays, conference committee report on House Bill 2439 is adopted. There's actually, the vote is 29 to two. Thank you, Senator Watson. The Chair recognizes Senator Ogden for a motion on the conference committee report on Senate Bill 1588.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Senator Watson. Members, I move to adopt a conference committee report on Senate Bill 1588, this is the funds consolidation bill it's filed every session with two goals, to consolidate newly created funds, accounts and dedications into general revenue to streamline fund accounts in the comptroller's office and primarily to allow unappropriated balances in the general revenue dedicated accounts to be counted toward budget certification at the end of each fiscal year biennium. This is -- in House appropriations they updated the legislation with the improvement and exempted a few more accounts and revenue dedications from consolidation. All amendments accepted in the Senate, Senator Carona, Senator West's, and Senator Davis', were retained in the House version of the bill in this conference committee report. There's six amendments that were adopted on the House floor, we went to conference to remove three of those which I believe were ungermane that were added to the bill. There is a new provision that was added in the House and we maybe talked about this a little bit but it is a basically a preentry clause that basically says that any accounts that are not swept, any new accounts that are prevented from being swept by prior legislation, are swept in this legislation unless they're specifically exempted which means that this bill preempts other legislation that may have passed the session. I move to adopt conference committee report on Senate Bill 1588.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: Senator Watson, for what purpose?

SENATOR KIRK WATSON: Question of the chairman.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: Senator Ogden yield?

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: I yield.

SENATOR KIRK WATSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And we've talked about this before. In fact that provision you just brought up. I want to ask a couple of questions about it. First of all I just want to make a point in terms of asking you a question, this is the bill that by passing this bill we continue in the state of Texas to practice of taking money that is raised for a specific or dedicated or promised purpose and then allowing it to be used for some other purpose, either for just pure certification of the budget or for balancing the budget by sweeping that money and having it available?

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: And very little of that money is swept, most of that money is retained in those general dedicated accounts but it's not appropriated and it is -- it's the point that I concede as being a problem in Texas and when I was talking to Senator Davis last night on the floor, it even surprised me at how much money this actually is and I've got a list here. It's a lot.

SENATOR KIRK WATSON: It's a lot of money.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Four and a half billion dollars.

SENATOR KIRK WATSON: And at the end of this biennium, it was only going -- I can't believe I used the word only, I apologize for that. It was going to -- it was 3.7 billion. So we have gone from 3.7 billion, at the end of this biennium now to 4.5 billion, according to the numbers that you have provide and since 2001, in 2001, the practice only involved 1.2 billion; isn't that right?

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: : I believe that's correct, yes.

SENATOR KIRK WATSON: So in many a decade,in a decade, in ten years, the state of Texas has gone from one point -- roughly somewhere around 1.2 billion to now four and a half billion in this bad practice; is that correct?

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: In this -- let's don't put an adjective it, just say in this accounting practice.

SENATOR KIRK WATSON: All right. But it's an accounting practice where the state is collecting money, it tells the public the money is going to go for a specific or dedicated purpose and then it doesn't.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: It doesn't get spent for that purpose.

SENATOR KIRK WATSON: And I offered an amendment to this bill before it went out of the Senate that I had hoped by working with you a little bit we would make ut a part of the bill, and what that amendment would have done, it would have said whenever the state collects, 200 percent of what it's appropriated. In other words, over two times, not over but two times what we say we're going to spend, then the first one would have -- we would have quit collecting it. You talked me out of that one, so the second amendment I offered it but you talked me out of it. Actually I think the parliamentarian may have said she didn't thing it was germane. But the second amendment which was was that you could continue to collect it, it just couldn't be used for this purpose and both of those amendments died. When do you think -- when do you think the state is going to get out of the habit of telling the public, we're going to collect this money out of your pockets and we're going to do it, we're going to collect it because we're telling you and promising you we're going to use it for a specific purpose. When do you think we're going to stop doing that?

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Well, not this session for sure, but it should be, as Senator Ellis has made the point, about reviewing tax exemptions. Senator, it should be part of a comprehensive effort to overhaul a tax system that is, as I referred to in the last couple of sessions, pretty rickety. It is --

SENATOR KIRK WATSON: In fact, the first time I heard you use that word was when we were talking about this bill last session.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: And I don't disagree but you and I can't fix it by ourselves. We have got to get a commitment by the majority elected officials to take a comprehensive look at the way we tax and exempt people from taxes in this state.

SENATOR KIRK WATSON: Because the truth of the matter is when we have an accounting practice that has grown from around 1.2 billion in a decade from 1.2 to four and a half billion dollars, that indicates in and of its own right a structural problem with our budget, that we have to do that in order to be able to certify the appropriations in spending that we want.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: I am not sure structure was the right word, but in accounting, you know, revenues are supposed to match expenses but we have revenues that are designed for certain expenses that we're using for other expenses, so we have a poor system of what I would call matching, where revenues are actually matched up with the expenditures for which they were collected and I --

SENATOR KIRK WATSON: Well, the bottom line is --

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: I don't disagree with your point.

SENATOR KIRK WATSON: Well, let me ask you real quick about this paragraph that you had called attention to because that was something I had asked you about before the bill was called up. And what it does, members, it's on page 11 in subsection B, exemption from this application of the sweeping that may be contained in another act of this legislature that exempts that money from application of this has no effect. So what that does is if in some quiet portions of bills and budgets where we tried to top this practice at least in that puny way, this bill is going to say that doesn't even happen, right?

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Right.

SENATOR KIRK WATSON: Kind of like the old drunk that has a bad drinking problem and says, I know what I am going to do, I am going to reduce it by a drink a day but then ends up kind of cheating and still has that other drink.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Well, I'll -- I just won't comment on that analogy.

SENATOR KIRK WATSON: Very good. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: I move adoption of conference committee report to Senate Bill 1588.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: Thank you, Senator Watson. Senator Ogden moves adoption of the conference committee report on SB1588. The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: Thirty ayes, and one nay, conference committee report to Senate Bill 1588 is finally adopted. Thank you, Senator Ogden.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: Mr. Doorkeeper.

MR. DOORKEEPER: Mr. President, there's a message from the House.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: Admit the messenger.

MESSENGER: Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, I am directed by the House to inform the Senate that the House has taken the following action, the hots has adopted the following conference committee reports. HB735 --

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: Thank you, Mr. Messenger. Chair recognizes Senator Van de Putte for a motion granting on the conference committee report on House Bill 2093. 2093 Senator Van de Putte.

SENATOR LETICIA VAN DE PUTTE: Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President and members, I move to adopt the conference committee report on House Bill 2093. Members, if you'll remember correctly, this is a bill that's got a little bit of attention in the last few days. It's a consolidated insurance program bill that was sponsored by Representative Senfronia Thompson. On the Senate floor we did add an amendment offered by Senator Duncan and the conference committee report actually keeps most of everything in the intended purpose of the bill which was to protect entities to obtain insurance to cover any liability for their own actions during the construction project from being exposed to liability after the insurance may lapse but before the statute of repose expires. With the difference between a 10 year and a three year coverage. The conference committee report also furthers this purpose by ensuring that an indemnification provision do not place an entity's insurance at risk for negligent acts of any other entities by transferring liability to ensured persons. With that, members, I move to adopt the conference committee report for House Bill 2093.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: Members, Senator Van de Putte moves to adopt the conference committee report on House Bill 2093. The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR KEVIN ELTIFE: Twenty-six ayes, five nay, conference committee report on House Bill 2093 is adopted. Thank you, Senator Van de Putte.

SENATOR LETICIA VAN DE PUTTE: Thank you, Mr. President, thank you members.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: The Chair lays out the following resolution. Secretary will read the resolution by Whitmire.

PATSY SPAW: House concurrent resolution 173 instructing the enrolling clerk of the House to make corrections in House Bill 1451.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Chair recognizes Senator Whitmire to explain the resolution. Chair recognizes Senator Whitmire to explain the resolution.

SENATOR JOHN WHITMIRE: Okay. I would -- the concurrent resolution's that's on my desk by Thompson?

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: HCR173.

SENATOR JOHN WHITMIRE: I got it. It's a technical correction on the puppy mill legislation. Makes technical corrections due to drafting errors in which the wrong section of the bill was cited, so no substantive changes, just some technical corrections, I promise.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: All right. Members, you heard the explanation. The question now is on the adoption of the resolution. The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: 31 I's, no nays, the resolution is adopted. Thank you, Senator. Chair recognizes Senator Zaffirini to discharge conferees and concur with House amendments to on Senate Bill 40.

SENATOR JUDITH ZAFFIRINI: Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President and members, I move that the Senate discharge the conference committee for Senate Bill 40 and concur with the House amendments. Senate Bill 40 relates got competition and function of the guaranteed Student Loans Corporation, the House added two acceptable amendments. The first removed the comptroller from the board of directors at her request and the second tightens the conflict of interest provisions relating to the board of directors. Another amendment was a technical change to correct a cross reference to conform to the appeal of another section of the education code. I move to discharge the conference committee and to concur with the House amendments.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Senator Zaffirini moves to discharge the conferees and concur with House amendments to Senate Bill 40. The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: There being 31 ayes, zero nays, the motion is adopted.

SENATOR JUDITH ZAFFIRINI: Thank you, Mr. President and members.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: The Chair recognizes Senator Shapiro for a motion on the conference committee report for House Bill 6.

SENATOR FLORENCE SHAPIRO: Thank you very much, Mr. President and members. I move to adopt the conference committee report on House Bill 6. The Senate's priority to ensure both foundation and enrichment courses were treated equal when adopting and purchasing instructional materials. Additionally our priority to preserve the new STAAR and end of course assessment accountability system was left in the bill, districts must first purchase materials necessary to implement these tests before purchasing anything else. Most of our floor amendments unfortunately have been removed and declared nongermane. The House did keep Senator Harris' amendment regarding intrastate shipping, they did keep Senator Uresti's amendment regarding open source materials, they did keep Senator Patrick's electronic samples amendment and they also left the amendment that I put in to make the effective date immediate with the two-thirds vote. The House version kept in instead of regular conforming and nonconforming list, the SBOE will now place all adopted materials on one list and it will now be referenced as a percentage of the TEAKs coverage. This will allow districts to mix and match in order to be able to put these materials into covering the TEAKs. House amendment that allows the SBOE within 90 days to remove an item from the commissioner's list prevailed and finally as currently allowed with the technology allotment, House Bill 6 allows personnel and training for technical support to be paid for with funds from instructional materials allotment. I move adoption of the conference committee report on House Bill 6 at this time.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Chair recognizes Senator Van de Putte.

SENATOR LETICIA VAN DE PUTTE: Thank you. Senator Shapiro, I want to thank you for your work, I think that this -- both your Senate Bill 6 and House Bill 6 is one of the most important pieces of legislation that we have passed this session or will pass, but I wanted to ask you some questions because as a member of the education committee we had a very active interim. We looked at teacher quality pieces and really worked -- had many meetings on that, we went to different parts of the state particularly on our middle school initiatives. Can you tell us at this point, where are the pieces of legislation that we worked on so hard with teacher quality and everything that we've done and also with our middle school. Is there any piece of legislation that still has those fine measures in it?

SENATOR FLORENCE SHAPIRO: Senator Van de Putte, I am very sorry to tell you that the answer to your question is no. Those are all pieces -- education committee, Senate spent hours and hours of discussion and we came to a resolve on our side on each of those middle schools, how do you prevent a student in the 6th grade from dropping out? As I like to say, they dropped out in the 6th grade and they walk out in the 9th grade. We had a great program for parents, we had a great idea for teachers to be certified not just as generalists but actually in their field of expertise to teach those six, seven, 8th graders. We had a tremendous idea of how our middle schoolers would become finally a focus, the real fine focus of what we need in our education system and not only did that bill pass this body and our committee and we worked on it in the interim, but when it got over to the House side, it never got out of the public education committee. Tremendous disappointment for me and I know for you because we talked about this a lot. Our teacher quality bill was about teachers, it was specifically geared for the teachers, we made it absolutely clear throughout that whole process that we were doing this to get teachers more prepared, better prepared. It was a training and an exercise, even the best teachers can always be better and that's what that was all about. That bill did pass the last week of the House committee meetings in public Ed and never made it out of calendars. So we spent an awful lot of time on issues that were very important to us as senators in public education, I hope that we will not forget those. I think they're still very important and as someone said to me on Friday, we'll live to fight another day but that gives us two years of not putting in place some of the most important types of reforms that we thought were available to us, tools in the tool box that you might that had would help us move our students and teachers to a better place in two years and they're now delayed.

SENATOR LETICIA VAN DE PUTTE: Senator, I am greatly disappointed. We know that measure we worked on with middle schools with teacher equality was extremely important. Can you tell me, as I understand, we tried focusing on some dropout prevention measures and really worked on a creative way to help our dropout recovery charter schools and I know that you allowed me to put that amendment on there. That was stripped because it was considered either not germane or --

SENATOR FLORENCE SHAPIRO: Your work on that particular piece of legislation which has been a sore subject, I might add, for charter schools and for traditional public schools for a very long time and you worked desperately with the charter schools and the public schools to get a consensus around that dropout prevention. It's my understanding, Senator Van de Putte, there were no charter school bills that passed on the side of the House. The permanent school fund which only says that our students that are in our charter schools should have the same capability as those in our traditional public schools because they are, by the way, charter public schools, as we always say. Even that didn't pass. And that was 2 percent of meniscal public school funds -- permanent school fund. And it's very discouraging. The idea that we were going to lift the number of charters that Senator Patrick had and your dropout prevention, I mean, all of those are very small elements but very significant elements in assisting our students and it's very disappointing that none of those passed in the House.

SENATOR LETICIA VAN DE PUTTE: Well, Senator, I am very sorry to hear and I also wanted to clarify one portion. When Senator Patrick had several amendments originally and they dealt with the SBOE's oversight or review and 90 day comment for instructional materials and also the midcycle review. When you first approached me on the conference committee report, I was unclear on one we referred back to the 90 day review and comment as with Senator Uresti's amendment and the other one we left in, and I wasn't quite sure, I am sure now and I am very comfortable with that language and I will be voting aye on this conference committee report, but I did want to mention that if any of the members had asked me why didn't you sign the conference committee report. I didn't at the time but I gladly and proudly vote aye on this and I wish -- I wish we would have been able to pass some of the fine measures that would help our public school students.

SENATOR FLORENCE SHAPIRO: Thank you, Senator Van de Putte. And I do want to say particular thanks to you and Senator Uresti for looking over those SBOE amendments and recognizing that they were of value to the SBOE and to the process and I know they're very grateful to both of you as well.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Chair recognizes Senator Patrick.

SENATOR DAN PATRICK: Yes, thank you, Mr. President. Just a question of the author.

SENATOR FLORENCE SHAPIRO: Yes, sir.

SENATOR DAN PATRICK: And you have already spoken briefly on this charter school amendment that we put on. This is the second session with bipartisan support that we put hours and hours and hours into important language for charters schools. I know you've been totally supportive of it. What is your view, Senator, of why the House continues to object these issues of dealing with teacher quality, charter schools, dropout schools? I know I have my own view, I am just curious about yours.

SENATOR FLORENCE SHAPIRO: Well, I think there's a variety of issues here, I am not sure I could pinpoint any one reason. Charter schools have not been looked upon by the House in the light that the Senate looks at them. The Senate seems to believe they are an alternative for dropout prevention for students that are not going to continue in school and even high performing charters that have brought in low socio-economic students and they expel under that charter opportunity. I am very distraught about the charter movement not being given its due in the House. There should be very vigorous and very positive discussion, it doesn't even get on the floor for discussion. In fact, if you remember, Senator Patrick, it was killed on the very last night, your bill was, two years ago on a technicality that made no sense to us whatsoever and really never got a full hearing. So I have to say that as far as the charters are concerned, I think the real concern over on the House side and we have got to sit down together with the House members and with the House education committee and maybe better explain that charter schools are public schools. There are not stepchildren to traditional public schools, they are public schools and those public schools deserve as much evaluation and exercise and concern and commitment as we have to the students in the state of Texas and our traditional public schools. They only make up 2 percent of our public schools, but they're a very powerful part. They're what I call the parent trigger where the parent decides they may not be as pleased about the school district that they're in or the school that they're in and they choose to take the students to another school. They're a very, very powerful tool for parents and I think what we need to do is try to spend more time educating and having people understand that they are not a stepchild. They are in the mainstream of public education and should be a viable alternative for every parent.

SENATOR DAN PATRICK: Well, what concerns me -- and we're surely not perfect in the Senate but seldom does a Senator on this floor vote against a bill based on just total ignorance of what the bill is about. And what concerns me greatly into the charter school groups and those 56,000 parents who are on the waiting list who are watching, I am going to urge them during this interim, before the next session, to begin the education process to their members because what disturbs me about this bill that I think there were a lots of no votes by people who didn't even know what they were voting no on and it's a responsibility of the legislature to my view to the best of our ability with our staff and with the strain on our time and the stress that's all involved and the thousands of bills that fly by and none of us can be experts, but no one should vote no on a bill just because someone told them, this is a bad idea. They owe it to the people of Texas to investigate to the best of their ability before they cast a vote on any bill and it's just disturbing to me that these bills are just summarily rejected, summarily rejected and if you go up and ask a lot of people who voted no against our bill or Senator Van de Putte's bills or my bills, they can't tell you why, they just voted no. And meanwhile students and parents are harmed by those kind of votes and it's not a step forward for our education, it's a step backwards. So I hope everyone during this interim who cares about these causes will get with their representatives and give them the information they need to cast a yes vote in the next session. So thank you for your effort on this and your support.

