Tennessee House Bills

Zoning - As enacted, makes certain changes to the powers and duties of county and municipal boards of zoning appeals. - Amends TCA Title 13, Chapter 7.

Treasurer, State - As enacted, sets the maximum award of compensation under the Criminal Injuries Compensation Act of 1976 at 105% of the national average of the maximum compensation award provided by the 50 states within the United States, the District of Columbia, and the United States Virgin Islands, rounded up to the nearest $100; requires the state treasurer to publish on the department of treasury website the maximum compensation award for claims filed for crimes occurring on or after July 1, 2025. - Amends TCA Section 29-13-106.

State Government - As enacted, removes obsolete statutory references to the defunct joint select committee on veterans services of the general assembly; makes revisions to entities listed in the Tennessee Governmental Entity Review Law; revises present law provisions relative to the retirement incentive bonus for public service commission employees; removes an expired report. - Amends TCA Title 4; Title 8, Chapter 34, Part 2; Title 52; Title 58, Chapter 7; Title 63, Chapter 6, Part 4; Title 68, Chapter 142, Part 1; Title 68, Chapter 11, Part 2 and Title 69, Chapter 10.

Administrative Procedure (UAPA) - As enacted, generally establishes that permanent rules filed in the office of the secretary of state on or after January 1, 2024, that are in effect on the effective date of this act, and that are scheduled for expiration on June 30, 2025, do not expire on June 30, 2025, but remain in effect until repealed or amended by subsequent rule of the appropriate rulemaking agency or until otherwise superseded by legislative enactment. -

Highways, Roads and Bridges - As enacted, makes revisions regarding the naming of certain roads and bridges. - Amends TCA Title 54.

Transportation, Dept. of - As enacted, requires the department to develop and implement a policy regarding the removal of personal property used for camping from the shoulder, berm, or right-of-way of highways under its jurisdiction or under a bridge or overpass under its jurisdiction; prohibits the department from commencing initial clean-up activities, vegetation removal, or site securing activities until the municipal or county government whose geographic boundaries include the camping removal site has ensured that no persons are occupying the site. - Amends TCA Title 4; Title 13; Title 39; Title 54; Title 55 and Title 71.

Sports - As enacted, revises present law relative to an intercollegiate athlete's name, image, or likeness. - Amends TCA Title 49.

TennCare - As enacted, extends the ground ambulance service annual assessment to June 30, 2026; makes other revisions to the Ground Ambulance Service Provider Assessment Act. - Amends TCA Title 71, Chapter 5, Part 15.

Professions and Occupations - As enacted, makes various changes relative to the practice of chiropractors, including animal chiropractic practice. - Amends TCA Title 4 and Title 63.

Alcoholic Beverages - As enacted, authorizes a licensee that holds more than a 50 percent ownership interest in a manufacturer and a winery that are located on the same deeded property to offer product tastings and make retail sales for consumption on or off of such premises of its wine or spirits manufactured on such deeded property at a location on the overlapping premises other than on the bonded premises of the manufacturer or winery. - Amends TCA Title 57.

Education - As enacted, requires each local board of education and public charter school governing body to develop and implement a policy to provide, with each K-8 student's report card, the student's score on the universal reading screener if administered to the student in the current school year, and the results of the dyslexia screener most recently administered to the student, if applicable. - Amends TCA Title 49.

Child Abuse - As enacted, expands the definition of child abuse to include a person under the age of 18 witnessing either the abuse of another child in the person's immediate family or household or domestic abuse of a member of the person's immediate family or household; specifies that reunification between a parent and a child placed in foster care due to abuse must not occur unless the parent has complied with the parent's statement of responsibilities in the permanency plan and the child has received mental health counseling. - Amends TCA Title 36; Title 37 and Title 39.

Foster Care - As enacted, requires the department of children's services, to the extent not otherwise prohibited by state or federal law, to promulgate rules to implement certain rights for any foster child in the custody of the department or an agency that contracts with the department to place children in foster care. - Amends TCA Title 36; Title 37; Title 49 and Title 71.

Children - As enacted, enacts the "End Childhood Hunger Act." - Amends TCA Title 36 and Title 37.

Vital Records - As enacted, requires certain records or papers for a person relating to the adoption or attempted adoption of a person in the possession of the office of the clerk of the adoption court; the offices of the department of health; the office of any child-placing agency, whether or not it is chartered or licensed; or any other information source, to be made available to the department of children's services for the purpose of searching for a kinship foster care placement. - Amends TCA Title 36 and Title 68.

