Enrolled Bill Summary

House Bill 2070 amends the Education Code to allow The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston to contract with a county, public hospital, or hospital district to treat county or district residents, including residents eligible under the Indigent Health Care and Treatment Act, provided the contracts include certain limitations on county, hospital, or district financial liability based on the medical branch's actual costs in providing services under contract. In the absence of such a contract, the act requires the medical branch to obtain county, hospital, or district approval, as appropriate, before providing residents nonemergency care, or else the county, hospital, or district is absolved of liability to the medical branch for the services rendered by the medical branch. The act authorizes the medical branch to offer employees incentive retirement plans and acquire goods and services by a variety of methods that provide the best value and provides for flexibility in management of funds.

House Bill 2070 repeals statutory provisions governing the Moody State School for Cerebral Palsied Children and requires that institution, the medical branch, and the medical branch's special school to enter into a memorandum of understanding to transfer control of property and assets of the Moody school and the special school to the medical branch and to dissolve both schools.

The act takes effect September 1, 1999, except for those provisions relating to the repeal and dissolution of the Moody school and the special school, which take effect September 1, 2000.