Tennessee House Bills

Memorials, Congress - Urges the U.S. Congress to enact H.R. 2350 (S. 1137), which permits states to deploy cell-phone jamming systems in prisons. -

Memorials, Recognition - "Veterans Suicide Prevention Day," September 22 -

Memorials, Recognition - Trapping, effective wildlife management tool -

Local Government, General - As introduced, requires that a reduction of the allocations and distributions of certain tax and other revenues to counties and municipalities due to a population loss based on the revised populations certified by the department of economic and community development be implemented incrementally in 20 percent increments over a five-year period. - Amends TCA Title 4, Chapter 3; Title 4, Chapter 49; Section 9-16-101; Title 54, Chapter 4; Title 55, Chapter 4; Title 57, Chapter 5, Part 2; Title 57, Chapter 3, Part 3 and Title 67.

Boats, Boating - As introduced, urges the department of transportation, in consultation with the department of revenue, to study the potential impact on transportation infrastructure needs of requiring personal trailers used for the transportation of boats to be registered in this state; requires the department of transportation to report to the chairs of the transportation and safety committee of the senate and the committee in the house of representatives having jurisdiction over transportation on or before January 1, 2027, if such study is conducted. - Amends TCA Title 10, Chapter 7, Part 5; Title 55 and Title 69.

Jellico - Subject to local approval, authorizes the levy of a privilege tax, not to exceed two percent, on the purchase of prepared food from restaurants. - Amends Chapter 91 of the Private Acts of 2008.

Election Laws - As introduced, specifies that the reasonable period for candidates to remove signs, posters, or placards advocating their candidacy is two weeks after the election instead of three weeks. - Amends TCA Title 2.

Transportation, Dept. of - As introduced, extends for one year the annual report the department must submit to committees of the general assembly regarding blocked highway-rail grade crossings data collected by the federal railroad administration. - Amends TCA Title 55 and Title 65.

Health, Dept. of - As introduced, requires the department to establish and administer a pilot program for the placement of hygiene vending machines that dispense feminine hygiene products to students at no cost to the student in women's restrooms or locker rooms in each eligible school selected to participate in the program. - Amends TCA Title 49 and Title 68.

Economic and Community Development - As introduced, increases, from 30 to 45, the number of days within the end of a fiscal year, for which a municipality is requesting an allocation of sales and use taxes revenues, that a municipality may submit a summary of the cost of an economic development project through to the end of that fiscal year, with supporting documentation certified by the chief financial officer of the municipality. - Amends TCA Title 7, Chapter 40.

Taxes, Real Property - As introduced, adds an exception to the requirement that mineral and other interests in real property are assessed to the owner of the real property. - Amends TCA Title 67, Chapter 5.

State Government - As introduced, requires departments, agencies, and other state governmental entities to make information and records available, including by means of direct electronic access, to the staff of the general assembly's fiscal review committee; requires the department of finance and administration to provide the office of legislative budget analysis with access to applicable state budget formulation and management systems. - Amends TCA Title 3, Chapter 13; Title 3, Chapter 14 and Title 3, Chapter 7.

Criminal Offenses - As introduced, increases the penalty for arson committed at a pregnancy resource center from a Class C felony to a Class B felony; defines "pregnancy resource center" as a nonprofit organization that provides care and resources to assist women and families facing difficult or unexpected pregnancies, including providing counseling, financial assistance, food, clothing, and medical assistance to pregnant women and reimbursing social service providers who prepare adoptions throughout the state for services and programs targeting at-risk women and families with immediate and ongoing needs related to unexpected pregnancy. - Amends TCA Title 39, Chapter 14, Part 3.

Education - As introduced, enacts the "Tennessee Teacher Residency Program Act." - Amends TCA Title 49.

Constitutional Amendments - Proposes an amendment to Article I of the Constitution of Tennessee to grant a person the right to forgo medical treatment. -

Constitutional Amendments - Proposes an amendment to Article XI, Section 5 of the Constitution of Tennessee to authorize local boards of education to approve lotteries conducted by nonprofit school support organizations; requires that the net proceeds of the lottery’s revenues be allocated to the local education agency to be used for educational or extracurricular purposes. -

Human Services, Dept. of - As introduced, increases the amount of funding the state is authorized to match local contributions for funding of human resource agencies. - Amends TCA Title 13, Chapter 26.