Children - As enacted, specifies that a biological father or alleged biological father who makes token financial support to or for the benefit of a child or the child's mother during the pregnancy or when the mother had physical custody of the child is not a putative father; makes various other changes regarding final orders of adoption. - Amends TCA Title 36 and Title 63.

Sentencing - As enacted, provides that if the victim in an aggravated sexual battery was less than 18 or was mentally defective, mentally incapacitated, or physically helpless, then such battery remains a Class B felony, and the defendant must be punished as a Range II offender; provides that the sentence imposed upon the defendant may, if appropriate, be within Range III but in no case lower than Range II. - Amends TCA Title 39, Chapter 13, Part 5.

Mental Health & Substance Abuse Services, Dept. of - As enacted, revises present law relative to recovery residences and alcohol and drug prevention or treatment facilities under certification by the department. - Amends TCA Title 5; Title 6; Title 7; Title 13; Title 33; Title 47; Title 63 and Title 68.

Disabled Persons - As enacted, authorizes a residential facility for persons with disabilities to operate in the eastern grand division of this state under an existing residential pilot program authorizing such facilities to operate in the western and middle grand divisions of this state that is administered by the department of disability and aging. - Amends TCA Title 33 and Title 52.

Teachers, Principals and School Personnel - As enacted, makes various changes to certain teacher licensure requirements. - Amends TCA Title 49, Chapter 5 and Title 49, Chapter 6.

Food and Food Products - As enacted, deletes present laws pertaining to rented premises unfit for habitation and quick fast food establishment delivery vehicles; removes the statutorily set permit fees to operate food service establishments and requires such permit fees to be set by rule; makes other revisions to present laws pertaining to food service and safety. - Amends TCA Section 53-8-103; Title 68, Chapter 110; Title 68, Chapter 111; Title 68, Chapter 14 and Title 68, Chapter 15.

Public Records - As enacted, deletes the automatic repeal on July 1, 2025, of a provision that authorizes records custodians to seek an injunction against a person who makes requests to view or copy public records with the intent to disrupt government operations. - Amends TCA Title 10, Chapter 7, Part 5.

Election Laws - As enacted, requires the coordinator of elections to include, in the coordinator's minimum standards for educating election officials, training on temporary forms of identification issued to non-United States citizens that may not be used as evidence of identification on an application for ballot. - Amends TCA Title 2.

Education - As enacted, prohibits excusing a student from school to attend a released time course in religious moral instruction during the school year unless certain criteria are met. - Amends TCA Title 49, Chapter 2; Title 49, Chapter 5 and Title 49, Chapter 6.

DUI Offenses - As enacted, requires the Tennessee bureau of investigation to provide a report to the speakers of the senate and the house of representatives on or before January 1 each year, until July 1, 2029, detailing the instances in the most recent year for which complete data is available in which a person was arrested for driving under the influence but where no alcohol or other intoxicants are detected in the person's blood or breath. - Amends TCA Title 6; Title 7; Title 8 and Title 38.

Insurance, Health, Accident - As enacted, revises present law relative to 340B entities. - Amends TCA Title 47, Chapter 18 and Title 56.

Environment and Conservation, Department of - As enacted, makes various changes related to fees set by the department for environmental regulatory programs; makes changes to the regulation of coal combustion residuals disposal units. - Amends TCA Title 68, Chapter 203, Part 1 and Title 68, Chapter 211, Part 1.

Forfeiture of Assets - As enacted, removes the requirement for a claimant to post a bond when filing a claim to seized property. - Amends TCA Title 40, Chapter 33.

Criminal Offenses - As enacted, revises present law concerning driving under the influence. - Amends TCA Title 39 and Title 55.

Medical Occupations - As enacted, authorizes a healthcare provider’s licensing board to issue a license subject to a private advocacy order that requires the applicant to participate in a peer assistance program approved by the board; designates private advocacy orders as confidential and not public records, as long as the provider does not fail to maintain participation in the peer assistance program and requires the initiation of disciplinary proceedings by the board. - Amends TCA Title 63.

Local Education Agencies - As enacted, requires each board of education for an LEA that operates at least one high school to adopt and implement a policy to authorize a high school student to serve as an advisory, nonvoting representative on the board during meetings that are open to the public. - Amends TCA Title 49, Chapter 2.

Education, Curriculum - As enacted, makes various changes to the approval process and notice requirements for nonsectarian, nonreligious Bible courses; clarifies that public charter schools are authorized to provide nonsectarian, nonreligious Bible courses in the same manner as local education agencies. - Amends TCA Title 49, Chapter 6.