SENATOR FLORENCE SHAPIRO: I appreciate it and I think the thing I will get tired of saying and people will get tired of me saying but I am going to continue to say is that charter schools are public schools. They're not private schools, they're public schools and until we recognize that traditional public schools and charter public schools are the same, we'll always have this problem and I think that's the emphasis that we have to keep putting in front of as many people as will listen.

SENATOR DAN PATRICK: And one of the arguments that I did hear, well, they're bad charter schools and surely there are some but there are many more of the good schools that outweigh those few bad. And when I tell them the legislation that you just killed or didn't hear again or you stripped it out of the amendment, addressed closing down bad charter schools, it addresses the very issue concerned about. So it's become a passion with me the last several years since I've been in the legislature, it plays a role in our education system and so I hope in the future there won't be no votes out of just not knowing the topic, but the no vote -- I respect a no vote if the people have investigated, I just don't agree but it's hard to accept a no vote when no one really knows why they're voting no. Thank you.

SENATOR FLORENCE SHAPIRO: Thank you.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Senator Shapiro moves adoption of the conference committee report on House Bill No. 6. The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: 31 ayes, zero nays, the conference committee report on House Bill 6 is adopted. Thank you, Senator.

SENATOR FLORENCE SHAPIRO: Thank you. Can I use make one quick comment about House Bill 6?

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Yes, ma'am.

SENATOR FLORENCE SHAPIRO: I want to make sure everybody realizes that we have changed dramatically our instructional materials through House Bill 6 and what we have done is to put an allotment on our instructional materials so our students can not only get their textbooks which we have always called textbooks over the years but we are now going into the 21st century and textbooks are now instructional materials. So along with those instructional materials will also come hardware and the opportunity for our schools to include, since we took away the technology allotment, to include the purchase of Iphones, Ipads, all kind s of technological forward thinking hardware. So I just want to make sure that everyone knows and is very proud of the fact that Texas has gone into the 21st century with a bang. Thank you.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: : The Chair recognizes Senator Whitmire on a motion on conference committee report to on Senate Bill 1600.

SENATOR JOHN WHITMIRE: Thank you, Mr. President. I move to adopt the conference committee report to Senate Bill 1600 relating to the registration of peace officers as private security officers. The amendment made to this bill in conference was to return to the Senate language which provided an exemption for licensing under the Private Security Act full time peace officers.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Senator Whitmire moves the adoption of the conference committee report on Senate Bill 1600. The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: 31 ayes, no nays, conference committee report is adopted. Chair recognizes Senator Whitmire for a motion on the adoption of the conference committee report on House Bill 3459.

SENATOR JOHN WHITMIRE: Thank you, Mr. President. I move adoption of the conference committee report for House Bill 3059 relating to the containment of cost incurred in the correctional health care system. The amendments made to this bill in conference committee was a reduction in the annual fee charged to offenders for the medical treatment, the fee is now $75 for any offender who visits medical offices with no annual fee for those who do not utilize medical services.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: All right. Senator Whitmire moves adoption of the conference committee report for House Bill 3459. The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: There being 31 ayes, no nays, the conference committee report is adopted. The Chair recognizes Senator Shapiro for a motion on the conference committee report for House Bill 2365.

SENATOR FLORENCE SHAPIRO: Thank you, Mr. President and members. I move to adopt the conference committee report on House Bill 2365. This bill reaffirms the legislature's commitment to the education research centers and was strongly supported in both the Senate and the House. One of the amendments I added on the floor redesigns the educational economic policy center and allowed it to use these research centers as a resource in carrying out its duties. The amendment was removed by the conference committee as being nongermane. So I move adoption of conference committee report on House bill 2365.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Being 31 ayes, no nays, the conference committee report on House Bill 2365 is adopted.

SENATOR FLORENCE SHAPIRO: Thank you.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Chair recognizes Senator Shapiro for a motion of a conference committee report on House Bill 3468.

SENATOR FLORENCE SHAPIRO: Thank you very much, Mr. President. I move to adopt the conference committee report House Bill 3468 which aims to improve the college readiness of our high school graduates and reduce the need for developmental education in Texas. We added the provision of middle grades which was Senate Bill 518 which went off this floor 31 to nothing, it was one of those referenced by Senator Van de Putte a few minutes ago. It would have provided a seemless initiative and transition between 6th and 12th grade. All of which to aim college readiness and postsecondary success, unfortunately the House did not find this amendment to be germane, therefore was removed by the conference committee. Again, I move adoption of conference committee report on House Bill 3468 at this time.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: 31 ayes, zero nays, the conference committee report for House Bill 3468 adopted.

SENATOR FLORENCE SHAPIRO: Thank you, Mr. President.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Chair recognizes Senator West for a motion on conference committee report on Senate Bill 694.

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: Mr. President, I move we adopt the conference committee report on Senate Bill 694. Members, this is the metal recycling bill. You know, this is the bill that deals with copper thefts and the related metals. We have finally put in place a seamless registration requirement that takes into consideration the state, the county and also the cities, this particular bill, the amendments to this particular bill deals with that of burned wire and we were able to come up with an agreement with the House concerning burned wire and also how individuals that sell that type of wire will be able to show ownership of it. I move adoption of the conference committee report.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Senator West moves adoption of the conference committee report on Senate Bill 694. The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Being 31 ayes, zero nays, the conference committee report is adopted. The Chair recognizes Senator West for a motion on conference committee report to House Bill 3246.

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: Mr. President and members, at this time I move to adopt the conference committee report on House Bill 3246. The conference committee report is identical to the bill that passed the Senate earlier this week except it removes an amendment that proved to be pretty problematic. Proves to be pretty problematic over at the House. What the amendment specifically did it basically set in place a provision that required cities with a population of less than 250,000 in counties with a population of less than million make a finding regarding financial feasibility of a project prior to issuance of bonds. This section was adamantly opposed by the Texas Municipal League. We didn't find out about that until after the bill had passed the Senate and so after meeting with several House members and also the Texas Municipal League we decided to remove the amendment.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Senator Williams is recognized.

SENATOR TOMMY WILLIAMS: Senator West, I had a couple of questions for Senator West. Would you yield?

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: I will.

SENATOR TOMMY WILLIAMS: Senator West, I want to be sure I understand what's going on here because I know you worked hard on this in your committee, the language that I have here says -- I think this is what was taken out in the conference committee report that prior to the issuance under this chapter of bonds or obligations wholly or partly payable secured or secured by assessments the governing body of a municipality with a population of 250,000 or less or the governing body of a county with a population of million or less issuing the bonds or obligations must find and determine the following. Construction of all underground water, waste water and drainage facilities and roadways to serve the real property liable for assessments necessary to support the payment of the bonds or the obligations is at least 95 percent complete and construction of at least 25 percent of the houses or other buildings on the real property liability for the assessment and necessary to support the bonds or obligations has been completed. Then section B it goes on to say that prior to the issuance under this chapter of bonds or obligations wholly or partly payable from or secured by assessments a municipality with a population of more than 700,000 or a county or a population with more than a million issuing the bonds or obligations must obtain an independent market study from a firm recognized in the area of real estate market analysis supporting the development projects for the real property liable for assessments necessary to support the payment of bonds or obligations and that the attorney general shall adopt rules that enforce this section to ensure the integrity and economic feasibility of the bonds or obligation issued under the chapter. This chapter. Is that the language that was removed from your bill?

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: That is the language.

SENATOR TOMMY WILLIAMS: And was this language that you drafted and put into that bill and moved it out of the Senate committee when we voted it off of the Senate floor?

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: That's correct.

SENATOR TOMMY WILLIAMS: Why did you put this language in? What were you trying to accomplish?

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: What I was trying to accomplish was trying to make certain that we had some balance language that made certain people have skin in the game before we did raw land deals in the state of Texas, but what I came to found out is that -- what I came to find out that prior to us passing the PID public improvement statute last session, there was a problem in that particular bill where we ended up capping interest rates that the law that we currently have if we remove this is the law that was the law prior to last legislative session. And so what ends up happening is the following. If a county decides, if number one a city or county decides to do a public improvement district what ends up regular is they will are a financial adviser and this is through TML and some of the other members of the House that I talked to in deciding to remove this particular amendment. They will have a financial adviser that will in fact be feasibility because it's no way in the world they will take it to market unless there was, in fact, feasibility shown. Yod still end up having to go through the attorney general process in order to get bonds approved.

SENATOR TOMMY WILLIAMS: Senator West, I don't doubt what you're telling me, but your language here specifically says that the attorney general should adopt these rules and enforce this section and of course that's the language that's coming out and so help me understand, when a developer is building out a new area and of course in the Houston area we use these municipal utility districts a lot.

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: That's correct.

SENATOR TOMMY WILLIAMS: And so what are the requirements that a municipal utility district could face before they take a bond issuance to market?

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: Well, No. 1, what they would have to do is go through TCEQ and make certain --

SENATOR TOMMY WILLIAMS: That requirement in here?

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: No, it's not.

SENATOR TOMMY WILLIAMS: Okay. It's not a requirement for PIDs.

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: No, it's a different type of public -- it's a different type of development tool that's used by developers. Public improvement districts would end up having to go through a city or county in order to get clearance for -- you know, to use that particular instrument -- MUD would go through.

SENATOR TOMMY WILLIAMS: So you could have a public utility district reside in city limit --

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: That's correct.

SENATOR TOMMY WILLIAMS: And they would be able to levy a special assessment on the businesses or people who lived in that area that was coffered by the public improvement district.

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: With the consent of the city, yes.

SENATOR TOMMY WILLIAMS: With the consent of the cities. Would the voters in that public improvement district have a chance to vote on that?

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: Without question. And I believe the minimum of 50 percent of the individuals within that particular district would have to agree 50 percent of the property owners in the district would have to agree to the assessment.

SENATOR TOMMY WILLIAMS: Right. The way I read this, Senator West, is, you know, you could have a piece of raw land that was either in the county or in the city limits and you could go out and borrow a bunch of money for the public, for the improvements that need to be made to that land without ever really having done anything but just put enough down on the land to secure a loan to purchase the land, the developer wouldn't necessarily have to have any real skin in the game, that's the way they used to do it with the old MUDs but they changed those rules so that they've got to actually make some improvements before they can take those things to market or not they're called mud receivables, I think.

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: And that's incorrect, Senator, and I --

SENATOR TOMMY WILLIAMS: Help me understand how I'm wrong.

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: Let me explain to you. As it relates to MUDs, you're right back in the 1980s, that's exactly what occurred, that's why we set up the process over in the TCEQ. As it relates to PIDs, it has to be sponsored by a city or a county so before you could go and sell bonds and all that other stuff, before you could even use the instrument, you'd have t get the approval of the municipality or county to do it. So you would not be able to -- you would not be able to as in your example just buy a piece of land and go to market and sell it and get a bunch of bonds, you wouldn't be able to do it that way.

SENATOR TOMMY WILLIAMS: So who would form these public improvement districts? Who would you have to come to when you get ready to form a municipal utility district? You typically will see the support from the local community and then you publish in the newspaper so that people have an opportunity, you know, and then you have a public hearing and while those are local government units they're really creatures that are created here in the legislature, how did that work with the public improvement district?

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: Pretty much on the same thing, it would just be on a local basis, if it's in the city it would end up being through the city through pretty much the same process.

SENATOR TOMMY WILLIAMS: So the legislature wouldn't have any input once we grant this, a city or a county would be able to form these city improvement districts without coming back to the legislature to show us that they have got the support, that's necessary from the local community to do that. We have had that check and balance always.

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: Well, you can do public improvement districts now. It's not like it's a new tool. It's something that's been on the book a long time --

SENATOR TOMMY WILLIAMS: But the --

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: Let me finish. Let me finish. And so that is a separate type of development tool that's been on the books for a long time prior to us being here. What you end up doing is, as I've said, is going through the city or the county and the city or the county makes the determination as to whether or not they want to improve the public improvement district and the realty is all the public hearings that you're talking about, that you currently -- excuse me -- that we would have they would have them at the local level.

SENATOR TOMMY WILLIAMS: Before this law goes into effect if you were going to have a public improvement district, would the sponsoring governing entity whether that be a city or a county, would they be required typically to put their faith and credit behind any debt that was issued by the public improvement district?

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: I don't know the answer to that question. I don't think so.

SENATOR TOMMY WILLIAMS: Why do we need this legislation then? Because as I understand it what we're doing here we're going to allow them to be able to issue bonds without the faith or credit of the city or county behind it. I thought that wasn't the case before.

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: The reality is that the public improvement districts are -- have been used, I don't know how many years in the state of Texas. The assessments are of the property owners within the specific geographical area and even though the PID may be the city of Houston PID, the assessments that are used for the property owners are used in order to support the collateral, the collateralization and go to market for the bonds.

SENATOR TOMMY WILLIAMS: They're assessment revenue bonds, they're a limited obligation of the city or county that issues them, would that be a fair statement?

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: That's a fair statement.

SENATOR TOMMY WILLIAMS: Okay. And unlike bonds of water districts, municipal utility district, management districts, the PID bonds are not reviewed or approved by the TCEQ.

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: No, they're not. They're reviewed by attorney general's office.

SENATOR TOMMY WILLIAMS: So the feasibility rules that the TCEQ makes you go through and they actually set the rate for one of these water districts so that you know there's going to be adequate -- they set a base rate coverage --

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: Well, and I don't -- with all due respect, that happens at the city as it relates to the PIDs also. Because you'd end up having a financial adviser and I mean, many of -- there's a lot of mayors in here and they pretty much know the use of financial advisers before city or public entity would allow a PID to go in effect you'd have to know that No. 1 you had the property there, that assessment could in fact be made and that coverage rate would in fact be effective as it relates to that particular PID.

SENATOR TOMMY WILLIAMS: So as I understand it with water districts for instance the developers required to make an upfront capital contribution and there's no requirement under state law here that a developer make an up front capital, it would only be if the local entity required it.

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: That's correct.

SENATOR TOMMY WILLIAMS: Okay. And so that's a pretty significant difference, and I think these things, as you know, I've had a lot of legislation go through your committees and I know these improvement districts and municipal utility districts and road utility districts can be very important especially in unincorporated areas that are undergoing rapid development, it's often the only way that you can kind of get the infrastructure that you need. But I do have serious concerns that this legislation goes too far without your amendment. I voted for your bill when it came out of here but I am not going to be able to support this without your amendment in it. Thank you, Senator West.

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: I move adoption of conference committee report.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Well, not so fast. Senator Nichols.

SENATOR ROBERT NICHOLS: Mr. President, I wanted to ask a question of the author.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: You're recognized.

SENATOR ROBERT NICHOLS: Thank you. Senator West, that's IGR committee, real small, you Chair that thing and there's five of us that serve on that, takes three votes to get something out, and I've enjoyed working on that this committee the last three sessions. This bill is a pretty important bill. It covers a lot of different issues, it's got cities, it's got counties, it's property owners, developers, insurance, and we deal with a lot of different parties on some of these things. This one certainly touched a lot of them and so as we worked our way through the committee process and the vetting of this bill there was some agreed upon language that was put in that allowed most of us to go ahead and vote for it. With that language we could all support it, it could go on, it came out of committee on to the floor, and left and then this concurrence that we're doing back and forth, you know, there's a lot of faith and trust that goes on here of what's left in and what's taken out. And if I heard correctly, did you tell Senator Williams that that agreed upon language was removed?

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: Yes, I did.

SENATOR ROBERT NICHOLS: And so that substantially changes the bill.

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: Well, it doesn't substantially change it, but it does change the bill. We had a meeting conference meeting with TML. TML came out late, Senator Nichols, and was against the amendment. We had meetings with several House members that were also against the amendment.

SENATOR ROBERT NICHOLS: When I signed the conference report, which you had three of them I think I signed the other day and we went over real quickly what was and what wasn't. Did you point out to me --

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: Oh, without question, yes.

SENATOR ROBERT NICHOLS: You pointed out to me that the language that's agreed upon --

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: Was taken out.

SENATOR ROBERT NICHOLS: Had been removed?

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: I had. Yes, sir.

SENATOR ROBERT NICHOLS: Okay, I guess there were too many things happening, I didn't catch that.

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: I did. I pointed it out to you.

SENATOR ROBERT NICHOLS: Well, I apologize because I certainly would not have voted for the bill in the first place out of committee had that language been removed.

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: I understand.

SENATOR ROBERT NICHOLS: All right. Thank you.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: All right. Senator West, make your motion.

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: I make a motion that the conference committee report to House Bill 3246 be approved -- be adopted.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: All right. The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: There being 13 ayes and 18 nays, the motion to adopt the conference committee report fails to adopt. Chair recognizes Senator Birdwell for a motion to adopt the conference committee report on House Bill 335.

