Tennessee Senate Bills

Sunset Laws - As enacted, extends the department of financial institutions to June 30, 2029. - Amends TCA Title 4, Chapter 29 and Title 4, Chapter 3.

Sunset Laws - As enacted, extends the department of economic and community development to June 30, 2029. - Amends TCA Title 4, Chapter 29 and Title 4, Chapter 3.

Bail, Bail Bonds - As enacted, makes various changes regarding global positioning monitoring and the pretrial release of certain defendants. - Amends TCA Title 8; Title 39; Title 40 and Title 55, Chapter 10.

TennCare - As enacted, revises present law relative to the annual coverage assessment. - Amends TCA Title 71, Chapter 5.

Charitable Solicitations - As enacted, corrects a reference in the charitable solicitations law that requires educational institutions be approved as such by the Tennessee public charter school commission rather than the state board of education to be exempt from registration requirements. - Amends TCA Title 48, Chapter 101, Part 5.

Boats, Boating - As enacted, removes the monitoring requirement for boating safety examinations; replaces statutory fees for boating safety certificates and replacement cards with authorization for TWRA to set such fees. - Amends TCA Title 69, Chapter 9.

Medical Occupations - As enacted, enacts the "Tennessee Physician Workforce Information Act." - Amends TCA Title 4; Title 49; Title 63 and Title 68.

County Government - As enacted, authorizes a county that has adopted the County Sheriff's Civil Service Act of 1974 to rescind such adoption by a two-thirds vote of the county legislative body. - Amends TCA Title 8, Chapter 8, Part 4.

Election Laws - As enacted, requires a three-judge panel to hear any civil action in which it is alleged that a proposed charter amendment ordinance that is to be submitted to qualified voters at an election is in violation of the Constitution or state law; prohibits an amendment to the charter of a home rule municipality from being placed on any ballot if the amendment is in violation of the Constitution or state law. - Amends TCA Title 2; Title 5; Title 6; Title 7 and Title 20, Chapter 18.

Tattoos and Piercings - As enacted, permits tattoo artists who have been licensed in this state for fewer than three years but licensed in another state for 10 years or more to receive a tattoo artist licensure in this state; requires the tattoo artist to provide the tattoo artist's signature on this state's tattoo apprenticeship completion application signifying that the apprentice tattoo artist has met the requirement of law. - Amends TCA Title 62 and Title 68.

Education, Curriculum - As enacted, establishes that family life curriculum must include age-appropriate instruction and evidence regarding the positive personal and societal outcomes associated with the method by which a person completes the following in sequential order: obtains a high school diploma or high school equivalency credential; enters into the workforce or pursues a postsecondary degree or credential; enters into marriage; and has children. - Amends TCA Title 49, Chapter 6, Part 13.

Criminal Offenses - As enacted, adds the offense of robbery to the definition of crime of violence. - Amends TCA Title 39, Chapter 17, Part 13.

Charitable Solicitations - As enacted, revises notification requirements regarding the provision to the secretary of state of solicitation materials to be used by a professional solicitor on behalf of a nonprofit organization. - Amends TCA Title 48, Chapter 101, Part 5.

Health Care - As enacted, enacts the "Fertility Treatment and Contraceptive Protection Act." - Amends TCA Title 63 and Title 68.

Insurance, Health, Accident - As enacted, clarifies that excepted benefits are not part of a requirement to provide coverage for a specific person, provider, treatment, service, condition, or disease, unless coverage of such excepted benefits is expressly required by law. - Amends TCA Title 56.

Orders of Protection - As enacted, expands the courts in Shelby County that can hear a petition for an order of protection to include a criminal court when the criminal court is hearing a criminal matter involving a domestic abuse victim, sexual assault victim, or stalking victim; makes related changes. - Amends TCA Title 16; Title 18 and Title 36.

Education, Higher - As enacted, prohibits institutions of higher education from excluding a person from benefits, activities, and employment, or making decisions, based on a person's race, color, ethnicity, or national origin; requires such institutions to provide notice of such prohibitions; authorizes injunctive and declaratory relief for violations. - Amends TCA Title 49, Chapter 7.

Veterans - As enacted, enacts the "Safeguarding American Veteran Empowerment (SAVE) Act." - Amends TCA Title 47 and Title 58.