Education, Dept. of - As enacted, requires the department to conduct a landscape analysis of teacher evaluation practices in this state and other states; requires the department to convene a teacher evaluation advisory committee to review and evaluate current teacher evaluation practices in this state; requires the department and the state board to provide the education committee of the senate and committee of the house of representatives having jurisdiction over teacher evaluations a final report on the landscape analysis, teacher evaluation advisory committee's recommendations, and any department or state board recommendations by January 31, 2026. - Amends TCA Title 49.

Adoption - As enacted, allows petitioners to include all children in one adoption petition if the petitioners are seeking to adopt more than one child at the same time, unless the court issues a written order finding that it is in the best interest of the children that separate petitions be filed; specifies that the clerk of court must charge only one filing fee for such a petition. - Amends TCA Title 18; Title 36 and Title 37.

Law Enforcement - As enacted, authorizes uniformed law enforcement officers to wear decorations, medals, service medals, and badges awarded to the officers by the armed forces of the United States, the Tennessee national guard, or the state guard during the week prior to Veterans Day and Memorial Day, the day of Veterans Day and Memorial Day, and the day immediately following Veterans Day and Memorial Day. - Amends TCA Title 38 and Title 58.

Housing - As enacted, requires certain property, projects, and joint ventures to meet certain requirements if a legislative body of a county or municipality adopts by resolution or ordinance an affordable housing program. - Amends TCA Title 47 and Title 67.

Historical Sites and Preservation - As enacted, includes in the definition of a "memorial", for purposes of Tennessee heritage protection, an official governmental seal of a city or county government that contains imagery representative of any historic conflict, historic entity, historic event, historic figure, or historic organization. - Amends TCA Title 4, Chapter 1, Part 4.

Human Services, Dept. of - As enacted, requires the department to establish a process by which management of a public property may submit formal complaints regarding the conduct or performance of a blind individual who has been licensed to operate a vending facility on such public property through the business enterprise program for the blind; makes other changes relative to such programs for disabled individuals. - Amends TCA Title 71, Chapter 4.

District Attorneys - As enacted, authorizes a district attorney general, on the consent of the district attorney general of any other judicial district, to specially appoint another district attorney general, or an assistant to that district attorney general, to conduct specific proceedings under title 8, chapter 47, regarding removal of officers, which the district attorney general is authorized by law to conduct in that district. - Amends TCA Title 8.

Schools, Private - As enacted, prohibits the state board of education from requiring a private school that provides a fully online, self-paced educational program to comply with certain class size, school calendar, vaccination, and assessment requirements in order to operate in this state as an approved Category III nonpublic school. - Amends TCA Title 49.

Education - As enacted, requires, if an approved universal reading screener is administered to pre-k students at an LEA or public charter school, the LEA or public charter school to allow the pre-k teacher whose students were administered the screener to use the results as an approved alternative student growth model or the pre-k/kindergarten portfolio growth model to generate individual growth scores for teachers pursuant to the evaluation guidelines developed by the department of education. - Amends TCA Title 49.

Planning, Public - As enacted, revises the present law provision requiring all multi-family facilities, buildings, and structures constructed under a voluntary attainable housing incentive program to be deed-restricted to ensure that the attainable housing continues for at least 30 years, instead of in perpetuity. - Amends TCA Title 5; Title 6; Title 7; Title 8; Title 9; Title 10; Title 13 and Title 67.

Children - As enacted, makes various changes and additions to the Families' Rights and Responsibilities Act, and to present law concerning parental consent for the treatment of minors. - Amends TCA Title 33; Title 36; Title 37; Title 49; Title 63 and Title 68.

Drugs, Prescription - As enacted, authorizes a healthcare practitioner to prescribe and a pharmacist to dispense a prescribed, bronchodilator rescue inhaler to an authorized entity to be administered to a person believed to be experiencing asthma symptoms or respiratory distress in an emergency situation, under a standing protocol from the healthcare practitioner; encourages schools in LEAs and public charter schools to keep bronchodilator rescue inhalers to be administered to students believed to be having asthma symptoms or in respiratory distress in an emergency situation. - Amends TCA Title 49; Title 53; Title 63 and Title 68.

TennCare - As enacted, extends the nursing home annual assessment fee to June 30, 2026. - Amends TCA Title 71, Chapter 5.