SENATOR BRIAN BIRDWELL: Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President and members, I move to adopt the conference committee report for House Bill 335. What we did is we took the amendments from Senator Ellis that we provided in the original discussion here on the floor, amendments one and three were accepted by the House and then the two was not. Two was the amendment that I left to the will of the body. One and three were the ones that Senator Ellis and I had worked out to make sure we get the legislation passed. I move adoption of the conference committee report, Mr. President.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Senator Birdwell moves adoption of the conference committee report on House Bill 335. The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Twenty-seven ayes and four nays, conference committee report on House Bill 335 is adopted.

SENATOR BRIAN BIRDWELL: Thank you, Mr. President, thank you members.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: The Chair lays out the following resolution. Secretary will read the resolution.

PATSY SPAW: Senate concurrent resolution No. 60 instructing the enrolling clerk of the Senate to make corrections in Senate Bill 1420.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: Chair recognizes Senator Hinojosa on the resolution.

SENATOR JUAN HINOJOSA: Thank you, Mr. President and members. I ask permission to go outside the bounds of Senate Bill 1420 which is a TxDOT sunset bill to make some technical corrections. The following are the corrections that need to be made and it is to restore agreed upon language relating to the general counsel which a drafter used House language instead of the agreed upon language, this is correcting that. The other point it clarifies that State Highway 288 project is a state highway. The word state was left out of the conference committee report that we adopted yesterday. Those are the only two technical corrections and I would move adoption.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: The question is on the adoption of Senate concurrent resolution 60. The secretary will call the roll.

SENATOR STEVE OGDEN: 31 ayes, zero nays, the resolution is adopted. Thank you.

SENATOR JUAN HINOJOSA: Thank you, Mr. President and members.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Members, I am going to ask that we all pay honor to the memory of Governor Clemmons, as you know he passed away this morning. Governor Clemmons served as the 44th and 34th governor of the state of Texas, he was a child of the Depression era, he up working in the oil fields to put himself through college. Built one of the world's largest offshore drilling companies, served as the deputy secretary of defense under President Nixon, and a remarkable man. There were those that didn't like him, there were those of us who did like him but he tried to do as much as he could to make Texas better and I think it would be fitting if the Senate took a moment of silence to honor his memory.

(Moment of silence.)

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Thank you, members. The Senate will stand in recess until 8:30. Okay. Excuse me, the Chair recognizes Senator Whitmire for a motion for the Senate to stand in recess until 8:30.

SENATOR JOHN WHITMIRE: I would move that -- I will move the Senate stand in recess until 8:30.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Thank you, Senator. Is there objection from any member? The Chair hears no objection from any member, and the Senate will stand in recess until 8:30.

(Recess.)

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Members, the Senate will come to order. Mr. Doorkeeper.

MR. DOORKEEPER: Mr. President, there's a message from the House.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Admit the messenger.

MESSENGER: Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, I am directed by the House to inform the Senate that the House has taken the following action, the House has adopted the following conference committee reports: HB414, HB2380, HB2817, HB3109, HB3246, SB89, SB472, SB516, SB660. The House has refused to adopt the following conference committee reports: HB213. Respectfully, Robert Hainy, chief clerk.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Members, we're waiting just a moment while Senator Fraser would like to reconsider a -- the final passage of House Bill 1665. The Chair recognizes Senator Fraser for a motion to reconsider the final passage of House Bill 1665.

SENATOR TROY FRASER: Members, we're going to revisit House Bill 1665 by Representative Susan King. This was a local bill regarding property rights for Dais Air Force base. If you remember, a lot of you voted with me on regulating trees and vegetation, ETJs, there was a second amendment by Senator Hinojosa having to do with wind generation. The House did not agree with these amendments, sent it back to us and we're going to need to try to remove that, take it back and pass it out. Mr. President, I would now move to suspend all necessary rules -- parliamentary inquiry. Is the motion I need to make right now to reconsider the vote for final passage?

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Yes.

SENATOR TROY FRASER: I would now move to reconsider the vote for final passage on House Bill 1665.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Members, you heard the motion by Senator Fraser. Is there objection from any member? The Chair hears no objection from any member, the motion to reconsider the final passage of House Bill 1665 is adopted. Members, the bill is now on third reading.

SENATOR TROY FRASER: Mr. President, I believe there's an amendment that was put on by Senator Hinojosa and I believe --

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Yes, I'm going to recognize you. The Chair recognizes Senator Fraser for a motion to reconsider the vote on floor amendment No. 2 that was adopted on third reading.

SENATOR TROY FRASER: So moved.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Members, you heard the motion by Senator Fraser. Is there objection from any member? The Chair hears no objection from any member, and the motion is adopted. The question in front of us is the consideration of floor amendment No. 2. Chair recognizes Senator Hinojosa on floor amendment two.

SENATOR JUAN HINOJOSA: Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote by which the wind farm amendment dealing with military bases was adopted for the simple reason that it's not germane on the House side and so I move to reconsider the vote. I withdraw the amendment.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Members, Senator Hinojosa withdraws floor amendment No. 2. The Chair recognizes Senator Fraser for a motion to reconsider the vote -- to reconsider the passage to third reading.

SENATOR TROY FRASER: So moved.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Members, you heard the motion by Senator Fraser. Is there objection from any member? The Chair hears no objection from any member, and the motion to reconsider passage to -- for passage to third reading is adopted. The Chair -- we're now on second reading the Chair recognizes Senator Fraser for a motion to reconsider the vote by which floor amendment No. 1 was adopted.

SENATOR TROY FRASER: So moved.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Members, you heard the motion by Senator Fraser. Is there objection from any member? The Chair hears no objection from any member, so ordered.

SENATOR TROY FRASER: I would like to withdraw amendment No. 1 on second reading.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Senator Fraser withdraws floor amendment No. 1. The Chair recognizes Senator Fraser for a motion to -- for passage to third reading.

SENATOR TROY FRASER: Members, just clarifying where we are now. We have taken off the two amendments, one was on the vegetation, the ETJ, the other was on wind generation. We're back to the original bill that only had to do with Dais Air Force base, it's a bracketed local bill. Members, I would now move House Bill 1665 to third reading.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Thank you, Senator Fraser. Is there objection from any member? The Chair hears no objection from any member, and House Bill 1665 passes to third reading. Chair recognizes Senator Fraser for a motion to suspend the constitutional rule that bills be read on three several days.

SENATOR TROY FRASER: I would now move to suspend the constitutional rule that bills be read on three several days.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Members, you heard the motion by Senator Fraser. The secretary will call the roll.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: There being ayes, zero nays, the rule is suspended. The Chair lays out on third reading and final passage House Bill 1665. The secretary will read the caption.

PATSY SPAW: House bill 1665 relating to notification requirements regarding certain land use regulations in an area near a military facility.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: The Chair recognizes Senator Fraser for a motion.

SENATOR TROY FRASER: Members, I'd like to thank you for allowing me to do this to save this bill. It's important to Representative Susan King. I would now move final passage of House Bill 1665.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Members, you heard the motion by Senator Fraser. The secretary will call the roll.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: There being ayes, zero nays, House Bill 1665 is finally passed. The Chair recognizes Senator Rodriguez for a motion to reconsider the vote by which the conference committee on Senate bill 1198 was passed.

SENATOR JOSE RODRIGUEZ: Mr. President and members, I move to reconsider the vote by which the conference committee report for Senate Bill 1198 was adopted.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Members, you heard the motion by Senator Rodriguez. Is there objection from any member? The Chair hears no objection from any member, and the motion is adopted. The Chair recognizes Senator Rodriguez for a motion.

SENATOR JOSE RODRIGUEZ: I move to recommit the conference committee report, Mr. President.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Members, you heard the motion by Senator Rodriguez to recommit the conference committee report. Is there objection from any member? The Chair hears no objection from any member, so ordered. The Chair recognizes Senator Rodriguez for a motion to discharge the conferees and to concur on the conference committee report on Senate Bill 1198.

SENATOR JOSE RODRIGUEZ: Thank you, Mr. President. I move to discharge the conferees and concur with the House amendments to Senate Bill 1198.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Members, you've heard the motion by Senator Rodriguez. The secretary will call the roll.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: There being ayes, zero nays, Senate Bill 1198 is finally passed.

SENATOR JOSE RODRIGUEZ: Thank you, Mr. President and members.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Mr. Doorkeeper.

MR. DOORKEEPER: Mr. President, there's a message from the House.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Admit the messenger.

MESSENGER: Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, I am directed by the House to inform the senate that the House has taken the following action, the House has adopted the following conference committee --

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Members, the Chair lays out Senate resolution No. 1260 which is an out of bounds by Senator Duncan. The secretary will read the caption.

PATSY SPAW: Senate resolution 1260 by Duncan suspending limitations on conference committee jurisdiction on Senate Bill 1811.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: The Chair recognizes Senator Duncan to explain the resolution.

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: Thank you, Mr. President and members. This resolution reflects the work of our conference committee on Senate Bill 1811 and I want to congratulate each and every one of them because all five of us worked countless hours working with the House around a conference table scrubbing each of the provisions both as passed out of the Senate and as it passed out of the House. As we always do or very often do in large bills like this, especially the fiscal matters bills, is we sometimes need to include compromised language or other items that have failed to pass for one reason or another that are important to the operation of state and fiscal matters of the state. This resolution reflects those matters that we went outside the bounds on. I'll summarize them for you here. The first article 1811, 12 and 16 are issues that are raised with regard to the foundation school program. Resolution item 18 in your packet is probably the largest and most significant of the outside the bounds issue in that it represents the school finance compromise that we reached with the House a few days ago. Eleven, 12 and 16 deals with the retention of certain school foundation payments which was a problem, I think it occurred in certain school districts, they've never been addressed. And also the article 12 the state compression percentage in or below state compression, I believe Senator Hegar's district, this was Brenham and Carthridge that had been suffering from this problem for several years and we agreed that it was appropriate to address in this bill. And then there's finally an issue on TERs reporting that was resolved by several school districts with TEA and we actually were able to include that in this fiscal matters bill as relevant to what we were trying to do with this foundation school program. Article five, and I am going down these as the most significant to the article. Article five allows us to implement our appropriations decision so we can continue to preserve our employee retirement system, pension trust fund. You will recall that we may an appropriation decision to fund that at 6.0 percent to state contribution rate in the first year and go back up to 6.4. This allows us to comply with statutory requirements that the state employees match always be the same. We wanted to keep the state employees' matchup at 6.5 percent in order to maintain stability and actuarial -- to approach and try to get actuarial soundness to the fund. Article five deals with data collection for unclaimed property search, we're going to have that happen once every five years where ERS and TRS have to submit those reports every five years instead of every one year and that will help us with some of the data breach problems that we've recently experienced in the state. Article 63 is Senate Bill 236 which cleans up language with regards to the goods and transit tax exemption. Article seven, eight, and nine are matters that were taken up in the fiscal matters bill for article three that we passed out of here earlier in Senate Bill 1581 including advanced placement fees, tuition exemption for critical shortage areas and no dual credit for PE. Article ten was a franchise tax classification of entities as retail. It corrects a misclassification of apparel rental business as service business, this was an issue important to the House. Article 13 is the Texas guaranteed deals with the Texas Guaranteed Student Loan Corporation board of directors and basically the comptroller did not want to be on that and the governor wanted to make that appointment, so we were able to accomplish that at the request of both those executive officers. Article 71 was an issue that Senator Williams had and we've talked about this today, and I'll have him explain this later if there's any questions, with regards to driver's license and personal identification certificates. There's been a lot of discussion with many members about that today and I believe Senator Williams has worked with the House and with you to come up with an amendment -- correction amendment that will solve your concerns or the concerns that were raised earlier today. Article 15 deals with an issue we dealt with appropriations in higher Ed, several institutions including UT, A&M and Tech on mineral funds, but we appropriate those mineral funds. Other institutions like the University of Texas at Arlington has theirs outside the treasury, we're going to treat all of them the same now under this bill and they'll be all outside the treasury because they actually do all these entities. Article 17 was a matter that the House felt was important to this bill regarding the UIL officials background checks. Article one is a procurement consultant is an amendment we put on the floor and the House had the same amendment. We're going outside the bounds because their rules require that. We had several concerns about the mandatory nature of that amendment, so we made it permissive as opposed to mandatory. Article two deals with the emerged enterprise and emerging technology fund. This is transparency and this is something that was adopted as a result of the state auditors report on those issues. Article three is Senator Watson's transparency language that you recall that we put on in the Senate, the House had some questions about it, Senator Watson was gracious to work with the House conferees and the Senate and we added and made modifications to that language that I think satisfied Senator Watson's objectives and satisfied the concerns of the House conferees. And then finally, there is a franchise tax issue that regarding tax and other entities that we were trying to clear up to ensure that those -- it's clear that those entities are not part of the -- do not pay franchise tax since they are not for profit entities. That is a description of all of the items in the bill or a summary description, I'll be happy to answer any questions if you have any. Otherwise I would that we adopt Senate resolution 1260.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Thank you, Senator Duncan. Members, the question before us is the adoption of resolution 1260. Senator Ellis, for what purpose do you rise?

SENATOR RODNEY ELLIS: Couple of questions, Mr. President.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Will Senator Duncan yield for a couple of questions?

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: I yield.

SENATOR RODNEY ELLIS: Senator, how much is this going outside the bounds, how much in this new bill is there that was not heard in either chamber? I mean, obviously you gave us a good analysis of a lot of things that we didn't do on this side but you know just the major points that force you to go outside the bounds that did not come out of either one of the chambers?

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: Senator, I believe most of the things are things that were included in one bill or another. There are a few in here I know that in the -- for example, let's talk about the mineral funds. I don't know that was in another bill. I think it was, Senator Ogden advises, I know we did this in the appropriations bill and considered that. If you look at the -- the things that the House wanted, the UIL official, was no in either bill or a bill that we had considered in any chamber that I know of. They may have considered it in their chamber. The franchise tax classification of entities as retail. These are certain entities that having incorrectly classified as retail entities were -- that was a House issue but I don't think it was in any legislation but a discussion that we was important to some members over there. We felt like it was appropriate to put in this bill. I think the conferees discussed those thoroughly, embedded and they felt like it was good policy. The issue with regard to the franchise tax and exclusion with regard to certain political action committees that were -- there were some question about whether or not that would be subject to the franchise tax, that was also a recent issue that had emerged from a ruling. And so we were -- attempted to put that in there. I am thinking that most of -- of course school finance with Senate Bill 22 with a modification that we'll talk a lot more about in a few minutes with regard to the foundation school program and I think some of these other fixes are problems that some of these school districts had may have been in legislation rolling through. I know -- I think Senator Hegar may have had something, I am not sure. I know they felt they dealt with it at least to some extent in the House.

SENATOR RODNEY ELLIS: What about the enterprise fund that was there?

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: The enterprise fund I think was an issue somebody had here, I know it was, in fact, House because it was a subject of a recent -- I know there was a lot of discussion, I can't identify specifically what bill it was, but I know the state auditor has recently come out and it may have been because he recently come out with some suggestions and the language that's in this bill codifies those suggestions made by the state auditors. And that was something we -- Senator Williams advised us that that may have come out of Senator Jackson's committee on economic development.

SENATOR RODNEY ELLIS: Okay. Thank you.

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: We tried to keep things in this bill that were things that people were familiar with and things that basically needed to -- we felt like were good policy and we bedded these things hours and hours and hours. If you didn't see me on the floor for about three days it's because I was in a conference room with our other conferees and House conferees trying to make sure we bedded these to -- in an appropriate manner.

SENATOR RODNEY ELLIS: Thank you, Senator.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Senator West, for what purpose do you rise?

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: Question of the author.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Will Senator Duncan yield?

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: I yield.

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: Senator Duncan, I think this problem is directed towards Senator Williams, I'd like to get an analysis of exactly the issues that were addressed in article 7.1 concerning driver's license and personal identification.

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: I will yield the floor to Senator Williams.

SENATOR TOMMY WILLIAMS: Okay. How can I help you, Senator West?

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: What were the issues -- there were some issues that came up that you addressed here in this language.

SENATOR TOMMY WILLIAMS: The language that is contained in the conference committee report to Senate Bill 1811 is language that was requested by some of the House conferees and so our objective was to try to get the same language that was in Senate Bill 9 that dealt with these same issues into this bill and there have been discussions that have been on going between some of our colleagues in the House, myself, and Senator Hinojosa and others to try to convince our colleagues in the House that we'd like to go back to the language that was in Senate Bill 9 in the section, that could be done with a correcting amendment, correcting resolution tomorrow and the purpose for doing that would be it would be much more tightly drafted than the language that we have in this bill which is fairly broad by anyone's admission. There's some pretty important public policy issues that are at play here and the issue is that whether someone is required to prove up their lawful presence in the country when they obtain a driver's license, and right now that is being done by rule. The Department of Public Safety, the Public Safety Commission who has oversight adopted rules. That's the basis that they're operating under now. There's a lawsuit that's going on that some parties have brought about that challenges whether those rules, whether they have the authority to adopt those rules or not. And we probably, I'm guessing, had 20 or 25 hours of testimony on Senate Bill 9 in committee and a lot of it dealt with this issue, there were a lot of concerns and I think that we made a real good faith effort to try to resolve those issue to the satisfaction of all the interested parties. I think what is significant and what's important about this is it's very important that we get this language passed this session because if we don't, Texas will be one of only three states in the country that don't verify lawful presence in the country and really two of those states are in the process of correcting that now. So we'd be the only one, the end result of that could be and likely would be that you couldn't use a Texas driver's license to board an airplane, for example. It wouldn't be considered a secure identification document anymore. So I think that's a pretty significant public policy issue that needs to be addressed. The language that you see in this conference committee report will work -- I much prefer the more tightly drown language that we had in Senate Bill 9 and it would be my objective to continue to work to get that in there should this body decide to adopt a correcting resolution and we can reach an agreement with our colleagues in the House about that.

