Senate Bill No. 406

(By Senators Bowman and Bailey)

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[Introduced February 4, 2000; referred to the Committee on Government Organization.]
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A BILL to amend and reenact sections one and three, article six, chapter five of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, all relating to abolishing the state building commission and transferring its powers and responsibilities to the secretary of administration.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That sections one and three, article six, chapter five of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, be amended and reenacted, all to read as follows:
ARTICLE 6. STATE BUILDINGS.

§5-6-1. Secretary of administration substituted for state building commission.

 (a) The state building commission is abolished. All the duties and responsibilities of the state building commission are vested in the secretary of administration. Any time the state building commission is referred to in this code it is a reference to the secretary of administration, pursuant to the provisions of this article.
(b) Nothing in this section affects the validity of any act of the state building commission prior to the effective date of the changes made to this section during the regular session of the Legislature in two thousand. The rights of the owners of any bonds or other evidence of indebtedness issued by the state building commission prior to the changes are not impaired.
(c) The secretary of administration is authorized to exercise any rights and carry out any obligations with respect to any bonds or other evidence of indebtedness issued by the state building commission prior to the effective date of the changes made to this section during the regular session of the Legislature in two thousand, including, but not limited to, redemption prior to maturity or refunding of the bonds or other evidence of indebtedness. All records, responsibilities, obligations, assets and property, of whatever kind and character, of the state building commission are transferred to the department of administration. Title to all real estate held by the state building commission shall be held by the department of administration. The balance of any and all funds of the state building commission are transferred to the department of administration.
(d) The secretary may not exercise any power given him or her to bind the state beyond the extent to which money has been provided under the authority of this article. On or before the fifteenth day of each month, the secretary shall prepare and transmit to the president and minority leader of the Senate and the speaker and the minority leader of the House of Delegates a report covering the activities of the secretary under this article for the preceding calendar month.
§5-6-3. Definitions.
The following terms, wherever used or referred to in this article, shall have the following meanings, unless a different meaning clearly appears from the context:
(1) "Commission" means the state building commission of West Virginia or, if said commission shall be abolished, any board or officer succeeding to the principal functions thereof, or to whom the powers given to said commission shall be given by law secretary of administration;
(2) "Bonds" means bonds issued by the commission pursuant to this article;
(3) "Project" means collectively the acquisition of land, the construction, equipping, maintaining and furnishing of a building or buildings, together with incidental approaches, structures and facilities, herein authorized in this article to be constructed;
(4) "Cost of project" includes the cost of construction, the cost of equipping and furnishing same the project, the cost of all land, property, material and labor which are deemed considered essential thereto to the project, the cost of improvements, financing charges, interest during construction and all other expenses, including legal fees, trustees', engineers' and architects' fees which are necessarily or properly incidental to the project;
(5) "General tax revenues of the state" means revenues of the state derived from the exercise of the power of taxation and available for appropriation by the Legislature for general public purposes and shall do not include revenues of the state, or of any officer, department or agency thereof of the state derived from taxes levied, collected and dedicated for a special purpose or purposes or derived from sources other than taxes, such as profits, fees or charges; and
(6) "Rent" or "rental" includes all moneys received for the use of any part of a project either from the state of West Virginia or any officer, department or public corporation thereof of the state, or from any instrumentality or political subdivision of the state, or directly or indirectly, from the United States of America or any officer, department, agency, instrumentality or public corporation thereof of the United States. Provided, That Nothing in this article shall be taken to authorize authorizes the payment by or on behalf of the state of any rent in excess of the fair rental value of property used by or for such a state officer or department or public corporation in the exercise of his, her or its statutory duties.


NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to abolish the State Building Commission and transfer its powers and responsibilities to the Secretary of Administration.

Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken from the present law, and underscoring indicates new language that would be added.

§5-6-1 is completely rewritten; therefore, strike-throughs and underscoring have been omitted.