(a) The department shall in all respects be the legal successor to the corporate powers, duties, and responsibilities of the commission for the blind, and any other state welfare commissions other than those that may be excepted by § 71-1-105(a)(1). The department shall succeed to all the rights and obligations of these agencies; provided, that the workshops for the blind located at Nashville and Memphis shall, through this department or by contract with a nonprofit organization or organizations, continue to be operated for the employment of blind persons.
Terms Used In Tennessee Code 71-1-104
Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.
real property: include lands, tenements and hereditaments, and all rights thereto and interests therein, equitable as well as legal. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
State: when applied to the different parts of the United States, includes the District of Columbia and the several territories of the United States. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
(b) Notwithstanding § 12-2-112 or § 12-2-403, the department has the authority, subject to the approval of the state building commission, to convey ownership of the workshops to any such contractor without financial consideration, including real and personal property, inventory of materials, and stores for resale. The instrument of conveyance to such nonprofit contractor shall provide that the real property and production equipment conveyed, or sufficient remuneration for the real property and production equipment, shall revert to the state at any time the contractor or its successor shall cease operating a workshop for the benefit of the blind, unless the state finds in its sole discretion that it is in the state’s best interest to allow such real property and production equipment to be sold to such contractor or contractor’s successor at such time as the contractor or contractor’s successor shall cease operating a workshop for the benefit of the blind. If the state deems it appropriate to convey such real property and production equipment to the contractor, then the amount of remuneration to be paid by the contractor or its successor to the state shall be determined at the time the real property and production equipment is originally conveyed to the contractor, to be based upon the appraised value of the real property and production equipment at the time of the original conveyance to the contractor.