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: Okay. So the commission can do the study and then adopt the rules that they think necessary in order to implement the procedures?

SENATOR TOMMY WILLIAMS: Correct. What this does is give them the statutory authority to conduct the study and to adopt the rules and my discussions with the department would be that they would adopt the rules essentially as we had outlined them in Senate Bill 9. That's what I've been encouraging them to do.

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: Okay, thank you.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Senator Deuell, for what purpose do you rise, sir?

SENATOR BOB DEUELL: Ask the author questions.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Will Senator Duncan yield?

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: I yield.

SENATOR BOB DEUELL: Thank you, Mr. President. Senator Duncan, we spent a lot of time on 1811 in committee, didn't we?

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: We did during the interim or before it came to the floor of the Senate earlier, our subcommittee on Senate finance, scrubbed through these things many hours and then in the conference committee I was really proud of all the conference conferees because all of us were present during most of the discussions we had with the House with regard to each of these issues and we debated these very thoroughly trying to work in language and trying to solve problems and come up with solutions not only on school finance but also with regard to the fiscal matters. This bill has to pass. Our budget is -- is not funded it's severely under funded without this bill. So each of the members took their work very seriously and I appreciate all of that and -- as well.

SENATOR BOB DEUELL: I'm sorry to interrupt. Why did we have to do 1811?

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: Well, 1811 raises over -- actually if you include the school finance bill, it makes $7 billion available to fund and certify the budget. In and of itself it raises about four and a half billion dollars.

SENATOR BOB DEUELL: We had to do 1811 because we would have had to make more cuts in the budget had we not done 1811; is that correct?

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: Right. If this bill were not able to pass, we would go basically back to the House version or the base bill and public education would be funded less. Our article two decisions would be harsher and we just simply would not be able to I think go home and face our constituents with that level of cuts and critical service to the state including the foundation school program.

SENATOR BOB DEUELL: We passed 1811 out of committee.

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: We did.

SENATOR BOB DEUELL: Most of the committees were there when we discussed it, Democrats and Republicans; is that correct?

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: That's correct.

SENATOR BOB DEUELL: Everybody had questions, we had witnesses and then we sent that bill over to the House.

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: We did, and I want to comment on that because I was real proud of the Senate, we had a tough debate that night and we had bipartisan support, we didn't have the school bill in there which I think is more controversial obviously than 1811 was for a bipartisan bill, but this was an effort of this body and I do appreciate very much the help that we got from everybody on the floor, even if persons voted for it -- against it, they made contributions toward it. And even those who would vote against it tonight for whatever reason I understand that but I think -- and I understand that but I think -- I would also say that I would appreciate the work that they've put in it because people on both sides, members of this body on both sides of the aisle have had significant contribution to this. When we were negotiating the school finance bill, we had members of both parties in the decision room when we were trying to make these things work for Texas.

SENATOR BOB DEUELL: When this bill went over to the House, of course, they brought it through committee, Chairman Pitts brought it to committee and then they brought it to the floor. Would you say that the Senate version of 1811 was fairly well bedded in the House?

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: I think it is and the fact -- a lot of the things that we were able to put in the bill were actually bedded by the House before we put them in 1811 in the first place. A lot of the tax speedup language and things like that. The House was able to reach agreements with the industry with those and we have letters in our files that -- where the industry agrees with those speedups and those types of measures to allow us to cash flow manage a little better for the next biennium.

SENATOR BOB DEUELL: Now, when we sat down with the conference committee we had a lot of House amendments we didn't understand, correct?

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: We had many we didn't understand.

SENATOR BOB DEUELL: Many House amendments, so we sat down in conference committee and the first thing we did was we went through all the amendments and talked about them and then the next thing we did was we asked staff to vet them out and various staff members had assignments and we went individually with Senator and House members but also with the help of staff members but we went through each and every House amendments before we made a decision.

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: Hours and hours and hours.

SENATOR BOB DEUELL: Hours and hours and hours and were there Democrats and Republicans at this conference committees?

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: It was a bipartisan discussion on both sides.

SENATOR BOB DEUELL: Everyone had their say and we left some in, we modified a few. So everything has been bedded by both Democrats and Republications, everything's been bedded by both House members and senators; is that not correct?

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: That's true. Didn't mean that everybody agrees with everything.

SENATOR BOB DEUELL: That's true.

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: But I have been here 14 years and I've never passed a really meaningful bill that had -- you know, there wasn't some disagreement. This is a huge diverse state and we are never going to get agreement -- when you talk about school finance, for example, I started out in 1993 with a school finance debate in the first 30 days, Senator Ogden was there, I remember he made some significant input to that. Very controversial. School finance is never unanimous. Never has been. And several of the school finance bills that I've been involved with on this floor. There has always been huge debates and policy issues and give and take and so that's what I think we present here with this school finance bill today is a lot of give and take. We have done it with among ourselves here in the Senate and we have done it with the House.

SENATOR BOB DEUELL: Now then, we've sort of done your 1811, your version, House version, then we added a little ole amendment Senate Bill 22, just a little maul amendment there, right? Now that came from the Senate finance committee. Would you say that Senate Bill 22 was fairly well bedded in the Senate finance committee?

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: That's probably one of the better -- most bedded school finance bills that I've ever seen because it was actually developed by Senator Shapiro in our subcommittee in the public and then also bedded again in the full finance committee and then debated rigorously on this floor.

SENATOR BOB DEUELL: And then much discussion on and off the floor about it and not all of us agreed with everything in it.

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: That's obvious, by the vote.

SENATOR BOB DEUELL: Some of us wanted to amend it.

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: You were one that wanted to amend it.

SENATOR BOB DEUELL: You and I wanted to amend it but then looking at the greater good, we put it on there and we agreed not to amend it, we got behind it because it was absolutely the best thing to do for the state, the children of Texas, for this budget which we're constitutionally required to do.

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: What I think we saw was the best school finance plan that this body could come up with given the challenges that we had, but also even if we had more money the reduction of target revenue hold harmless a good public policy and I've not heard anybody disagree that reduction of target revenue hold harmless is not a good policy.

SENATOR BOB DEUELL: And did you run into anybody in the course of this discussion that wanted to really reduce education by $4 billion?

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: I don't think there's a person on this floor that wanted to reduce education by $4 -- by $4, much less $4 billion.

SENATOR BOB DEUELL: But we had to.

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: Well, from time to time the economy dips and we have to tighten our belts and I think that's what we've done with our House Bill 1 which is the law of the land today, both houses have passed it. It encompasses the appropriations decision this body has made with regard to school finance. This bill is necessary to pay for it and then Senate Bill 22 is also necessary for us to start ending target revenue hold harmless.

SENATOR BOB DEUELL: And there was some of us that advocated using more of the rainy day funds but we didn't have those votes.

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: I think several of us voted to use the rainy day fund.

SENATOR BOB DEUELL: So given the situation, the budget was passed, Senator Ogden laid that out yesterday, we passed it out of the Senate, it's passed the House, we were faced with a situation where we had to pass this bill, we also had to have Senate Bill 22 to give us a mechanism to spend all of this. Everything's been bedded, everyone's had their say. It's been a fair process, would you not say?

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: Senator, it's been as fair as we can make it. I know there's been a lot of discussion and disagreements about different processes and procedures that were necessary in this body. You know I am -- I hope we never have to go through what we have this session again. It was a tough decision and choice that were made by many of us but we're here today with what I think is a pretty good school finance plan given the amount of money we have and I think it also allows us to move forward to make our system more equitably, because currently it isn't. In our discussions with the House equity wasn't as important as it was in this body and I believe that this bill -- and Senator Shapiro is to be praised for her courage to go forward with this bill, but it does improve equity especially over the long haul when we actually repeal target revenue hold harmless.

SENATOR BOB DEUELL: Did Senator Shapiro get everything she wanted with this bill?

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: I don't think she did and she'll probably -- I'll let her speak for that but I don't think she did.

SENATOR BOB DEUELL: Did any of us get everything we wanted in this bill?

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: No.

SENATOR BOB DEUELL: That's the point, but there's a lot of good in this bill. What happens if this bill doesn't pass?

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: Well, the budget will not certify. That means -- and the real fear I have is and we argued this during the conference committee when we were talking with our House colleagues that our schools need certainty. They don't have that now and our school boards and school superintendents, teachers need to know that we're taking care of business here. Whether they like the bill or not, they need the budget certified so they can write their budgets. Most of the school districts are on a fiscal year that requires them to adopt a budget by July 1st. This is so they can fund the contracts with their teachers and other professionals that are on -- that they employ. If we don't pass this bill, and I understand the House has passed this just now.

SENATOR BOB DEUELL: They did.

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: And if this Senate doesn't move this bill, then these schools which will face uncertainty which is worse than the cuts that we have implemented in House Bill -- or Senate Bill 22 or this conference committee report. Uncertainty causes morale problems. This bill provides for certainty because it does have a plan to reduce target revenue hold harmless and I think a plan to require us to prioritize public education in the appropriations process.

SENATOR BOB DEUELL: Have you ever served on a school board, Senator Duncan?

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: No, sir. I was advised not to do that if I wanted to be in politics.

SENATOR BOB DEUELL: Well, I did, and I filed for school board. And the next day one of my farmer patients came in, said he was changing doctors because he thought I was smarter than that so -- but I have served on a school board and I know what drawing a budget's like and schools are a little different than most businesses because they actually have a start date. My medical practice goes on, there's no one day where hey, it's a new year or anything of that nature. But they have this deadline and if we don't pass this bill, and we have to come back in special session and do this again, do you see anything in the -- and you've been around longer than I have but do you see anything that would change where a month from now if we had a special session that we would come back and really having anything better or different than what we're doing now?

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: I think we would have more chaos with regard to how we get this done. We have fairly well settled in on a plan. It's been thoroughly bedded. The House has voted I think it's by 84-votes to approve this plan, and I think it's time for us to go ahead and act and give our school districts the certainty that they need so they can plan and go forward, continue their contracts with their professional teachers and so that we can start the end target revenue hold harmless and create a more equitable system.

SENATOR BOB DEUELL: Thank you, Senator Duncan. I've never sat in so many conference meetings with you and this is my fifth session and I learned a lot from you. And if I ever need a lawyer to negotiate for me, actually there's several people in this room right now I think I would hire, but you'd certainly be one of them. And I appreciate all the hard work you did with this bill. I intend to vote for it. Again, I am not happy with everything in it, I wish we could actually put more money in schools and I am hoping the economy picks up as Senator Ogden gave his reasons yesterday for doing the budget that we're doing and I appreciate all your hard work. I appreciate Senator Shapiro with the work that she did with 22 and look forward to addressing this issue in the future but not the near future. Thank you.

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: Thank you.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Thank you Senator. Senator Van de Putte, for what purpose do you rise?

SENATOR LETICIA VAN DE PUTTE: Will the gentleman yield just for a few questions?

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Will Senator Duncan yield?

SENATOR LETICIA VAN DE PUTTE: Thank you, Senator Duncan. And along with all of my colleagues, I really appreciate all of the effort of the committee. My questions are just a few real quick ones. On page 17 on certain contributions and I believe this is to our retirement system, if you look at the out of bounds line -- it starts with line 11, says notwithstanding if the state contribution to the retirement system is computed using a percent less 6.5 and I think that's for the state fiscal year beginning September 1st, then the members' contribution is not required to be computed using to the percentage equal to that. And I know that you done a hot of work on the retirement system, can you just explain that part? I think it's a very significant part but I'm not quite sure how to go back home and explain it.

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: It is very important. And last session we were trying to sure up the employee retirement system and get it to be more actuarial sound. Hopefully some day we can do some sort of CPI catchup for ERS. Right mow it's about 80 percent funded. In order to -- there were many reforms we did last session including return to work issues or retire, rehire issues and one was to try to put a little pressure on the state to keep the state's contribution rate up. We aid that if the state -- the state's contribution rate and the employee's contribution rate have to be equal. So in other words, if we go down to 6.0, the state's -- the employee's contribution rate would have to go down to 6.0. So in order -- because we didn't have enough money this session to fund everything the way we wanted to including the benefit package, the insurance package; we made a compromise and said, we're going to go down to 6.0 one year in the biennium and then we're going to raise it up to 6.5 which is where it needs to be. In order to do that, we need to suspend that requirement for one year that the employees' contribution would be equal to the state. That way we can continue to maintain their contribution that helps make the fund more actuarial sound and we bedded this with the public employee groups and those folks and they were fully in favor of this.

SENATOR LETICIA VAN DE PUTTE: Senator, thank you. I was very concerned about our ERS system and -- as all and I want to thank you for the work that you have done. We've had horror stories coming out of other states with regard to their pension funds and management of and show what that delicate balance is. Now, I'd like to move over very, very quickly on the school finance portion and I really appreciate -- I'm not going to talk any more about the RPAF which is the regular program adjustment factor --

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: You've done a very nice job of educating us about the RPAF.

SENATOR LETICIA VAN DE PUTTE: I think we've had a lot of discussions about that. However, if you turn over to page 194.

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: The out of bounds resolution?

SENATOR LETICIA VAN DE PUTTE: That's correct. In the out of bounds resolution on line 12 on that page, it talks about the state compression percentage and let me see if I have this correct. When we took that snapshot in 2006 and we said to our school districts, we are going to have a compression rate and our compression was I think 66 and two-thirds percent going from a 1.50 down to a dollar. So the compression rate was that amount and then what we said, of course, that we would put that in there. However this language here says the state compression percentage and it looks like we're still keeping that snapshot, the snapshot was for the 2005 tax year. So remember when we said we took that target revenue snapshot it was at that point and so that stays the same but then the next line on 17, well, we cross out on 16 that the basically what we had was that we had set that and that the commissioner could set that or not really set that in that what we said was that for a tax rate of a dollar, you get 47, 65 or 47, -- I'm sorry. And so it says if the state compression percentage is not established by appropriation for a school year. And I wanted to ask if that was a change because I thought we said at that first year when we went from a 1.50 to a dollar and then I thought we had in the code that the commissioner could come back in and basically tell you what, so what we said to schools is you get, you know, 47, 65 for a dollar, but the way we had it after that the commissioner could come back in and say you get that basic allotment for a 1.08 or a 1.10, in other words the commissioner could set it and then if that wouldn't -- remember it would go to -- the commissioner could set it and then if not, then the commissioner would have to go to the LBB to say, we're not going to meet our requirements and then it would have to go to the economic stabilization fund. In line it says if the state compression percentage not established by appropriations, does that mean now that we have taken that away from the commissioner and by legislative statute every year we're going to set the compression rate again? What did that mean?

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: Senator, this was in 22 I believe as well. And what it does mean that it does expressly authorize the legislature to change the compression rate which is not clear in statute today, but then it also then defaults if we don't do it and it's necessary then the commissioner has authority to do it as he always had under our reforms in 2006.

SENATOR LETICIA VAN DE PUTTE: And my question is because that was normally -- we let school district trustees set their tax rates and so when we did target revenue in 2006 they take the snapshot from 2005, we have a compression rate was 66 and two-thirds percent, now are we going to have to come back every -- I am unclear and that's what I'm asking. Does now every future legislature have to set that compression rate which means in essence we're setting the tax rate and are we taking that away from local school districts and their trustees?

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: Well, they don't -- local school districts don't set the compression rate. That's done by the legislature. They can use the enrichments here to raise their taxes according to the prescriptive language in the statute and in most cases in certain cases of forced -- they have go to a vote of the people, but this just simply says, look, legislature you're making funding decisions and those funding decisions correspond with tax rate compression, so you got to consider that whenever you do the appropriations bill. And then if you don't adequately deal with the issue or if there's a shortfall or whatever in the interim, then the commissioner still has the authority we granted earlier to be able to change the presentation rate. We were trying in 22 to be able to put the decisions in the appropriations process, which were we thought that would be an appropriate place to make these decisions. So we are forced every session to deal with this issue in an appropriate way in a structure that is a little more simpler than I think what it was before.

SENATOR LETICIA VAN DE PUTTE: And that was my question. See, I never thought we set the compression rate. I thought we set it that one time in 2006 or 2005.

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: We could set the compression rate by change the statute obviously but the appropriations process -- this legislation allows the appropriations process to work with the total dynamic of school finance.

SENATOR LETICIA VAN DE PUTTE: Okay. Then with that -- and I wanted to make sure that so now the step is -- in other words, the code was silent on it but technically the legislature can always come in and set different percentages, so the steps now --

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: It is not easy to do that.