Nurses, Nursing - As enacted, requires the board of nursing to develop a survey to collect certain information from nurse practitioners who have been issued a certificate of fitness from the board; requires the board to submit a report regarding the survey to legislative committees. - Amends TCA Title 4; Title 8; Title 14; Title 29; Title 33; Title 37; Title 39; Title 53; Title 63; Title 68 and Title 71.

Boards and Commissions - As enacted, changes the qualifications for membership on the medical cannabis commission to include a patient caregiver and a subject matter expert with knowledge of how cannabis is cultivated, processed, shipped, distributed, or prescribed for medical use; specifies that the recommendations made by the commission to the general assembly may include policy recommendations. - Amends TCA Title 4 and Title 68, Chapter 7.

Search & Seizure - As enacted, specifies that certain physical searches of students and searches of lockers, vehicles, and other property must be conducted by a school resource officer. - Amends TCA Title 49, Chapter 6.

Military - As enacted, defines "working day" for purposes of determining the military leave and compensation available to state and local government employees who are members of any reserve component of the armed forces of the United States who are called to active military service. - Amends TCA Title 8, Chapter 33.

County Government - As enacted, declares that the offices of sheriff, register, county clerk, assessor of property, and trustee are the constitutional officers of a county that has adopted a charter form of government; specifies the duties for each constitutional officer. - Amends TCA Title 5.

Water - As enacted, clarifies that if a point-of-entry treatment device is installed in a facility solely to soften hard water and, because of the installation of such a device, the house, building, or complex of buildings meets the definition of a public water system under the Tennessee Safe Drinking Water Act of 1983, then the facility constitutes a consecutive system, and is required to monitor the influent and finished water for hardness, alkalinity, and pH on a quarterly basis, and sodium on an annual basis, and report the results to the department of environment and conservation within 15 days of the end of the reporting period. - Amends TCA Title 68.

Game and Fish Laws - As enacted, authorizes persons to wear daylight fluorescent pink as a substitute for daylight fluorescent orange when hunting big game during gun hunts; deletes statutory definition of daylight fluorescent orange. - Amends TCA Title 39 and Title 70.

Education - As enacted, prohibits the department of education from excluding from the calculation of a school letter grade the data of any group of students within a school if the department collects, aggregates, and reports the data, and if the group of students has at least 20 valid test scores in math or English language arts for at least one grade band; and data for the college and career readiness indicator if the school has at least 20 students in a graduating cohort. - Amends TCA Title 49.

Public Funds and Financing - As enacted, redefines "local government" to include a water, wastewater, or energy authority for purposes of the present law applicable to bonds and notes issued by local governments; makes other related revisions. - Amends TCA Section 9-21-133 and Title 9, Chapter 21, Part 4.

Education - As enacted, requires a school support organization and a group or organization that collects and raises money, materials, property, or securities while representing itself to be a school support organization to annually provide a detailed report of the organization's receipts and expenditures while representing itself to be a school support organization to the department of education by July 1 each year, unless the school support organization is a booster club, parent teacher association, parent teacher organization, or parent teacher support association; requires the department to publish the reports on the department's website for at least three years from the date on which the report was submitted. - Amends TCA Title 49.

Public Health - As enacted, requires a medical laboratory supervisor to be readily available for consultations during all hours when tests are performed; prohibits a medical laboratory supervisor from being required to be on laboratory premises. - Amends TCA Title 68.

Children - As enacted, allows a child care agency to lease or purchase underutilized property from local education agencies; classifies a child care family home as residential property for certain purposes, including zoning and building codes; permits a host-school's fire inspection and facilities to be sufficient for a child care agency's provisional license under the department of human services. - Amends TCA Title 13; Title 49; Title 68 and Title 71.

Schools, Charter - As enacted, establishes a process by which the governing body of an existing public charter school may replicate that public charter school in the same district by applying to the local board of education or directly to the Tennessee public charter school commission; allows, in certain circumstances, a public charter school sponsor to apply directly to the commission to open a new public charter school; makes various changes to the state agencies responsible for performing certain functions in the Tennessee Public Charter Schools Act of 2002. - Amends TCA Title 49, Chapter 13.

Regional Authorities and Special Districts - As enacted, requires that interest income accruing on investments and deposits as a result of the Megasite Authority of West Tennessee's collection of rates to customers of a water system or wastewater system operated by the authority be credited to a separate account and carried forward into each subsequent fiscal year. - Amends TCA Section 64-9-107.