Utilities, Utility Districts - As introduced, requires each utility system to obtain a certificate of analysis for any water sold by the utility system that contains fluoride, and post the certificate and the material safety data sheet for fluoride online. - Amends TCA Title 7, Chapter 36; Title 7, Chapter 82 and Title 68, Chapter 221.

Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement (TISA) - As introduced, increases, from $200 to $500, the amount each LEA and public charter school is required to pay each teacher in kindergarten through grade 12 for the purchase of instructional supplies. - Amends TCA Title 49, Chapter 3.

Law Enforcement - As introduced, requires an annual training pay bonus supplement for eligible campus police officers and public safety officers in the amount of $800. - Amends TCA Title 4; Title 38 and Section 49-7-118.

Taxes, Business - As introduced, exempts from business tax, receipts from the sale of a prescription drug or medicine with a cost for a 30-day equivalent supply that exceeds the medicare cost threshold for 2025 plan years and services necessary for proper preparation, storage, handling, administration, patient education, or post-sale monitoring of such exempted drugs or medicines. - Amends TCA Title 67, Chapter 4, Part 7.

Criminal Offenses - As introduced, increases the penalty for obstruction of a highway, street, sidewalk, railway, waterway, elevator, aisle, hallway, or other place used for the passage of persons or vehicles from a Class A misdemeanor to a Class E felony; establishes an increased penalty of a Class D felony if the offense was committed by intentionally obstructing a highway, street, or other place used for the passage of vehicles. - Amends TCA Title 39.

Education, Higher - As introduced, establishes the hunger-free campus grant program; provides grants to higher education institutions to address student hunger. - Amends TCA Title 49.

Sexual Offenses - As introduced, establishes a sexual assault response team coordinator for the purpose of providing statewide training, support, and technical assistance to and oversight of sexual assault response teams. - Amends TCA Title 4; Title 8 and Title 38.

Historical Sites and Preservation - As introduced, enacts the "African American Cultural and Historical Grant Act." - Amends TCA Title 4; Title 9 and Title 13.

Criminal Offenses - As introduced, enacts the "Comprehensive Assault Crime Intervention Act." - Amends TCA Title 38; Title 39 and Title 40.

Public Funds and Financing - As introduced, requires the board of claims to hear claims for compensation by persons wrongfully imprisoned whose charges are dismissed and sentences vacated; authorizes persons whose charges were dismissed and sentences vacated prior to enactment of this legislation to file a claim within one year; authorizes surviving spouse and children the right to file a claim with the board of claims on behalf of a person who was wrongfully imprisoned and died prior to filing a claim; grants surviving adult children the same right as surviving minor children to receive payments from an award. - Amends TCA Section 9-8-108.

Education - As introduced, converts the school safety alert grant pilot program to a statewide two-year school safety alert grant program; removes the limit on the number of grants that may be awarded in a fiscal year. - Amends TCA Title 49 and Chapter 994 of the Public Acts of 2024.

Criminal Procedure - As introduced, requires a person arrested for a felony offense to have a biological specimen taken by the arresting authority for the purpose of DNA analysis to determine identification characteristics specific to the person. - Amends TCA Title 18; Title 38, Chapter 6; Title 39 and Title 40, Chapter 35.

Prisons and Reformatory Institutions - As introduced, requires the department of correction, in consultation with the inmate disciplinary oversight board, to compose a report detailing the number of inmates who earned sentence reduction credits, and to submit the report to legislative committees. - Amends TCA Title 3; Title 4; Title 40 and Title 41.

Health Care - As introduced, lowers from every three years to every two years, the time within which the advisory committee composed of medical device industry representatives and a representative of the department of economic and community development must review rules regarding the board of pharmacy's oversight of facilities that manufacture, warehouse, and distribute medical devices in order to review the advancements of new medical device technologies. - Amends TCA Title 8; Title 47; Title 56; Title 63 and Title 71.

TennCare - As introduced, enacts the "Tennessee Medicaid Modernization and Access Act of 2025," which aligns TennCare's current Medicaid reimbursement rates for obstetrics/gynecology, primary care, outpatient mental health, and substance use disorder treatment with the Medicare fee schedule or average commercial rates, whichever is higher. - Amends TCA Title 63; Title 68 and Title 71.