SENATOR LETICIA VAN DE PUTTE: Not very easy.

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: We've learned.

SENATOR LETICIA VAN DE PUTTE: Because every time we do their school runs and do it to that -- if you go over to 196, this is the final followup to that and it is the payment for the 2011, 12 school year that -- is set at a hundred and then for the second year -- and then the next year of the biennium it's going to be set at 92.35 I am on page 196 line 20.

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: I've got it.

SENATOR LETICIA VAN DE PUTTE: Then remember the language we talked about the difference between 22 as it was on the floor that I think Senator Shapiro said that it was prescriptive on those percentages and we felt a lot of comfort at least with the concept that every member of this legislature said we're going to go after target revenue and we're going to start getting that down. Now, the question was with Dr. Deuell's amendment was how do we do it and how fast do we do it but on this it says the legislature by appropriations shall establish the percentage reduction to be applied. Now, in your opinion does that language mean we still have the intent to get rid of that hold harmless on target revenue?

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: Yes. And you recall when we were making that final decision when we were meeting with the House conferees, they wanted to remove those percentages we had in the out years which were simply targets or baselines because they were always subject to appropriations and the way we solved that to ensure that it was the intent of the legislature was to be sure that the language includes the word reduction. So I believe that means that we have to continue to reduce target revenue in addition to the amendment that we put on 22 when it came out of here. And you'll recall where we said it's the intent of the legislature that we'll continue to reduce target revenue hold harmless and raise the basic allotment. So those two pieces of the budget or the bill tied together to, in my view, keep the nose down with regard to target revenue and keep the nose up with regard to the basic allotment.

SENATOR LETICIA VAN DE PUTTE: Thank you very much and thank you, Senator Shapiro, for your work. And I know Senator West worked on this as well. But I wanted to make clear that the intent was to still reduce target revenue and even though it's not in the language here, if you reduce target revenue then you're going to increase the basic allotment and to constantly try to do that.

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: I think that's very clear in the statute that that is the -- that is the direction that Senate Bill 22 language continues to address. Iter just doesn't put a baseline from which to negotiate. It can be more or less, it can be -- if we have revenue, it can be more of a reduction and that's part of the beauty of this that it allows us and forces us to deal with it every session. It's not permissive, we've got to deal with it. And that's what I like about Senate Bill 22, it forces us to deal with equity and it forces us to do it by 2018.

SENATOR LETICIA VAN DE PUTTE: Well, Senator, I appreciate your work. I have heart ache that we have that $4 billion cut --

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: So do I.

SENATOR LETICIA VAN DE PUTTE: But I plan to vote for your Senate resolution even though in the full part of the budget it is -- it is a reduction but I think that the work done on this and I am particularly thankful that you kept the amendment in for the Department of Defense schools just to make sure that the children of those serving in the military aren't impacted any more negatively than any other children in the state.

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: And I appreciate your help on this, Senator, because when we were making final decisions, we needed good advice. And I thought you really were the cool head in the room to make sure we knew what we were doing when we made these decisions, so I appreciate it.

SENATOR LETICIA VAN DE PUTTE: Thank you, Senator. I don't have any other questions.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Senator Gallegos, for what purpose do you rise, sir?

SENATOR MARIO GALLEGOS: Will the gentleman yield?

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Will Senator Duncan yield?

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: I yield.

SENATOR MARIO GALLEGOS: Senator Duncan, I jus received your resolution on going outside the bounds and I've been trying to go through these almost 50 pages that you have laid out here and since -- let me ask you a question. Since you're going outside the bounds with what you already have in here, you know, some of the amendments that I had dealt with exemptions on that we gave many years ago and since we're going outside the bounds, and one in particular is the inheritance tax along with the items you've already had down there. And I had to pull my amendment because it's not germane. All House bills tart in the House. Now, that you're going outside the bounds here on this resolution, could items like that been brought up or could they be brought up in conference committee?

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: If they had support, I guess if the bill originated from the House -- you know, I don't know Senator. I really don't. All I know is when we had 1811 on the floor, it was a Senate Bill originating in the Senate and we were trying to not -- we were trying to be very careful because there were some tax exemption issues, high cost gas was an issue that I was interested in. Senator West had worked very hard on that issue and I know Senator Davis had worked hard on that issue and I was advised there was too much risk, it couldn't be blessed necessarily as a sure thing. It could have killed the bill on a point of order, so I was being pretty hard on those, even things I liked because I was just nervous about this bill being so important, a must pass bill and being hung up on a point of order in the House. But I know you and I talked about that and I remember that it was very important to you but I -- it was like any other.

SENATOR MARIO GALLEGOS: And I respectfully pulled it down.

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: You did.

SENATOR MARIO GALLEGOS: But now, we're going outside the bounds here --

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: Well, there was another -- there was another cast as well, and we were negotiating is -- we tried -- and I don't know how successful we were, I guess in the House apparently we were because we got the votes for this bill. But in the Senate, there were things on there that members like, for example, Senator -- or Representative Crownover put on a statewide smoking ban in the House. There are many members in this body that strongly support that, on the other hand there are members that strongly oppose it. So we felt like it would be inappropriate to put that on this for that reason. So we didn't. We thought it was too controversial and so what we tried to bring forward to you today other than school finance, we've worked on school finance together in this House in what I think is a bipartisan way and we tried really to keep things that were going to be controversial or where there was strong opposition one way or the other and I think what you and I talked about and what you described to me there would probably be very strong support in this body, but there would also be equally as strong objections. So we felt like this would be inappropriate or I feel like even if we had brought it up, the conferees would have brought it up even if they supported it.

SENATOR MARIO GALLEGOS: And I agree with you, but it only affects a very few Texans, very few and. We're talking about $236 million. That is a lot of money and I would --

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: If I keep serving in the Senate, it won't affect me.

SENATOR MARIO GALLEGOS: But I'm just talking about extra revenue. Obviously we're looking at a shortfall.

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: I understand. And there were some measures but simply -- you know, I tried to use my judgment and the judgment of the members of the subcommittee to vet through issues to determine whether or not they would have support in this body and that's just one of them I didn't think would but I also knew going out of here it was not something we could put on and risk the bill being delayed or killed on a point of order.

SENATOR MARIO GALLEGOS: Well, and I wasn't privileged on that conference committee or I would have brought it up, especially now since you're going outside the bounds. And like I said, I don't know what the rules are. I guess if you go outside the bounds, let your conscience be your guide on anything you wanted to ask on that list of fiscal matters and obviously helps out the budget. And that's what I was looking out anything to help -- especially on public school finance. And, you know, I was just trying to add those dollars on there since it only affected very few Texans and, like I said, $236 million is a lot of money, lot of money. But on another question Senator Duncan, let me ask you. When you were in conference, was the rainy day fund ever brought up or money to that to add to -- especially now that you're going outside the bounds.

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: No, because this bill would not be an appropriate vehicle for that and it was not a part of the bill. That was covered in another bill that actually passed the Senate and the House. So we did not take that issue up on 1811.

SENATOR MARIO GALLEGOS: Thank you. It's my knowledge it's a fiscal matters bill, kind of like really Senator Royce's amendment that he had for over a billion dollars to add on that. Now, since you're going outside the bounds here now --

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: Well, I think -- I understand but I think it goes back to the principle I was discussing with you earlier that we were trying to put things on here that we felt would have support. We knew school finance would be controversial because it always is but most of the issues in here I think we're trying to correct an issue I know Senator Williams is working on that are would be controversial and we -- we're going to fix that but on everything else we really tried to be something -- we include things in the bill that needed to pass to solve problems that members were having in their districts or with other issues and that would have broad support or had demonstrated it would have broad support in both Houses. That was our principle under which we made decisions to include things or to modify language that would be necessary for an outside the bounds resolution.

SENATOR MARIO GALLEGOS: Well, let me ask you this question Senator, you know -- let me look at a couple -- you know trying to balance the budget at home okay? At home just put that face on it, okay?

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: Been there.

SENATOR MARIO GALLEGOS: Senator Whitmire says and you're trying to balance a budget. Okay, obviously cost are increasing, you have kids, you know, like Senator Hegar, you know, obviously those costs are going to go high and if you're not making ends meet, then you got to tell -- you know, if you and your wife are sitting down and trying to balance a budget and trying to balance a budget especially on this bill, now that you're going outside the bounds and add extra money on there, you're sitting at home trying to balance your budget, you're at the end -- especially during this economy and you're thinking to yourself, look, we're going to keep our kids in school and add the extra cost, the mortgage and every other bill that a couple has to pay in texas, then the obvious thought is to go to your savings and to make ends meet and a lot of people are doing that right now, is they're going to balance a budget and that's what we're trying to do here is balance a budget. And when you try to balance a budget, it's just common sense that you go to your savings. Our savings is a rainy day fund. That's where our savings are and that's where it's obvious that that's where it would go to. It's no different than what people are doing right now in their own homes, Texans are doing there at the kitchen table trying to make ends meet. And I would suggest to you that since we're going outside the bounds that that be -- the rainy day fund be included on that as our savings and try to help our folks out there that are trying to balance their budget. We're looking at a way to at least ease the pain here, Senator Duncan, and I believe that's the way to do it.

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: Well, we did use almost 3.2 billion in the rainy day fund. We were lucky to get a billion more -- a little over a billion more in extra revenue certified by the comptroller, and then I think used what are typically traditional cash management tools that are necessary which are included in this bill to try to resolve that. I don't think any of us wanted to cut schools. Didn't want to cut higher Ed either, but it was kind of like in 2003 when we had the economic downturn as well. We, I think, wrote the best budget we could write and I heard Senator Ogden say this many times, given the circumstances that we had and we did it, you know, while the vote wasn't always -- while the vote may have been partisan, I was very impressed with the hard work and effort in contribution that all members in a bipartisan way contributed even though the vote didn't reflect that. There was a lot of work by a lot of folks. This body worked well together. Despite what the vote indicated on that budget. So, you know, I think we tried, we're doing the best we can. I would have liked to use more of the rainy day fund like me and you but you can't have it your way every time and I certainly understand that because I've been on the receiving end of that many time in my career here in the Texas Senate.

SENATOR MARIO GALLEGOS: Well, Senator, you know, and I -- you did a good job on this bill and I voted for it. I didn't --

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: You were a significant help in getting this bill get passed off the floor and I appreciate that.

SENATOR MARIO GALLEGOS: And I didn't want to seem like an obstructionist, I just knew this was a trigger for the budget and, you know, I knew that we had to have it. So I showed good faith in voting for it, but I also understand that we have other options in more of the rainy day fund and I believe that should be going in especially now that we're going outside the bounds in 1811 to show the folks -- the Texans out there that are having problems balancing their budget that we care about them too and we're also willing to go into our savings, our rainy day fund to help them out there and that's why I feel real strong about it, Senator Duncan, and I think we should have done it. Thank you.

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: Thank you, Senator Gallegos.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Senator Lucio, for what purpose do you rise?

SENATOR EDDIE LUCIO: Will the gentleman yield for a question?

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Will Senator Duncan yield?

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: I yield.

SENATOR EDDIE LUCIO: I, Robert, Senator, I realize you put a lot of effort and work in this and I am looking at some runs here that are kind of disturbing. The top one is a little bit better than the second one that came back. I understand this run here deals with the school finance as we -- as it left the Senate to go to the House and it shows that in one of my school districts, 31 school districts that actually the biggest one Brownsville in the change in total

(inaudible) revenue was $6.8 million and --

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: Similar to what it was in the school districts that I represent too, Senator.

SENATOR EDDIE LUCIO: Yes, sir. And that's with the population of a little over 50,000 but -- and this one here it shows that when the House put together in the run that happened there, it shows $17.8 million. Well, it's close to three times as bad and the percentages though that look too much of a difference like .6 percent because new jobs was added, the bigger there was added 6.7, I mean -- excuse me, 8.8 million that really comes directly to the school district. And my question how can we show that here, why do we how that here in this run and we didn't in this one here?

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: Senator, that's a very good question. And I hope I can address it as articulate as Senator Shapiro can --

SENATOR EDDIE LUCIO: Nobody can.

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: And I'll give it a stab and then if she'll clean up whatever I mess up. Believe it or not when we were negotiating House Bill 1 with the House, which is the appropriations bill, there were many that were debating whether to count EDU jobs as a method of finance for House Bill 1. Senator Shapiro and I and Senator Ogden and others resisted that because we wanted transparency in what we appropriate in general revenue and we wanted to make sure that we appropriated as much general revenue to public schools as our budget would allow. If we would have used EDU jobs as a method of finance then we would not been transparent and we would not have used as much general revenue to fund our public education system. So we rejected that in House Bill 1. It's included on the run that is before you on the -- what I would call the modified version for the conference committee report because we now have it, we know what it is and we were trying to -- run is trying to reflect the total amount of revenue available for school districts including EDU jobs, including amount they will get under the proration in the first year, that was part of our compromise with the House and the runs that I've looked at, and I haven't looked at every school district, but the samples that I have from different areas, I always go to certain school districts to say, how does this one perform because I can go to about five or six schools around the state and understand how it performs --

SENATOR EDDIE LUCIO: So what you're --

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: Well, let me finish because this is the most important part of it. Is that not in all cases but I think in most of the cases, the EDU jobs money when it's counted and it's real money and it's there to do the same thing that general revenue does in paying teachers' salaries, but the losses that the schools are experiencing in that first year because of the proration are not as -- are similar to the losses they would have received had we fully implemented Senate Bill 22 in both years of the biennium of facing us in this budget.

SENATOR EDDIE LUCIO: So your -- what you're telling me is that these figures appear now at the insistence of the House, correct?

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: Well, you know, I think the House -- you know, I think their idea when I first heard it I didn't like it but I warmed up to it. I don't think it -- they were trying to solve a different problem and they were at least trying to show a lack of -- or they were trying to show that the cuts from the first year of the biennium for all school districts are pretty similar. We had a different objective by trying to reduce target revenue hold harmless. So you know I think they had an idea that had merit and so we all did after we looked at it, studied it, debated it with them and came to the conclusion -- debated it with the persons that we rely on to help us make decisions and decided it was a good compromise.

SENATOR EDDIE LUCIO: So at the end of the day, where you're taking me at the end of the day, and correct me if I'm wrong, at the end of the day then the EDU jobs figures that appear in these runs quite frankly impact what the state of Texas will be sharing in terms of financing school districts.

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: Well, I think it shows you for your consideration in voting on the bill what revenues your school will have available with the advantage of EDU jobs and the amount of revenue that we're putting in the first year of the biennium. So it's there to show that what revenue is available for school districts to operate and to also show or give you a metric to see how much it is less than the current or the current biennium.

SENATOR EDDIE LUCIO: Do all school districts in Texas receive EDU jobs money and if not, how is it -- how is it --

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: Senator, I believe --

SENATOR EDDIE LUCIO: How does it impact or how did this affect public school equity as we would like to see it happen?

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: Well, you know, how you -- I think it improves it and let me be clear here. The schools already have EDU jobs money.

SENATOR EDDIE LUCIO: Correct. That goes directly to them from the federal government.

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: Those grants are there and we're not replacing that money because we made an appropriation decision early on, we're going to put billion more in House Bill 1. The numbers are there simply to how you what money revenues are available to the schools given the school finance models and the EDU jobs as well.

SENATOR EDDIE LUCIO: But my question was, and I don't know if Senator Shapiro was sharing with you, do all school districts get some form of EDU jobs funding?

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: I think the run reflects that each and every one of them get EDU job money and that's already been allocated by the formula fund.

SENATOR EDDIE LUCIO: So that would --

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: By (inaudible) which I think is something that you would like.

SENATOR EDDIE LUCIO: So -- and I hope I state this correctly, so that amount of money that EDU jobs fund that are received by Brownsville for example will be taken into consideration when we finally put out a figure that they're going to be receiving from the state.

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: No, the amount of money they would be receiving is what we send them regardless.

SENATOR EDDIE LUCIO: Regardless.

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: I mean, we --

SENATOR EDDIE LUCIO: That's what I --

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: When we passed House Bill 1, it's on top of EDU jobs.

SENATOR EDDIE LUCIO: We're taking over and beyond then.

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: Yes, over and beyond. Here in this --

SENATOR EDDIE LUCIO: You go --

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: Let me finish.

SENATOR EDDIE LUCIO: Go ahead.

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: We resisted any effort to say we're going to use EDU jobs in lieu of general revenue. We made that decision in House Bill 1. That's just simply there to show you that in addition to the appropriation, the decisions that we made on in House Bill 1 for $4 billion that the schools have also received for this, in this biennium recently the EDU jobs money which is 830 million, I think.

SENATOR EDDIE LUCIO: I think where you lose me is on the first run that I shared with you, the 6.8, it hows a percent change in total imminent revenue of minus 2.0 compared to the second run of 17.8 million that shows a minus 2.6 percent and I think the reason that it shows that that's not that much of a difference because of EDU jobs funds were taken into consideration and added, am I right?

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: No.

SENATOR EDDIE LUCIO: Well, tell me why we reduce --

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: Let me say it again. Let me say it again.

