SECTION 1. Subsection (b) of section 7 of chapter 150E of the General Laws, as appearing in the 2016 Official Edition, is hereby amended by striking the subsection in its entirety and inserting in place thereof the following new subsection:-

(b) The employer, other than the chief justice for administration and management, a county sheriff, the PCA quality home care workforce council, the alcoholic beverage control commission, or the state lottery commission, shall submit to the appropriate legislative body within thirty days after the date on which the agreement is executed by the parties, a request for an appropriation necessary to fund the cost items contained therein; provided, that if the general court is not in session at that time, such request shall be submitted at the next session thereof. If the appropriate legislative body duly rejects the request for an appropriation necessary to fund the cost items, such cost items shall be returned to the parties for further bargaining. The provisions of the preceding two sentences shall not apply to agreements reached by school committees in cities and towns in which the provisions of section thirty-four of chapter seventy-one are operative. For the board of higher education and the board of trustees of the University of Massachusetts, the provision of section seven I of chapter twenty-nine, or any other general or special law, rule or regulation, shall not preclude the employer from submitting an appropriation request directly to the general court pursuant to this section.

SECTION 2. Subsection (c) of section 7 of said chapter 150E, as so appearing, is hereby amended by deleting the first sentence and inserting in place thereof the following sentence:-

The provisions of this paragraph shall apply to the chief justice for administration and management, a county sheriff, the PCA quality home care workforce council, the department of early education and care with regard to bargaining with family child care providers, the alcoholic beverage control commission, Massachusetts Department of Transportation and the state lottery commission.

SECTION 3. Section 5 of Chapter 32A, as appearing in the 2016 Official Edition, is amended by inserting the following in line 8 after the word “occurs;” the following:-

provided, that any employee may elect to have commission health coverage to begin on the first day of employment;

SECTION 4. Chapter 15A of the General Laws is hereby amended by inserting after section 19E the following new section:-

19F. Notwithstanding any general or special law, rule or regulation to the contrary, full-time and part-time faculty and staff at a public institution of higher education, as set forth in section 5 of this chapter, their spouses and their dependent children shall be eligible for a tuition and mandatory fee credit for undergraduate, graduate and certificate programs or courses at public institutions of higher education; provided, that the commonwealth, not the public higher education institutions, shall bear the cost. The value of the tuition and mandatory fee credit shall be adjusted annually to ensure the value of said credit is worth no less than 100 percent of the total tuition and mandatory fee charges for the covered courses or programs. The board of higher education shall establish guidelines governing the implementation of this tuition and mandatory fee credit program.

For the purposes of this section, full-time and part-time faculty and staff shall include employees of a division of continuing education and faculty members who teach the equivalent of at least two three-or-more-credit courses per semester, or four three-or-more-credit courses per calendar year at one or more of the public institutions of higher education.

The provisions of this section shall not be construed as to diminish any rights or privileges created by collective bargaining agreements under chapter 150E of the General Laws.