Education - As enacted, makes various changes to reporting requirements, school and district accountability, the accumulation of excess instructional time, remote instruction, the immunization status of students in state custody, the individualized education account program, public virtual school enrollment, and certain course access program requirements imposed on the department of education. - Amends TCA Title 8, Chapter 50, Part 8; Title 49, Chapter 1, Part 6; Title 49, Chapter 1, Part 9; Title 49, Chapter 10, Part 14; Title 49, Chapter 16, Part 2; Title 49, Chapter 18, Part 1; Title 49, Chapter 2, Part 1; Title 49, Chapter 3, Part 1; Title 49, Chapter 3, Part 3; Title 49, Chapter 6, Part 10; Title 49, Chapter 6, Part 30; Title 49, Chapter 6, Part 31; Title 49, Chapter 6, Part 41; Title 49, Chapter 6, Part 50; Title 49, Chapter 1, Part 2 and Chapter 1005 of the Public Acts of 2024.

State Symbols - As enacted, designates Nashville hot chicken as an official state food. - Amends TCA Title 4.

Drugs, Prescription - As enacted, requires a county medical examiner to test for, and obtain certain information concerning, the presence of any drugs in a decedent in certain situations; requires the health science center to conduct certain studies regarding drug interactions and submit quarterly reports to the general assembly. - Amends TCA Title 38; Title 53; Title 63 and Title 68.

Tennessee Fish & Wildlife Commission - As enacted, makes changes relative to temporary group hunting event permits. - Amends TCA Title 58 and Title 70.

Secretary of State - As enacted, allows a litigation financier that is not a business entity or partnership to amend or withdraw its registration with the secretary of state by filing a form prescribed by the secretary of state, along with a filing fee of $20. - Amends TCA Title 47, Chapter 16.

Environment and Conservation, Department of - As enacted, requires an agreement or contract entered into between the commissioner and a county health department for the department to implement subsurface sewage disposal requirements to include authority for the commissioner to issue a variance in certain circumstances. - Amends TCA Title 68, Chapter 221, Part 4.

Education - As enacted, prohibits a local board of education or public charter school governing body from removing a material from a library collection for the sole reason that the material is religious. - Amends TCA Title 49.

DUI Offenses - As enacted, requires the state treasurer to deem a person ordered by a court to use a functioning ignition interlock device to be indigent and unable to pay the costs of the device if the person receives funds from the supplemental nutrition assistance, temporary assistance for needy families, or state medicaid program; removes the requirement that a court determine whether a person asserting inability to pay for a functioning ignition interlock device is indigent; revises other provisions relative to the electronic monitoring indigency fund. - Amends TCA Section 55-10-419.

Expunction - As enacted, reorganizes present statutes concerning expunction and specifies that facilitation, attempt, or solicitation of an offense that is presently eligible for expunction is also eligible for expunction. - Amends TCA Title 7; Title 16; Title 38; Title 40; Title 55 and Title 57.

Education - As enacted, authorizes a state university board of trustees to conduct private meetings to discuss or deliberate on matters related to senior administration, personnel positions, and contracts, without taking action on such matters in a private meeting. - Amends TCA Title 49, Chapter 14; Title 49, Chapter 4; Title 49, Chapter 50; Title 49, Chapter 7; Title 49, Chapter 8 and Title 49, Chapter 9.

Sunset Laws - As enacted, extends the Tennessee Technological University, board of trustees, to June 30, 2030. - Amends TCA Title 4, Chapter 29 and Title 49, Chapter 8.

Abortion - As enacted, clarifies the term "serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function" as used in present law provisions relative to criminal abortion. - Amends TCA Title 4; Title 9; Title 29; Title 33; Title 37; Title 38; Title 39; Title 40; Title 53; Title 56; Title 62; Title 63; Title 68 and Title 71.

Water Authorities - As enacted, generally authorizes the board of directors of a municipal energy authority to, as part of the transfer of a water and wastewater system, adopt and assume all or any portion of such regulatory powers, authority, duties, obligations, and oversight over the water and wastewater operations as were applicable to the municipal water and wastewater system pursuant to ordinances, resolutions, or other rules or policies that were in effect immediately prior to the transfer of such system to the authority; authorizes later amendment to such rules, regulations, and requirements. - Amends TCA Title 5; Title 6; Title 7 and Title 68.