SENATOR EDDIE LUCIO: Yeah.

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: There is a difference in the way -- House Bill 22 and the House version they want to fund schools was different. For the first year of the biennium the House preferred to use proration at 100 percent.

SENATOR EDDIE LUCIO: Okay.

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: They agreed that if we used proration for 100 -- the rate of 100 percent then they would also go in the second year of biennium to Senate Bill 22 language h which we did, which as you know and you sit right next to me on our subcommittee, and we worked every day trying to get this right. We had the goal of reducing target revenue hold harmless and that's what Senate Bill 22 does. So what we did in the proration concept that the House wanted, basically distributes the money differently, the same amount of money differently than did our bill and to some schools that were winning -- well, I don't think any school wins but some schools that were having a lesser reduction under Senate Bill 22 would have a greater reduction under proration and so what we tried to do is show what EDU jobs is putting in, in addition what we're putting in on top of EDU jobs to show you where your school districts are at the end of the day 2012 and 2013.

SENATOR EDDIE LUCIO: I understand. Thank you very much.

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: Thank you.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Thank you, Senator. Members, the question is on the adoption of the resolution. The secretary will call the roll.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Members there being 19 ayes and ten nays and two absences, the motion is adopted. The Chair recognizes Senator Duncan for a motion to adopt the conference committee report on Senate Bill --

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: Thank you, Mr. President and members, we've had a lot of discussion on this already House Bill 18 or Senate Bill 1811 is a product of work of all members of this body and I have described for you the differences in the out of bounds resolution. This bill basically raises in cash management tools that we use 4 billion or actually 4.729 billion including the foundation school program deferral. In addition, there are speedups in this bill that total 315.9 million which is in my view I think a pretty wise amount to be using in a speedup because sometimes you have to repay those a little bit earlier. We have delays of 2.7 billion which can be carried forward until you have certain revenue to pay them. There are other one time items that total 287 million and then recurring on ongoing items that are roughly around 4.7 billion when you include the school finance bill. So this is a significant bill, a significant effort by our staffs and I want to thank my staff and all of the staffs who worked tirelessly in proofing this bill and putting it together. It could not have happened without them. Literally yesterday my staff and others, we had over 15 people in my office proofreading this, looking like E and E, making corrections and they actually found some mistakes and so I can, you know, tell you with confidence that the bill you have before you is technically sound. Senator Williams will have some -- I think had dialogue with Senator West with corrections with regard to the driver's license issue and other than that I'll be happy to answer any questions you have about Senate Bill 1811 before I move to adopt the conference committee report.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Senator Shapiro, for what purpose do you rise?

SENATOR FLORENCE SHAPIRO: To make a comment on the adoption of the conference committee report.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: You're recognized.

SENATOR FLORENCE SHAPIRO: Thank you. And I won't be very long. I just would like to share some thoughts with all of you because I think this is a very significant part in what we have done in 1811. First and foremost I want to say very much and how very proud I am to have served in this body with each of you. In all of my years in working with the Texas Senate, I am not sure that I have ever seen a more knowledgeable group of senators when is it comes to public school finance. This is a very technical and very complex issue but I am here to tell each of you who understood the basics and have decided to make this a passion of yours just as it is all of us to understand how we fund our public schools and for that I am extremely grateful to all of you. Throughout these many months, the senators have had three basic principles and we have stood tall on those three basic principles. First we said we were going to spend 6 billion more dollars than our base bill. Second we said we were going to fund our textbooks and third we said we're going to change the current hold harmless target revenue hold harmless system. Members, we have 140 districts out of 1,041. That means 900 are still on target revenue hold harmless and 140 are within our formulas. What we used today and run our system on formulas. We no longer do that. We still stood tall and said, that's a problem and we want to fix it. Senator Duncan, you stood tall amongst all of us because you said you came into this session with a goal in mind that was to do something about target revenue and you stood by your principles. We to do tall and we never wavered from our three basic principles and I think all of us should be very, very proud of the product we see here today. The Senate studied public school finance extensively. You heard from Senator Duncan how often we talked about this. We had a subcommittee on public school finance, very unusual during the middle of a finance committee appropriations. I want to say to Senator West, Senator Seliger, to Senator Duncan, to Senator Estes, to Senator Lucio and to Senator Patrick how very much I appreciate your participation in this very difficult and trying process. We found a compromise, as you said, Senator Duncan, amongst our colleagues, we found a compromise between Republicans and Democrats, we found a compromise between urban and suburban, rural districts to make sure that the work product that we brought out of that Senate Bill committee was one we could all be proud of. We then took that work product to the finance committee and it was approved there and we stood strong from that day forward. So strong in our beliefs, so strong in our principles that I am here to tell everyone the majority of senators said, if we don't get the $6 billion, we don't get the textbooks. If we don't make end roads target revenue hold harmless, we're willing to come back for a special session. Now, that's a pretty rare group of individuals that will sacrifice like that for the school children of Texas but it was specifically because this group of senators believed against all beliefs that they were right in the amount of money that they wanted to put in to the school districts above the base bill which was completely and totally unacceptable. We put almost $6 billion into the base bill. The House only put 2 billion. It was quite a task to get where we got. But I want to thank each and every one of you for your persisters. I took your message forward, and we prevailed. On textbooks we prevailed, on target revenue hold harmless decreased we prevailed. And I thank you today for this commitment that we made to the school children and to the parents and the taxpayers of Texas. I truly believe that during this financial crisis we make the best out of what we probably could have had and I truly believe that our decisions here today will actually bring us to where we need to be, the Senate showed a commitment under very stressful circumstances to address not only the current problem but future problems. To me that was an outstanding opportunity. We talk about fairness, we talk about equity, we talk about not harming any one group of schools to benefit another, a very different dialogue than we were hearing otherwise. But whatever we do we must maintain this urgency to go among this path in the next session. Before I close once more, I want to say that school finance is a very difficult issue. It puts colleague against colleagues, it's personal, it's difficult and it transcends ideological divides but you, the members of the Texas Senate, made it a priority and I am very proud to serve with you particularly at this very moment, particularly on this most pressing issue for the future of Texas and for the future of our school children. It's been an honor to serve with you, Senator Duncan, and I appreciate all the hard work that you and all the members of this body put into this school finance plan.

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: Thank you, Senator. Let me ask you a question if you would yield. Your school districts don't necessarily benefit from Senate Bill 22, do they?

SENATOR FLORENCE SHAPIRO: No, my school districts were not very happy about Senate Bill 22.

SENATOR ROBERT DUNCAN: And I believe you should be congratulated for your courage and your ability to look at the state as you always have as a whole, but that was a major decision for you to move forward even with a proposal that was not necessarily in the best interest of your constituents but what you felt was in the best interest of the rest of the state and I appreciate that and I want to congratulate you.

SENATOR FLORENCE SHAPIRO: Thank you. And I appreciate you saying that. It's awfully important to be representing your district but it's also an incredible honor to be a chairman of the Senate education committee and I made the decision early on that I had to do whatever is the best thing for the state of Texas and so I made absolutely sure that my district was not going to be harmed tremendously, they certainly weren't going to be the beneficiary of 22, but I felt it was the right thing to do and I appreciate your thoughtfulness. Thank you.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: I think I know the answer, but Senator Davis, for what purpose do you rise, ma'am?

SENATOR WENDY DAVIS: To speak against the adoption of the conference committee report for Senate Bill 1811.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Since there's no one else on the screen, you're recognized.

SENATOR WENDY DAVIS: Thank you, Mr. President and members. I rise to speak against the adoption of this conference committee report consistent with the positions that I and others on the Senate floor have taken with regard to school funding in this session. Funding schools at $4 billion less as is proposed under this plan will mean the very first time ever in the history of funding public schools that we are not going to fund student population growth. Let me say that again. For the first time ever we are not funding student population growth. We are failing our school children by adopting this plan. And we are failing our educators and we are breaking a promise. In 2006, when the tax swap maneuver was adopted by this legislature, a promise was made to our school districts. If you will depress your property tax rates and collect less at the local level, we will make up the difference and we all know that back then, way back then, the comptroller wrote a letter saying, you are about to write the biggest hot check to the public school children of Texas imaginable and she laid out what it would look like in the coming years and what she laid out came true, and we know when we started this session, at the very beginning of this session and the public finance committee hearings, our current comptroller came and said as a result of that tax swap and as a result of the under collection in what was to fill the hole by the compression in the property tax rate, we were starting this session $10 billion in the hole. Wouldn't matter if we were in great economy or a poor economy, the decision that was made in 2006 landed us squarely where we are today and when we started the session with great admiration, I listened to Senator Ogden as he gave his acceptance speech to become our president pro-tem and he said he was committed and I know he was, I know he was sincere about this. He was committed to fixing that problem, and we haven't done anything. Not a tiny little thing to fix that problem in the plan that's being advanced today and what does that mean? It means something very real. Thousands of school teachers across Texas are losing their jobs. The school districts that I represent and that all of you represent will have millions of dollars less in which to do the very difficult job that it is that we ask them to do in response to some of their concerns, I've heard some of the members say, well, they can use their reserve fund. But we have a reserve fund. We have a rainy day fund and we didn't use a single dollar of it to fund our failure for the first time in the history of the state of Texas to fund student population growth in Texas. Not a dime. In our own household when Senator Gallegos was talking about this previously, if we had money in the bank, in our homes were about to be foreclosed on, we would spend the money in the bank, it would be irresponsible for us not to do that and so many of our constituents, our families, our school teachers, our school districts have asked us to use the money that we have in the bank so that we don't take this first step toward failing them. The response was not to do that. And in fact the response was even worse than that. It wasn't to say, we're going to give you $4 billion less this session, it was to say, we're going to rewrite the formula in a way that will allow us to permanently wipe off of our balance sheet that obligation. We wrote a new funding formula and I know a tremendous amount of hard work has gone into that formula and I know there were disagreements between the Senate and the House with regard to how we allocate $4 billion less than our school districts should receive and in some of those plans, lower income school districts, those that can't earn as much because their taxable values in their districts resident as high, those who aren't at target revenue, they're going to be hurt, seriously. And I know that Senator Shapiro had advanced a plan that would have done that in a much better fashion than the plan that was introduced in the House and to which a compromise was reached. I've received a number of letters from constituents in the Senate district they represent, Senate district ten, and I know you all are as well and I have just a sample of some of those and these are people that are concerned about the fact that we are permanently moving off of our balance sheet the funding of student population growth in the state of Texas and not only are we doing that but we're doing it without putting a plan in place that will help us find further funding. Senator Davis, this is from Jeff Province, he's a principal at Arlington Lamar high school, as you prepare to tackle one of the largest shortfalls in state history, I'm asking you to find a way to keep public education cuts to a minimum and to use the rainy day fund to make up for some of the state's revenue shortfall. The education of Texas students today will are a direct impact on the future of our state. I know you are dedicated to serving your constituents, the decisions regarding public school funding are important to me and to my school district. From Cindy Harvinson, an elementary principal in the Arlington ISD, Ms. Davis, I'm very concerned about the direction our state is heading with regard to public education. We are faced with possibly cutting fine arts programs at the elementary level and cutting our probationary teachers. This will hurt our students and the quality of education that we are providing. As a principal and a product of Arlington ISD, it saddens me to see us in this situation. I would ask that the state consider using the rainy day funds to help support the local school districts and their budget. I know you are a major proponent of public education and a vital supporter for us, so I thank you for that. Hopefully the state can find a way to not cut funds to the districts and not take away from the education of our students. From Roger pierce, one of my constituents, destructive cuts and funding for education and other essential public services are not the answer to the state revenue shortfall that confronts the 2011 legislative session. State funding for public schools already lag behind growth and enrollment, inflation and the cost of meeting rising state achievement goals. Texas needs to invest more not less in the nearly million children attending our public schools to address the shorter term revenue problems caused by the recession and avoid destructive cuts, I urge you to declare publicly your support for the full use of the state's rainy day fund. This economic stabilization fund is intended to counteract exactly the kind of economic downturn accompanied by revenue shortfalls that we are experiencing now. Fully using the $9 billion available in the rainy day fund will go a long way to prevent needless harm to our state's school children and their families. There also are long-term structural revenue shortfalls in the state's finances that require long-term solutions. The 2006 bill that reduced school property taxes did not produce nearly enough replacement revenue. That bill at the same time made it much harder for elected school boards to raise revenue locally above a 1.04 per 100 of value. The state also has exempted business and professional services from the state sales tax leaving untaxed the main growth sector in the state's economy. The legislature should rethink all these policies, taxing most business and professional services while preserving the exemption for lifeline services such as health care and child care would raise 5.6 billion per biennium. Please support the necessary and feasible shorter term and long-term solutions to the state revenue's problems and don't shortchange the future of our school children. From Mayor Vincent a constituent from Arlington, Dear Senator Davis, as a Texas voter I want you to know that our state's public schools are extremely important to me, my family and my community. To maintain public education in our current financial crisis I ask you to support these emergency measures immediately. Use the $9.3 billion in the Texas rainy day fund to support public schools. Make sure any cuts that may be necessary are fair to all school districts. Texas students are our future and our education is the most important public investment we can make. I hope you will agree with me by supporting these critical measures and look forward to your prompt response. From Michael Cemino, dear honorable Wendy Davis, as an educator and employee at TY Rusk Middle School in the Dallas Independent School District, I urge you to access part of the $9.4 billion rainy day fund. Our local community and local economy will suffer dramatically if we are forced to lose almost 4,000 employees. Please consider all options before forcing this many people out of work. From Lanetta Moye, a teacher in Fort Worth. Senator Davis, this is a plea to save education in Texas. I am a 28 year veteran teacher, education approved greatly in the state in the 1990s and it continued to thrive in this century. The proposed changes will cause Texas to take a step back in education. Please continue to work hard for the children of Texas. From Mary LaTour, a mom, a student, a future educator from Arlington. As you prepare to tackle one of the largest shortfalls in state history, I am asking you to find a way to keep public education cuts to a minimum and to use the rainy day fund to make up for some of the State's revenue shortfall. The education of Texas students today will have a direct impact on the future of our state, I know you are dedicated to serving your constituents, the decisions regarding public school funding are important to me and to my school district. From Kimberly Rios in Mansfield, please do not cut the education fund. I do not understand how we can sacrifice the future of this state and country by cutting education. I know things have to be cut but education should be last and the least amount. I would like to know why the lottery money isn't being used in the way it was intended when it was voted in. I would like to know why the rainy day fund is not being used. Please know this is a hot button with many parents. We will not sit by and watch our children's education be cut away. It is sad that our country is now ranked 14th in education and we are making these huge cuts. From Jennifer Martin in Crowley, while we are well aware of student educations are the most important factor, we also have to take into account that if the number of teachers that lose their jobs that are projected the economy will also continue to suffer and things are doomed to get much worse. That leads to more foreclosures, etc. It's been brought to my attention that we're spending roughly $150,000 per operational day in the district that I teach. If that is the case, why not go to a four day workweek. This would leave roughly 300 positions to cut, still. I believe many districts could preserve a lot of funds by extending the instructional day. That is one less day we have to run buses, prepare food for students and run electricity. Also I think parents would to this because it would allow many to only need child care one day a week instead of five. From Vicki Bates in Arlington, she's a prekindergarten teacher. I'm a preK teacher in the Arlington ISD, I am concerned about the proposed state budget cuts that are in turn destroying every school district in Texas. The proposed increase in the student teacher ratio keep Texas smart, make education a top priority, use the $9.3 billion in the Texas rainy day fund to support schools. Fix school funding laws to be fair to all districts and to our growing student population. From a grandparent in Arlington, you must help limit the cuts to our kids in education. You need to push for the rainy day fund to be used. Please help. From Lauren Park near Fort Worth. Senator Davis, I know that some very tough decisions will be made in the weeks and months to come with regard to the state budget. During this time I ask that you please minimize the impact on our public education. Our students are already behind the rest of their peers around the country and cutting funding will only