Education - As introduced, requires, if a local government adopts a budget that includes the required maintenance of effort for education funding but fails to appropriate or allocate the full amount budgeted to the LEA, the local government, in the following fiscal year, to appropriate and allocate the unfunded portion to the LEA; specifies that the maintenance of local funding effort required for a fiscal year following a fiscal year in which the local government failed to appropriate or allocate the full amount budgeted to the LEA must be determined based on the amount budgeted to the LEA for the previous fiscal year instead of the amount actually appropriated or allocated to the LEA by the local government. - Amends TCA Section 49-3-314.

Education, Higher - As introduced, requires the institute of American civics at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, to develop materials and curricula for a course in a baccalaureate degree program including American government or American history; requires each student enrolled in a public institution of higher education to complete a course of instruction that includes such curricula prior to the student obtaining a baccalaureate degree. - Amends TCA Title 49, Chapter 7; Title 49, Chapter 8 and Title 49, Chapter 9.

Budget Procedures - As introduced, authorizes grant payments under the grant assistance program for nursing home care to be made either monthly or quarterly. - Amends TCA Title 2; Title 3; Title 4; Title 5; Title 6; Title 7; Title 8; Title 9; Title 10; Title 11; Title 12; Title 13; Title 16; Title 17; Title 18; Title 29; Title 33; Title 36; Title 37; Title 38; Title 39; Title 40; Title 41; Title 43; Title 44; Title 45; Title 47; Title 48; Title 49; Title 50; Title 52; Title 53; Title 54; Title 55; Title 56; Title 57; Title 58; Title 59; Title 60; Title 61; Title 62; Title 63; Title 64; Title 65; Title 66; Title 67; Title 68; Title 69; Title 70 and Title 71.

Insurance Companies, Agents, Brokers, Policies - As introduced, establishes the Tennessee commission of insurance review; prohibits a health insurance entity from offering or maintaining a health benefit plan that uses downcoding in a manner that prevents the provider from collecting the fee for actual services performed either from the health benefit plan or the patient; makes other changes related to health insurance and health insurers. - Amends TCA Title 4; Title 8; Title 56 and Title 71.

Labor and Workforce Development, Dept. of - As introduced, requires the governor to approve all eligible workforce training programs for the purposes of federal workforce Pell grants and coordinate approval of eligible workforce training programs with other state and federal workforce programs to avoid duplicative payments for the same student costs that are covered by federal workforce Pell grants. - Amends TCA Title 4, Chapter 3, Part 14.

Tennessee Bureau of Investigation - As introduced, requires the TBI to establish a cold case division, to be divided into three geographic regions, each staffed by a regional director and no fewer than five cold case detectives; requires each local law enforcement agency to submit unsolved missing person or homicide cases to the cold case division following the passage of 10 years without resolution. - Amends TCA Title 38; Title 39 and Title 40.

Disability and Aging, Dept. Of - As introduced, removes the termination date of the Alzheimer's and dementia respite care pilot program; removes the requirement that the program must actively serve up to 225 enrollees at one time in each fiscal year of the program's operation. - Amends TCA Title 52, Chapter 8, Part 2.

Sentencing - As introduced, requires a defendant to be sentenced to imprisonment for life as a repeat violent offender under certain circumstances. - Amends TCA Title 38; Title 39; Title 40 and Title 41.

Judges and Chancellors - As introduced, increases base salaries for trial and appellate level judges and supreme court justices effective September 1, 2030; revises compensation and other requirements for general sessions judges on or after September 1, 2030. - Amends TCA Section 8-23-103; Title 16 and Title 67.

Public Defenders - As introduced, creates five additional social worker positions in the public defender system. - Amends TCA Title 8, Chapter 14 and Title 9, Chapter 4.

Children - As introduced, prohibits private schools participating in the individualized education account program, education savings account program, or that enroll recipients of an education freedom scholarship from employing an individual that has committed child abuse, severe child abuse, child sexual abuse, or child neglect; requires the department of human services to review, upon the request of certain child care agencies, an employee or potential employee to determine whether the individual has a record of perpetrating the abuse or neglect of children or adults. - Amends TCA Title 10, Chapter 7, Part 5; Title 37; Title 49 and Title 71.