Open Meetings - As enacted, specifies that the Tennessee One Health Committee is a governing body under the open meetings act; requires meetings of the committee to be open to the public. - Amends TCA Title 4, Chapter 3, Part 5; Title 8, Chapter 44; Title 43, Chapter 1; Title 58; Title 68, Chapter 1 and Title 70.

Taxes - As enacted, increases, by 15 cents over a 10-year period, and subject to a two-thirds vote of the county legislative body, the maximum mineral severance tax rate that may be levied by a county on all sand, gravel, sandstone, chert, and limestone severed from the ground within its jurisdiction; removes the authorization for Smith County to allocate its mineral severance tax to the county general fund or a fund other than its county road fund. - Amends TCA Title 67, Chapter 7, Part 2.

Energy - As enacted, clarifies that a political subdivision that imposes requirements or expectations related to the type of clean or green, or renewable, energy used by a public utility in an ordinance, resolution, or other regulation must include certain sources of energy as permissible sources of clean or green, or renewable, energy, regardless of whether the political subdivision classifies the requirements or expectations as relating to clean or green, or renewable, energy. - Amends TCA Title 4; Title 5; Title 6; Title 7; Title 13; Title 64; Title 65; Title 67 and Title 68.

Agriculture - As enacted, enacts the "Tennessee Century Farms Act" for the purpose of recognizing the historical significance of family farms that have been in continuous operation in this state for over 100 years and to highlight their contribution to agriculture in and the economy of this state. - Amends TCA Title 43.

Education, Curriculum - As enacted, enacts the "Teen Social Media and Internet Safety Act." - Amends TCA Title 49.

Medical Occupations - As enacted, makes various changes relative to marriage and family therapist licensure. - Amends TCA Title 33 and Title 63.

Interest Rates - As enacted, removes the weighted average yield of the accepted offers of the Federal National Mortgage Association's current free market system auction and the 30-year treasury yield as the two bases upon which the maximum effective rate of interest on home loans may be set by the commissioner of financial institutions, and replaces them with the average prime offer rate. - Amends TCA Title 45 and Title 47.

Education - As enacted, requires that certain employees of state special schools receive the same leave and certain other benefits as employees of LEAs and public charter schools. - Amends TCA Title 8, Chapter 50 and Title 49.

Motor Vehicles, Titling and Registration - As enacted, authorizes a county clerk, during a period of a public health emergency, natural disaster, or other temporary office closure, to request the assistance of a county clerk in a contiguous county for purposes of registering motor vehicles and related transactions. - Amends TCA Title 55, Chapter 4 and Section 55-6-101.

Public Property - As enacted, clarifies exception to when a state entity must advertise for leasing space when the entity has requirements that are special and unique. - Amends TCA Section 12-2-114.

Alcoholic Beverage Commission - As enacted, requires a law enforcement agency to provide records related to an accident, the persons involved in such accident, and persons involved in providing or selling alcoholic beverages to persons involved in an accident upon receipt of a request for such records by the commission; makes related changes. - Amends TCA Title 55 and Title 57.

Education - As enacted, requires the department of education to establish enrollment deadlines for voluntary pre-kindergarten programs so that at-risk students who will be four years old by August 15 must be enrolled by the beginning of the school year and students who are four-year-olds who do not have a disability or who meet the qualifications for enrollment at three years of age must be enrolled by August 30. - Amends TCA Title 49.

Pensions and Retirement Benefits - As enacted, requires the TCRS board of trustees to divest the retirement system from investment activity it has in a company known to be majority-owned by China; requires a local governing body to divest its political subdivision pension plan from investment activity it has in a company known to be majority-owned by China. - Amends TCA Title 9, Chapter 4, Part 15.

Consumer Protection - As enacted, revises one of the definitions of a "nonprofit organization" for purposes of the Tennessee Information Protection Act to mean a public utility organized or regulated, instead of only organized, under the laws of this state. - Amends TCA Title 47.

Municipal Government - As enacted, authorizes a city incorporated under a city manager-commission charter to contract with a private entity for the development, construction, management, or operation of an indoor or outdoor sports facility under terms acceptable to the city if certain conditions are met. - Amends TCA Title 6.