(inaudible) to increase that gap. As a 6th grade math teacher, I can tell you that increasing class size a natural consequence of reducing the number of teachers will only harm our students. If I am not one of the thousands of teachers to lose my job this year, I struggle with how I will meet the individual needs of my students in an overcrowded classroom. These children are the future of our state. I beg of you please do not take their future away by taking away their right to a quality education. From Aaron Haygood in Fort Worth, dear Senator Davis, as a Texas voter I want you to know that our state's public schools are extremely important to me, my family and my community. To maintain public education in our current financial crisis I ask you to support these emergency measures immediately. Use the $9.3 billion in the Texas rainy day fund and make sure that cuts are fair to all school districts. Texas students are our future and their education is the most important public investment we can make. I hope you will agree with me by supporting these critical measures and look forward to your prompt response. From Susan Williamson in Fort Worth. Dear Senator Davis, please read the attached letter that I sent to the governor of Texas. The preK program should not be removed or downsized, instead preK should be offered to all children who wish to attend. I believe that Fort Worth ISD could accomplish this if they maintain the 179 teachers and assistants and all preK children come for a half day. Therefore our state and local district could serve proximately 4,334 children for the same cost they have currently allocated. Tomorrow Fort Worth ISD superintendent and board will decide on the future of the preK program, please give them your support, help us locate the funds needed to continue this wonderful program. From Jennifer Foster in Crowley, please support our children over cutting cost. The future depends on the decisions made today. Our classrooms are already bursting at the seams, we are out of desks in most classrooms, every child deserves the opportunity to receive an outstanding education from a hard working, dedicated, motivated, educated and inspired teacher. I absolutely love what I do and never view teaching as a job. I strive to make that personal connection and strive to inspire each of my students. Teachers need resources, manageable class sizes and job security. Please support Crowley ISD and Texas teachers. Members from Texas on the Brink, we have a number of statistics that should alarm us about the cuts that we're making and we've talked about these several times. We are the second highest public school enrollment growth, student enrollment growth in the country and at the same time we stand 44th in combined state and local spending for pupil in our local schools. Our scholastic assessment test scores, our SAT scores are 45th out of 50 states. The percent of population 25 and older with a high school diploma we are dead last in the country. Our high school graduation rate is only 43rd. These are statistics to be ashamed of and at the same time that we face these standings in the country, we are making a decision not to use rainy day money to support public school funding. I've heard some members say that school districts can raise their property tax rates. Well, of course, first they have to go out for an election in order to do that. But I am asking why would we ask our families to pay more in property taxes, we're already unbelievably high in that regard in the state of Texas. Why would we ask our families to do that and we won't ask some of our corporations to give and to share in the pain in why are we not closing some of the corporate loopholes that exist in the state of Texas. Why are we not as Senator West, as Senator Ellis, as I, and other senators on this floor have asked, why are we not ending or at least reducing the high cost gas well exemption. If we ended it we would realize about $1.2 billion. If we took another two or billion out of the rainy day fund and added it to that, the problem would be solved. It's not that we don't have solutions, it's that we've chosen not to use those solutions. We have chosen to say from this day forward we are going to permanently reduce funding to public schools in Texas and we're going to pat ourselves on the back because we wrote formulas that do it in a way that makes us feel a little bit better about it. I don't think there's anything to celebrate in that with all due respect to the incredibly hard work that went into determining how we would spread the pain across school districts in the state of Texas. I don't think there's anything to be proud when we go home and we respond to our families and our school teachers and our school districts with why we chose to leave money in the bank rather than to fund public education. I know there are a number of senators on this floor that are here because of their education. Senator Lucio, you and I have talked about your upbringing. I know you were raised in public housing, one of ten children. And I know that your parents worked incredibly hard. Nine of you graduated from college. Nine first generation college graduates, your public education and your college education put you where you are today. I've heard another number of other members talk about that. A number of members who came from challenging situations. Senator Deuell has talked about being raised by a single mother. His education provided him with the opportunities that he has today. Senator Eltife made a special thank you to the retired teachers a few weeks ago and it was especially poignant because he shared a personal piece of himself with the members. He talked about being raised by a single mother and he talked about fact that the school teachers made a difference in his life and he would tell you, I'm sure, that his education is the reason that he's here today and I would imagine if we went one by one by one member by member on the floor, we would all have a similar story to tell. We are failing the future of Texas when we aren't investing public education in the state of Texas and make no mistake about it, the impact of that will be felt. It will be felt by teachers who are already over burdened, it will be felt by families who send their school children to schools in over crowded classrooms, it will be felt in the quality of public education and it will be felt in these statistics. 44th right now. What will we be after this budget passes and after this funding plan is adopted? What will we be? It's likely that we will be dead last in the amount of money that we spend as a state to invest in the future of our state to invest in the future of our children. A letter from Lori Playmadon from Arlington. Please fix school funding. In 2006 the legislature forced everyone to reduce property taxes promising that lost revenues to schools would be made up in business taxes. That did not happen and we have been cutting for four years now. There are not billions left to cut. Please use rainy day funds to keep our schools afloat while you figure out a better way to fund our schools. From Deborah Watts in Crowley, stop budget cuts in education, our children are the ones that will suffer. This is the future of America in our hands. Please look at other programs that are not necessary at this time. Cutting education funding not an option. I expect you will fight to have our words heard. From Jeannie Beckman, a principal. As you continue to make decisions regarding one of the largest shortfalls in state history, I am asking you to find a way to keep public school financial cuts to a minimum. I understand that many behind the scenes decisions are still being discussed and adjusted. The amount of revenue that legislators are choosing to cut will have a profound impact on the future of our state. I know you are dedicated to serving the state of Texas including students and educators. Please consider ways to finally support public schools and make a positive impact on the highly important task of educating our future. From Ginger Polster in Arlington. Dear Ms. Davis, as you prepare to tackle one of the largest shortfalls in the state's history, I am asking you to find a way to keep public education cuts to a minimum. As discussion continues and decisions are made, I am asking you to please support amendments that reinstate current law with respect for funding. It's imperative that career and technical education continue to receive funding in order to prepare our students for a competitive global work force and to provide the level of instruction required to give them the knowledge and skills they will need to be successful. The education of Texas students today will have a direct impact on the future of our state. I know you are dedicated to serving your constituents. The decisions regarding public school funding are important to me and to my school district. From Susan Avery in Fort Worth, dear Senator Davis, some of the measures that are being proposed in order to balance the budget are ones that could have long term and even permanent negative consequences for public education, jobs, health and human services, public safety and environmental issues in Texas. The rainy day fund could prevent some of these cuts, so I am asking why the rainy day fund is not being used for its intended purpose. If added to the new budget, these dollars could save jobs and possibly lives. Please to not impose budget cuts that harm school children, the elderly, the sick, people with disabilities and college students. I ask that you have the courage to do right by the people of Texas. Please take a balanced approach to a balanced budget, that includes spending all of the rainy day fund and adding more revenue by eliminating tax exemptions and closing corporate loopholes. I would like to believe you will vote for what is best for the people of Texas instead of what you want. From Karen Koontz in Arlington, dear Senator Davis, as you continue to tackle one of the largest shortfalls in state history, I'm begging you to find a way to keep public education cuts to a minimum and to use the rainy day fund to make up for some of the state revenue shortfall. The education of Texas students today will have a direct impact on the future of our state. I know you are dedicated to serving your 20s. The decisions regarding public school funding are important to me, my children, my grandchildren and my school district. Please vote for education. From Michael Pringle, a 5th grade teach near Arlington. Dear Senator I am a teacher of 35 years. I am married to a teacher and have two children who have chosen to be educators. As educators we are crying out for your vote. As grandparents and participants we are praying for your wisdom. Please consider the children of today. We have funds now to use. Please to not sacrifice our children as we save funds for another day. Today is the rainy day. From Emily Gonzales in Arlington. Senator Davis, show your support for Texas education by attending our rally and using the state rainy day to solve the budget shortfall. From Cathy Slagle. Dear Senator Davis, I am asking you to stick your neck out for education funding in Texas and ensure funding to public schools is maintained at the current level. As you're aware, property taxes are a major funding mechanism local governments use to fund their schools. Due to record foreclosures, public schools all over Texas are already facing shortfalls. If state funding to public schools are reduced, the situation will go from bad to worse. Please ensure this doesn't happen. Our kids are depending on you. Why should education be a sacred cow? Because it is about our children, it's our future and it's our neighbors and our communities. Education is supposed to be a priority in Texas. Does that still stand true? These are trying economic times. Everybody knows that, but we must have a bottom line, a limit economically and philosophically that we will not cross. Let education be our bottom line here in Texas. Please do what you can to retore funding to public schools in the state budget. From Ruth Lucas Collieville, I am a teacher in Bedford Texas and urge you to vote in favor of using all of the rainy day fund to make sure the education of the students in Texas not suffer. Increasing class sizes, eliminating work fall programs and laying off teachers, administrators and specialists will directly affect the learning of students all across the state. Please speak out for the children who deserve the best learning conditions possible. Use the rainy day fund when it was critically needed, now. Please don't let educational standards be lowered when Texas is already performing below most other states in our country. From Elizabeth Williams in Arlington, Senator Davis, I simply wanted to let you know that I'm extremely concerned and distraught over the news that I've been given about proposed cuts to education spending. I am absolutely against these cuts. I strongly believe that it is crucial for us to find the money to support public education in this state. My son who is in 7th grade now was able to participate in orchestra as early as 5th grade. I was truly amazed at how much he benefited from this program and by how much he learned. If the state makes the proposed cuts to public education, future 5th and 6th graders will no longer be able to participate in this program. I am also aware that numerous other important programs in our district will suffer if these cuts take place. I have two more children who will be going through the school system, and I don't want them to receive any less of an education than my oldest. If making sure that the children in Texas receive a high quality education is not a top priority, if this is not an emergency, then what is? Please consider the future of our great state before you support these cuts. From Elizabeth Heller in Arlington. Dear Senator Davis, as a parent of a student at Martin High School, I am deeply concerned about the lack of financial support public education is receiving from our Texas legislature. I urge you to fund public education appropriately. Without your help public education in Arlington will severely suffer. This will not be a good thing for your constituents and their families. Use the $9.3 billion Texas rainy day found to support schools. From Don Harp, please -- from Arlington. Please do not cut funds for Texas public education, I think this is penny wise and pound foolish. There must other places to cut and also Texas could increase the severance taxes on the oil and gas industries. They seem to have weathered the current recession just fine. From Sudan Vasquez in Fort Worth. Hello, I am a new resident of Fort Worth Texas as of February this year. I work full time for CPS and am currently attending UT Arlington to obtain my masters degree. I was told today that the school district is eliminating the bus services for children within the city limits of Burlison and Fort Worth, I cannot lose my job or stop attending school because of this awful proposal. I have contacted a few neighbors today and they were not aware and they would also would not be able to go without the bus services. In this economy, we cannot afford the after school program. I am in desperate need to know what to do to stir up the community as well as our representatives to become aware of what a travesty this would be for so many students and their parents. I would appreciate your input and advice. From the students of Boulevard Heights. Hello, we need more teachers in Texas. We need more money for education, the reason why we need more teachers is because we're getting more students. If the teachers get fired, then we won't get enough education to go to college. We need more taxes to pay for education. That way we can get our education and learn. We worry that more students might flunk out of school and then they wont know how to read and won't get their education. This e-mail was typed by special education teacher Brad Webb from input from the students at Boulevard Heights High School Behavioral Improvement Classroom. From Lynn Sisk in Fort Worth. Please work to support the education of the children of Texas. There's nothing more important for the future of Texas, the U.S. and the world. The health and education of our children should be our main priority. Please work to release the rainy day fund for the education of our children. They are our future. From Janice Stapleton in Arlington. As you prepare to tackle one of the largest shortfalls in state history, I am asking you to find a way to keep public education cuts to minimum and to use the rainy day found make up for some of the state's revenue shortfall. From Jody Garcia in Fort Worth. Do not support budget cuts to education. Education is the single most important foundation given to the people of the United States. By cutting budgets, the state is expecting school districts to operate on insufficient funds and require to adhere to mandates that go unfunded and this is not acceptable. I support revenue increases to fund education. Our education system in Texas at great risk. Costs to operate schools have increased and the state continues to not support its education system financially. Increased class size, increased student to staff ratio, decrease support by eliminating grants and programs is not the answer. I understand in these hard financial times cutting spending is a trend but at what cost? I do not believe our children should pay the price. Do not support education budget cuts. The state needs to raise revenue or reallocate revenue to support its education system or we all fail. From Mary McGown in Grand Prairie, first let me thank you for your service to your constituents by making tough decisions daily in your effort to do what is best for the state of Texas. As a parent of three educators and a Texas citizen, I am very concerned about our state's current budget shortfall and its effect on our current education. The education of our students today will have a direct impact on the future of Texas. I personally hope that such a future holds a state and country full of educated, morally minded and well rounded adults. I know you are dedicated to serving your constituents and as one I urge you to keep education cuts to a minimum by using the $9.3 billion rainy day fund. Thank you for taking this into consideration as you prepare to determine the best solution for our budget deficit. From Matthew Taylor in Hurst. I am very concerned about welfare of our children's welfare and the lost of teachers in our schools. If you vote for a budget that takes away money from Texas public school or wait until June to make a decision, I will be sure to vote for your opponent in the next election and encourages as many as I can to do the same. I feel our representatives are not hearing their people and they only send a message when they want our vote. Please keep education and teachers a top priority and use whatever funds are available to keep education a priority. From Aaron Willhite in Arlington. Dear Senator Davis, please keep public education cuts to a minimum. I urge you to use the rainy day fund to make up for some of the state's revenue shortfall. The children of Arlington ISD really need you. If Texas wants to attract major businesses to our state, then we must have a thriving educational system and work force. If we want to produce competitive and educational confident citizens, then we need to provide local education agencies with the resources necessary to be successful. Please help us. From Joanne Solis in Arlington, please save our schools, educators, families and students from losing vital programs and teachers due to the lack of action in Austin to release and acquire funding for education. We should not have to deal with this crisis district by district, county by county. Our state should come forward and support us. Thank you. From Natalie Scott in Arlington. Dear Senator Davis, I'm deeply concerned about the proposed budget cuts to our education system. My son is a first grader at Sherrod Elementary in Arlington and as a parent I am horrified that his school stands to lose 15 probationary teachers, the tip of the iceberg next year, to recoup losses and funding. I strongly oppose this grave injustice as a mother and Arlington resident, and a voter. I ask you to do all in your power to stop this tomorrow and save the future of our district and education in the great state of Texas. From Patrick de-Leon, I ask that you have the courage to do right by the people of Texas. Please take a balanced approach to a balanced budget that includes spending all of the rainy day fund and adding more revenue by eliminating tax exemptions and closing corporate loopholes. From Connie Pike in Euliss, please reconsider drastic cuts to public education. In his recent inaugural address, Governor Rick Perry proclaimed that this is the Texas century, touting Texas position to serve as a model for the nation in the coming decades. There is a strong disconnect between this vision and recent statistics from the National Education Association and legislative study group showing that Texas ranks 37th among states and for pupil education spending and 50th among states in the population 25 or older with a high school diploma. We know there will have to be budget cuts in education but we're asking the Texas legislature to pursue other budget solutions including tapping into the rainy day fund and giving school districts flexibility to negotiate salary and furlough. Not only would these proposed budget cuts result in 80,000 to 100,000 school personnel losing their jobs, thus adding to the unemployment rolls, they could also affect Texas' appeal to businesses and set students and school districts back a generation. Positive trends in Texas like job creation and population growth rely on a solid, dependably funded education system. Education is an economic issue, if Texas wants to lead the nation, it can lead by ensuring strong schools s in an educated work force. From Kelvin Stroy in Arlington. Dear Ms. Davis, as you prepare to tackle one of the largest shortfalls in state history, I'm asking you to find a way to keep public education cuts to a minimum and to use the rainy day fund to make up for some of the state's revenue shortfall. The education of students today will have a direct impact on the future of our state. I know you are dedicated to serving your constituents. The decisions regarding public school funding are important to me and to my school district. From Kelly Watkins in Richland Hills. To the honorable Wendy Davis, first let me thank you for your service to your constituents by making tough decisions daily in your effort to do what is best for the state of Texas. As a teacher, future parent and Texas citizen, I am very concerned about our state's current budget shortfall and its potentially devastating effect to our education. The education of our students today will have a direct impact on the future of Texas. I personally hope that such a future holds a state and country full of educated and morally dedicated to serving well rounded adults. I know you are dedicated to serving your constituents and as one I urge you to keep education cuts to a minimum by using the $9.3 billion rainy day fund. Thank you for taking this into consideration as you prepare to determine the best solution for our budget deficit. From Paula Trekheld in Arlington. Dear Wendy Davis as you prepare to tackle one of the largest shortfalls in state's history. I am asking you to find a way to keep public education cuts to a minimum and to use the rainy day fund to make up for some of the state's revenue shortfall. The education of Texas students today will have a direct impact on the future of our state. I know you are dedicated to serving the constituents, the decisions regarding public school funding are important to me and to my school district. From Nancy in Arlington, the education of our Texas students today will have a direct impact on the future of our state. I know you're dedicated to serving your constituents, the decisions regarding public school funding are important to me and to my school district, sincerely, Nancy Dobby. Members, when I was elected to office, I made a promise to my constituents, I actually have the speech that I gave the night that I accepted this incredible honor. To every citizen, business owner, parent, grandparent, teacher, nurse, day care worker, government employee, father, mother, that has shared what is happening in your lives and what you expect of your elected representatives, thank you, I am grateful, I am humble, I will return your trust with hard work and honorable service each and every day. We talked in these past months about why I decided to make this campaign, we talked about how it is it is that I came to seek public service, hard work and enlisted me and my family from poverty. Now, we must go to work and expand the opportunity for each and every Texas family to utility bills, insurance rates do not cripple budgets and rob every quality hour from our loved ones. We should fight for fair taxes, health insurance for uninsured children, properly and fully fund public education. Compensate our teachers and build a state where every employer will clamor for our students and our work force. We must grow our cities smart for decent jobs and improve our quality of life while honoring our requirement and preparing our transportation system for the future. This will require long days filled with hard work, we will face challenges and be told by the invested few that it is not possible. However, we know what is possible. And we said we could have someone a state Senator who would represent us first. As your state Senator, be assured I'll be listening to my heart and to you for what is possible. I know together we can deliver a Texas where every family has hope and opportunity. That was a promise that I made to my constituents on the night of my election and standing here before you tonight, I consider it part of keeping that promise. Fighting for -- fighting against cuts in the amount of $4 billion to public education is something that I am committed to do for the constituents that I represent. Members, I have the runs from the proposed plans that were advanced in Senate Bill 1811 and I want to read to you the impact in each school district under these plans. The A Plus Academy will lose $570,732 in the first year and $869,535 in the second year. Agot ISD will lose $142,070 in the first year and $37,360 in the second year. Abernathy ISD will lose $420,074 in the first year and $630,919 in the second year. Abilene ISD will lose $5,574,000 in the first year and 1,514,000,000 -- 1, 514,000 in the second year. Academy ISD will lose $441,060 in the first year and 221,000 the next. The Academy of Accelerated Learning will lose $196,000 in the first year and 272,000 in the next. The Academy of Careers and Technical Schools will lose $28,000 dollars in the first year and 133,000 in the next. The Academy of Dallas will lose $232,000 the first year and $338,000 the next. The Accelerated Intermediate Academy will lose $133,000 the first year and 174,000 the next. Adrian ISD will lose 82,000 the first year and 21,000 the next year. Advantage Academy will lose $1,018,000 the first year and $1,441,000 this second year. Agidolce ISD will lose 175,000 in the first year and 46,000 in the second year. Alamo Heights ISD will lose $2,164,000 the first year and 3,012,000 the second. Abagolden ISD will lose $347,000 the first year and $90,000 the second year. Allehanny ISD will lose 283,000 the first year and 407,000 the second year. Alldean ISD will lose $24,666,000 the first year and $8,061,000 the next year. Alito ISD will lose 2,223,000 in the first year and 3,000,090 how in the next year. Allis ISD will lose 8,150,000 in the first year and 932 how in the second year. Aleaf Montessori Community School or Aleaf ISD I'm sorry, will lose $17,943,000 in the first year and 4,727,000 in the second year. Aleaf Montessori school will lose 118,000 in the first year and 169,000 in the second year. Allen ISD will lose $7,860,000 in the first year and $11,361,000 in the second year. Alpha Charter School will lose $80,000 in the first year and $121,000 the second year. Alpine ISD will lose 554,000 in the first year and 830,000 in the second year. Alvaredo ISD will lose $304,367 in the first year and 174,000 in the second year. Alvaerdo ISD will lose $1,359,000 in the first year and $1,743,000 in the second year. Alvin ISD will lose $6,880,000 in the first year and 5,614,000 in the second year. Alveritt will lose 362,000 in the first year and 511,000 in the second year. Amarillo ISD will lose $11,627,000 in the first year and 3,064,000 in the second year. Ambassadors Preparatory Academy will lose $81,000 in the first year and $110,000 dollars in the second year. American Youth Worker's Charter School will lose 76,000 in the first year and 114,000 in the second year. Amhurst ISD will lose 73,000 the first year and 18,000 the second year. Amigos (inaudible) Friends will lose 279,000 in the first year and 458,000 in the second year. Anahuac ISD will lose 522,000 in the first year and 729,000 in the second year. Anderson Sherrro ISD will lose $350,000 in the first year and 542,000 in the second year. Andrews ISD will lose 1,545,000 in the first year and 2,506,000 in the second year. Angleton ISD will lose 2,532,000 in the first year and 3,768,000 in the second year. Anna ISD will lose 1,143,000 in the first year and 1,804,000 in the second year. Anson ISD will lose $316,978 in the first year and $82,682 in the second year. Anthony ISD will lose $375,000 in the first year and $99,000 in the second year. Anton ISD will lose 95,000 in the first year and 23,000 in the second. Apple Springs ISD will lose 89,000 in the first year and 68,000 in the second. Akilla ISD will lose 135,000 in the first year and 54,000 in the second. Aransas County ISD will lose 1,417,000 in the first year and 2,276,000 in the second. Aransas Path ISD will lose 290,000 in the first year and 411,000 in the second. Argyle ISD will lose 904,000 in the first year and 1,300,000 in the second year. Arlington Classics Academy will lose 409,000 in the first year and 506 in the second year. Arlington ISD, which is in the district that I represent and Senator Harris represents, will lose 22,809 -- $22,890,000 in the first year and 6,053,000 in the second. Amp ISD will lose %467,000 in the first year and 700,000 in the second. Asperma ISD will lose 145,000 in the first year and 220,000 in the second year. Athens ISD will lose 1,248,000 in the first year and 733,000 the next. Atlanta ISD will lose 689,000 the first year and 1,063,000 in the next. Aubrey ISD will lose 816,000 the first year and 1.2 million the next. Austin Can Academy Charter School will lose 157,000 the first year and 264,000 the next. Austin Discovery School will lose 227,000 the first year and 288,000 the next. Austin ISD will lose $37,275,000 the first year and will lose $58,387,000 the second year -- excuse me, $58,387,000 the second year. Auswell (inaudible)will lose $117,000 the first year and 176,000 the second year. Avalon ISD will lose 153,000 the first year and 41,000 the second year. Avery ISD will lose 163,000 the first year and 42,000 the second year. Avenger ISD will lose $79,893 the first year and 106,000 the second year. AW Brown Fellowship Charter School will lose 667,000 in the first year and 147,000 the second year. Axtel ISD will lose 344,000 in the first year and 91,000 in the second year. Asal ISD will lose $2,239,000 the first year and $3,026,000 the second year. Asal Way Charter School will lose 33,000 the first year and $2,013,000 the next year. Beard ISD will lose 108,000 the first year and 259,000 the next year. Ballinger ISD will lose 498,000 the first year and 550,000 the second year. Bamaria ISD will lose 112,000 the first year and 181,000 the second year. Bendra ISD will lose $1,018,000 the first year and 1,576,000 the second year. Bangs ISD will lose 436,000 the first year and 481,000 the second year. Banket ISD will lose 352,000 the first year and 238,000 the second year. Barbers Hill ISD will lose $20,381,000 the first year and $3,460,000 the second year. Bartlett ISD will lose $171,000 the first year and 44,000 the second year. Bastrop ISD will lose $319,000 the first year and $1,025,000 the second year. Bay Area Charter, Inc. will lose 168,000 the first year and 250,000 the second year. Bay City ISD will lose 1,535,000 the first year and 1,560,000 the second year. Beatrice Mayes Institute Charter School will lose 231,000 the first year and 329,000 the second year. Beaumont ISD will lose 8,013,000 the first year and 12,272,000 the second year. Beckville ISD will lose 402,000 in the first year and 649,000 in the second year. Beeville ISD will lose 1,250,000 in the first year and 326,000 in the second year. Bellview ISD will lose 78,000 in the first year and 30,000 in the second year. Bells ISD will lose 365,000 in the first year and 466,000 the second year. Bellville ISD will lose 886,000 in the first year and 1,036,000 the second year. Bellton ISD will lose 3,764,000 in the frist year and 2,774,000 in the second year. Ben Bolt Polita Blanca ISD will lose 286,000 in the first year and 433,000 in the second year. Benevides ISD will lose 226,000 the first year and 353,000 the second year. Benjamin ISD will lose 52,000 in the first year and 13,000 in the second year. Bengie's Special Education Academy will lose 212,000 in the first year and 298,000 in the second year. Bexar County Academy will lose 177,000 in the first year and 248,000 in the second year. Big Sandy ISD will lose 233,000 in the first year and 363,000 in the second year. Big Sandy ISD in Upshire will lose 302,000 in the first year and 1,541,000 -- excuse me, 166,000 in the second year. Big Spring ISD will lose 1,553,000 in the first year and 1,541,000 in the second year. Big Spring Charter School will lose 36,000 in the first year and 254,000 in the second year. Birdville ISD, the ISD that I attended, will lose $8,757,000 in the first year and 2,306,000 in the second year. Bishop Coins ISD will lose 491,000 in the first year and 544,000 in the second year. Blackwell CISD will lose 134,000 in the first year and 214,000 in the second year. Blanco ISD will lose 510,000 in the first year and 745,000 the second year. Blanket ISD will lose 104,000 in the first year and 167,000 the second year. Blumberg ISD will lose 135,000 the first year and 36,000 the second year. Blooming Grove ISD will lose 337,000 the first year and 88,000 the second year. Bloomington ISD will lose 341,000 in the first year and 155,000 in the second year. Blue Ridge ISD will lose 303,000 in the first year and 82,000 the second year. Blackdell ISD will lose 69,000 the first year and 102,000 the second year year. Blum ISD will lose 194,000 in the first year and 184,000 in the second year. Berne ISD will lose 2,801,000 in the first year and 4,193,000 issue in the second year. Bolls ISD will lose 266,000 in the first year and 69,000 in the second year. Bowling ISD will lose 422,000 in the first year and 375,000 in the second year. Booker ISD will lose 228,000 in the first year and 361,000 in the second year. Boarden County ISD will lose 296,000 in the first year and 434,000 in the second year. Burger ISD will lose 990,000 in the first year and 258,000 the next year. Bosskyville ISD will lose 262,000 in the first year and 199,000 the second year. Bovina ISD will lose 230,000 the first year and 315,000 the next. Bouy ISD will lose 688,000 the first year and 1,028,000 the next. Boyd ISD will lose 548,000 the first year and 843,000 the next. Boys Ranch ISD will lose 116,000 the first year and 458,000 the next. Bracket ISD will lose 318,000 the first year and 458,000 the next. Brady ISD will lose 531,000 the first year and 691,000 the next. Brazos River Charter School will lose $70,945 the first year and 121,000 the next. The Brazos School for the Inquiry will lose 224,000 the first year and 390,000 the next. Brazos Port ISD will lose 4,929,000 in the first year and 7,203,000 the next. Brackenridge ISD will lose 644,000 in the first year and a million 15,000 the next. Brannon ISD will lose 311,000 the first year and 44 -- 481,000 the next. Brenham ISD will lose 1.7 million in the first year and 3,027,000 the next. Bridge City ISD will lose 1,013,000 the first year and 910,000 the next. Bridgeport ISD will lose 1,058,000 the first year and 1,593,000 the next. Bright Ideas Charter will lose 103,000 the first year and 134,000 the next. Broadis IDS will lose 209,000 the first year and 54,000 the next. Brock ISD will lose 436,000 the first year and 627,000 the next. Bronte ISD will lose 177,000 the first rather and 208,000 the next. Brookland ISD will lose 192,000 the first year and 103,000 the next. Brooksmith ISD will lose 77,000 the first year and 28,000 the next. Brooks County ISD will lose 779,000 the first year and 1,227,000 the next. Brownsfield ISD will lose 802,000 the first year and 1,227,000 the next. Browns Bureau ISD will lose 1,042,000 the first year and 1,416,000 the next. Brownsville ISD will lose 17,832,000 the first year and 6,619,000 the next. Brownwood ISD will lose 1,312,000 in the fist year and 1,621,000 in the next. Bruceville Eddie ISD will lose 382,000 in the first year and 217,000 in the next. Bryan ISD will lose $5,861,000 in the first year and 5,015,000 the next. Bryson ISD will lose $83,050 the first year and 89,000 the next. Buckholtz ISD will lose 82,000 the first year and 38,000 the next. Buena Vista will lose 180,000 the first year and 106,000 the next. Buffalo ISD will lose 428,000 in the first year and 685,000 the next. Bullard ISD will lose 929,000 in the first year and 1,303,000 the next. Buna ISD will lose 553,000 in the first year and 146,000 the next. Burke Burnett ISD will lose 1,304,000 the first year and 799,000 the next. Burrellson ISD will lose 3,985,000 in the first rather and 3,360,000 the next. Burnett Cohns ISD will lose 1,385,000 in the first year and 2,232,000 the next. Burnam Wood Charter School will lose 526,000 in the first year and 890,000 the next. Burton ISD will lose 182,000 the first year and 319,000 the next. Bushland ISD will lose 703,000 the first year and 1,053,000 the next. Byers ISD will lose 44,000 the first year and 11,000 the next. Bynum ISD will lose 119,000 the first year and 31,000 the next. Cattle Mills will lose 601,000 the first year and 728,000 the next. And obviously, members, the list goes on and on and on. There's numbers on a chart that we've all been given. Not a single school district has been spared, not a single school child, not a single family in the state of Texas will be spared the $4 billion in cuts to public education. By doing that, we've broken our promise to the families of Texas. We've broken our promise to the children of Texas that we will adequately and appropriately fund their public education. As I said previously, it's the first time that we've ever done this in state's history in the funding of public education and it's a cut that I simply cannot stand for. And members, I'm asking if we take up this conversation again that we talk about better solutions. That we talk about making sure that everyone in Texas is sharing this pain and that we're not asking our families and our school children, our teachers and our school districts to bear it alone. I am asking that we do what they've asked us us to do. They have asked us to use the rainy day fund, they've asked us to close corporate loopholes. They've asked us to be their voice in this Capitol. We have this conversation last week about payday lending and who are the powerful voices here and who are not. The exemptions alone that we refuse to address while asking our school children to sacrifice I think exemplifies that. Who are we representing here? I am here to represent the families that elected me to serve them. I am here to represent the school districts that are in my district and I proudly am standing against the conference committee report on the adoption of that report to Senate Bill 1811 because I believe it takes us backward and I believe we're failing our families and our school children if this is something that we adopt. I know, members, that many of you didn't want to see the session come to an end this way and quite frankly I didn't want to see it come to an end this way either. There was a little glimmer of hope a few weeks ago when I really believed every single Democrat on this floor voted for the funding mechanism for Senate Bill 1811. I truly believe that we were taking a first step toward a partnership on how we were going to look for additional resources to fund public education in the state of Texas. But the very next week when rainy day money was taken off the table and a simple majority was used to begin advancing this budget, our voices were left out and our opportunity to say as Senator West has said, as so many of others have said, we want you to adopt a plan that includes additional rainy day funds in order to close the shortfall in Texas --

