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House Bill 1151 |
House Author: Thompson |
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Effective: See below |
Senate Sponsor: West |
Current law requires the Department of Family and Protective Services to offer adoption assistance after a child's 18th birthday to the child's adoptive parents until the first day of the month of the child's 21st birthday if the child has a mental or physical disability that warrants continuation of that assistance or, if the child does not have such a disability, until the first day of the month of the child's 19th birthday or the date the child ceases to regularly attend high school or a vocational or technical program, obtains a high school diploma or high school equivalency certificate, or stops receiving financial support from the child's adoptive parents, whichever is earlier. House Bill 1151 amends the Family Code to require the department, notwithstanding current law, to offer adoption assistance until the last day of the month of the child's 21st birthday if the department first entered into an adoptive assistance agreement with a child's adoptive parents after the child's 16th birthday and the child is: (1) regularly attending high school or enrolled in a program leading toward a high school diploma or high school equivalency certificate; (2) regularly attending an institution of higher education or a postsecondary vocational or technical program; (3) participating in a program or activity that promotes, or removes barriers to, employment; (4) employed for at least 80 hours a month; or (5) incapable of doing any of those activities due to a documented medical condition. The department is not required to provide the extended assistance unless funds are specifically appropriated for that purpose.
Previous law required the department to continue to pay the cost of foster care for a child for whom the department provides care, including medical care, until the later of the date the child attains the age of 18 or the date the child graduates from high school or ceases to be enrolled in a secondary school in a program leading toward a high school diploma. House Bill 1151 requires the department to continue to pay the cost of foster care for a child that is regularly attending high school or enrolled in a program leading toward a high school diploma or high school equivalency certificate until the last day of the month in which the child attains the age of 22 or, if the child meets one of the conditions described above in (2)-(5), until the last day of the month in which the child attains the age of 21.
House Bill 1151 establishes a permanency care assistance program under which monthly payments are paid by the department to an eligible kinship provider who is the prospective managing conservator of a foster child. The bill authorizes the reimbursement of fees associated with obtaining permanent managing conservatorship, requires the executive commissioner of the Health and Human Services Commission to set the maximum monthly amount of assistance payments, and provides for continued eligibility for assistance payments for a child between the ages of 18 and 21 if the child meets one of the conditions described above. The department is not required to provide such permanency care assistance benefits unless funds are specifically appropriated for that purpose. The bill requires the executive commissioner to adopt rules to implement the adoption assistance, foster care, and permanency care assistance benefits not later than April 1, 2010, and requires the rules to provide that no payment can be made on behalf of a child over the age of 17 for any month prior to October 1, 2010, unless, with respect to foster care benefits, the child was eligible for the benefits prior to the effective date of the bill. The bill adds foster care benefits to the list of resources that are not included in the computation of net resources available for payment of child support. The bill repeals the law authorizing a child 12 years of age or older to file with a court in writing the name of the person who is the child's preference to have the exclusive right to designate the primary residence of the child, subject to the approval of the court, and instead provides for the child to express a preference to the court in chambers.
House Bill 1151 takes effect September 1, 2009, but only if a specific appropriation for the implementation of the bill is provided in a general appropriations act of the 81st Legislature.