Criminal Procedure - As introduced, adds to the list of certain offenses required to be served at 100 percent of the sentence imposed by the court undiminished by any sentence reduction credits, the attempt, conspiracy, or solicitation to commit those offenses. - Amends TCA Section 40-35-501.

District Attorneys - As introduced, changes from 10 days to 10 business days the amount of notice the president of the district attorneys general conference must give members before calling a meeting at will. - Amends TCA Title 8, Chapter 7 and Title 9, Chapter 4.

Taxes, Sales - As introduced, exempts the retail sale of generic food products from the food retail sales tax. - Amends TCA Title 67, Chapter 6.

Health Care - As introduced, permits a healthcare organization's quality improvement committee to evaluate the security measures in place at a healthcare organization to ensure the safety of patients and staff. - Amends TCA Title 8; Title 38; Title 62 and Title 68.

Public Employees - As introduced, requires, instead of authorizes, the state and local governments to provide fully paid health insurance coverage to the immediate family members of state and local law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty on or after January 1, 2020; removes the two-year limitation on the state or local government's full payment of such coverage; adds that family members of officers who suffer catastrophic injuries on or after January 1, 2020, also qualify for such coverage; requires the state to reimburse local governments that provide such coverage. - Amends TCA Title 8, Chapter 27.

Sexual Offenses - As introduced, revises the offense of continuous sexual abuse of a child, including the required number of victims, required number of incidents of sexual abuse, and time frame within which the incidents must have occurred. - Amends TCA Title 39, Chapter 13, Part 5.

Public Funds and Financing - As introduced, enacts the "Greenbelt Initiative Fund Transfer (GIFT) Act," which creates the rural revenue equity fund; authorizes the commissioner of economic and community development to distribute amounts from the fund to rural counties based on certain agricultural, demographic, and fiscal criteria, including greenbelt acreage. - Amends TCA Title 4; Title 5; Title 6; Title 7; Title 9 and Title 67.

County Government - As introduced, creates a supplemental pay incentive program for local correctional officers who receive 40 hours or more of in-service training per calendar year. - Amends TCA Title 38, Chapter 8, Part 1 and Title 41.

Criminal Offenses - As introduced, adds "a victim" to the definition of an individual involved in the judicial process for purposes of the criminal offense of harming or threatening to harm an individual involved in the judicial process; makes various other changes regarding victims of crime. - Amends TCA Title 29; Title 39 and Title 40.

Taxes, Privilege - As introduced, reduces professional privilege tax from $400 to $200 per year for attorneys in tax years that begin on and after June 1, 2027. - Amends TCA Title 67, Chapter 4, Part 17.

Public Funds and Financing - As introduced, enacts "The Mint Act," which establishes a precious metals enterprise fund to be administered by the state treasurer for the purpose of acquiring, converting, storing, and selling bullion and specie. - Amends TCA Title 9, Chapter 4.

Taxes, Privilege - As introduced, allocates 30 percent of the revenue from taxes on vapor products to counties in equal amounts to be used for youth nicotine prevention programs and services. - Amends TCA Title 67, Chapter 4, Part 10.

Sentencing - As introduced, makes the offense of sexual battery by an authority figure ineligible for probation. - Amends TCA Title 39 and Title 40.

Welfare - As introduced, clarifies that the department of human services must provide applicants with a written notice of temporary assistance eligibility determinations. - Amends TCA Title 4 and Title 71.

Boards and Commissions - As introduced, transfers oversight of the board of boiler rules and the elevator and amusement device safety board from the department of labor and workforce development to the department of commerce and insurance. - Amends TCA Title 4; Title 62 and Title 68.

Education, Dept. of - As introduced, changes from July 31 to July 1 the date by which an LEA director of schools must send a report to the department if the LEA did not contract for or employ at least one school nurse for every 750 students. - Amends TCA Title 49 and Title 68.

Public Funds and Financing - As introduced, requires the state treasurer to allocate and deposit 10 percent of the investment income earned by the state pooled investment fund each fiscal year to the state highway fund. - Amends TCA Section 9-4-603.