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: State your inquiry.

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: What time is it?

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: What time zone?

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: Central time zone.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: My cellphone shows 12:03.

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: So we're in another legislative day issue or what?

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Another calendar day.

SENATOR ROYCE WEST: Another calendar day. Okay. I was just asking that question.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Senator Whitmire, for what purpose?

SENATOR JOHN WHITMIRE: I'd like to raise a point of order.

REPRESENTATIVE DAVID DEWHURST: State your point of order.

SENATOR JOHN WHITMIRE: That you cannot consider legislation in the last 24 hours of the session.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Your point is well taken and sustained. It's against the rules of the Senate for any demonstrations in the gallery, thank you. The Chair recognizes the Dean of the Senate for a highly privileged motion.

SENATOR JOHN WHITMIRE: Mr. President, before I move to adjourn, I'd like to announce that the Senate will caucus.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: I am sorry, go ahead with your announcement, I am going --

SENATOR JOHN WHITMIRE: I will ask the members to caucus at 10:00 clock tomorrow morning, we have to handle some procedural matters as it relates to the -- I think the interim and we do need to elect a president pro-tem in the morning in our caucus and if you're ready, I'd go ahead and adjourn and move that the Senate adjourn until 10:30.

REPRESENTATIVE DAVID DEWHURST: Could you hold just for a moment? Could you hold just for a moment?

SENATOR JOHN WHITMIRE: But we will caucus at 10:00.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: The president signs in the presence of the Senate the following.

PATSY SPAW: House Bill 2999, House Bill 2947, House Bill 2909, House Bill 2903, House Bill 2717, House Bill 3133, House Bill 3111, House Bill 3,002, House bilge 3819, House Bill 3771, houses bill 3333, House Bill 3278, House Bill 3845, House Bill 3828, House Bill 3827, HCR167, HCR84, HCR1, House Bill 968, House Bill 811, House Bill 2277, House Bill 2284, House Bill 2213, House Bill 2408, House Bill 249, House Bill 2529, House Bill 2663, House Bill 2665, House Bill 2662, House Bill 2596, House Bill 2594, House Bill 2207, House Bill 590, House Bill 550, House Bill 422, House Bill 351, House bilge 680, House Bill 630, issues bill 1334, House Bill 1224, House Bill 1224, House Bill 1199, House Bill 1111, House Bill 1090, House Bill 1040, House Bill 1759, House Bill 1658, House Bill 1638, House Bill 1504, House Bill 1495, House Bill 1371, House Bill 1908, House Bill 1904, House Bill 1821, House Bill 1960, House Bill 2017, House Bill 2015, House Bill 2004, House Bill 2203, House Bill 2172, House Bill 2169, House Bill 2102, House Bill 2336, House Bill 308, House Bill three, House Bill 2265, House Bill 1768, and House Bill 1706.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Thank you, Madam Secretary. The Chair recognizes the dean for a highly privileged motion.

SENATOR JOHN WHITMIRE: Thank you, Mr. President. I'd move that the Senate adjourn until 10:30 Monday May 30th.

LT. GOVERNOR DAVID DEWHURST: Thank you, Senator Whitmire. Members, you've heard the motion by Senator Whitmire, is there objection from any member? The Chair hears no objection and the Senate will stand adjourned until 10:30 tomorrow morning.

(Adjourned.)