Private Protective Services - As enacted, creates the enhanced armed guard registration that may be obtained upon completion of certain training and other requirements by an armed security guard/officer who has at least five years of full-time experience as a law enforcement officer or four years of active duty military experience in a combat arms military occupational specialty; directs the commissioner of commerce and insurance to approve an enhanced armed guard training course. - Amends TCA Title 4; Title 39 and Title 62, Chapter 35.

Taxes, Excise - As enacted, authorizes, subject to certain provisions, a taxpayer, at the taxpayer's discretion, to add back to net earnings certain deductions and to subtract certain amounts. - Amends TCA Section 67-4-2006.

Water Pollution - As enacted, expands from wetlands to all areas that an aquatic resource alteration permit may apply to the areas for which the department of environment and conservation is required to exempt from compensatory mitigation an amount of area equal in size to the area for which mitigation would not be required if the permit applicant qualified for coverage under a general permit, if the only factor that disqualifies an applicant for an aquatic resource alteration permit from having the activities for which a permit is sought covered under a general permit is the size of the area that the permit will apply to. - Amends TCA Title 69, Chapter 3.

Pensions and Retirement Benefits - As enacted, enacts the "Fairness in Benefits Act." - Amends TCA Title 8, Chapter 27; Title 8, Chapter 34; Title 8, Chapter 35; Title 8, Chapter 36 and Title 8, Chapter 37.

Treasurer, State - As enacted, removes the restriction that earnings in an achieving a better life experience account may only be expended for a student's education expenses; redefines "disability certification" and "eligible individual" to have the same meaning as in the Internal Revenue Code and all rules and regulations released by the United States treasury. - Amends TCA Section 71-4-803 and Section 71-4-806.

Hospitals and Health Care Facilities - As enacted, rewrites the fee limits for a party requesting a patient's medical record in either paper or electronic format from a provider or the provider's third-party release of information provider. - Amends TCA Title 63 and Title 68.

Regional Authorities and Special Districts - As enacted, adds the MidSouth development district to the list of development districts to which this state intends to assist financially; specifies an overall state funding level for the nine development districts; changes the calculation for how much funding each development district will receive. - Amends TCA Title 13, Chapter 14, Part 1.

Tennessee Housing Development Agency - As enacted, increases, from $4 billion to $5 billion, the maximum aggregate principal amount for which the agency may issue bonds and notes at any one time. - Amends TCA Section 13-23-121.

Military - As enacted, specifies that the state guard is a separate entity within the military department for budgetary purposes. - Amends TCA Title 9, Chapter 4 and Title 58.

Wilson County - Subject to local approval, transfers control and governance of the Tenth Special School District of Wilson County from a board of directors and commissioners composed of three members to a Board of Education composed of five members; divides the Tenth Special School district into five districts of proportionate population; establishes staggered terms for the members of the Board of Education of four years. - Amends Chapter 330 of the Acts of 1901; as amended.

Chester County - Subject to local approval, implements new motor vehicle privilege tax. - Amends amend Chapter 234 of the Private Acts of 1972; as amended.

Fayette County - Subject to local approval, requires the county clerk rather than the county court clerk to collect the county wheel tax and keep the administrative fee associated with the issuance of the motor vehicle license upon payment of the tax; rather than using the tax revenue to pay down debt from school construction projects, requires 100 percent of the tax collected, excluding fees, to be placed in the county general fund for general fund use or transfer to the county capital projects fund to pay for capital costs for school construction and county facilities, or transfer to the county debt service fund to pay down debt issues for school construction and county facilities as determined during the county's annual budget process. - Amends Chapter 116 of the Private Acts of 2000.

Handgun Permits - As enacted, clarifies that an applicant who has a DUI conviction that occurred within five years from the date of application or renewal is not eligible for an enhanced handgun carry permit; lowers the age for an applicant for an enhanced handgun carry permit from 21 to 18 if other eligibility requirements for issuance of the permit are met. - Amends TCA Title 39 and Title 40.

Revenue, Dept. of - As enacted, reduces from 1.125 percent to 0.75 percent the administrative fee percentage the department takes from the proceeds of the business tax, short-term rental unit occupancy tax, local tax surcharge, coal severance tax, and local option sales tax to assist in defraying the expenses of administration and collection, before remitting proceeds to the appropriate county, city, or town. - Amends TCA Title 67, Chapter 4; Title 67, Chapter 6 and Title 67, Chapter 7.

Criminal Procedure - As enacted, establishes a permanent criminal proceedings notification system, rather than a pilot project; removes the July 1, 2025, termination date for the criminal proceedings notification system. - Amends TCA Section 40-38-507.