§7.  State Debt; Interim Emergency Board

Section 7.(A)  Composition.  The Interim Emergency Board is created.  It shall be composed of the governor, lieutenant governor, state treasurer, presiding officer of each house of the legislature, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, or their designees.

(B)  Powers.  Between sessions of the legislature, when the board by majority vote determines that an emergency or impending flood emergency exists, it may appropriate from the state general fund or borrow on the full faith and credit of the state an amount to meet the emergency.  The appropriation may be made or the indebtedness incurred only for a purpose for which the legislature may appropriate funds and then only after the board obtains, as provided by law, the written consent of two-thirds of the elected members of each house of the legislature.  For the purposes of this Paragraph, an emergency is an event or occurrence not reasonably anticipated by the legislature and an impending flood emergency shall be an anticipated situation which endangers an existing flood protection structure.  The appropriation or indebtedness incurred for an impending flood emergency shall not exceed two hundred fifty thousand dollars for any one event or occurrence.  For an impending emergency to qualify for funding it must be determined as such by the United States Army Corp of Engineers or the United States Coast Guard. Total funding for such impending emergencies shall not exceed twenty-five percent of the funds annually available to the Interim Emergency Board.

(C)  Limits.  The aggregate of indebtedness outstanding at any one time and the amount appropriated from the state general fund for the current fiscal year under the authority of this Section shall not exceed one-tenth of one percent of total state revenue receipts for the previous fiscal year.

(D)  Allocation.  An amount sufficient to pay indebtedness incurred during the preceding fiscal year under the authority of this Section is allocated, as a first priority, each year from the state general fund.

Acts 1997, No. 1500, §1, approved Oct. 3, 1998, eff. Nov. 5, 1998.