By: Madla S.B. No. 1486
A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT
1-1 relating to compensation for the provision of care for persons with
1-2 mental retardation.
1-3 BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
1-4 SECTION 1. Section 533.034, Health and Safety Code, is
1-5 amended to read as follows:
1-6 Sec. 533.034. Authority to Contract for Community-Based
1-7 Services. The department may cooperate, negotiate, and contract
1-8 with local agencies, hospitals, private organizations and
1-9 foundations, community centers, physicians, and other persons to
1-10 plan, develop, and provide community-based mental health and mental
1-11 retardation services. Notwithstanding Sections 4.02, 11.01, and
1-12 12.04, Family Code, and Section 533.004, a caretaker, including a
1-13 parent or family member, of a person with mental retardation of any
1-14 age and living under any conditions, may be contracted with and
1-15 compensated for providing care.
1-16 SECTION 2. Subsection (a), Section 535.004, Health and
1-17 Safety Code, is amended to read as follows:
1-18 (a) The department shall provide assistance to compensate a
1-19 client for present and future expenses incurred to maintain in the
1-20 community a family member with a mental disability or a person with
1-21 a mental disability who lives independently, including:
1-22 (1) the purchase or lease of special equipment or
1-23 architectural modifications of a home to improve or facilitate the
2-1 care, treatment, therapy, general living conditions, or access of
2-2 the person with a mental disability;
2-3 (2) medical, surgical, therapeutic, diagnostic, and
2-4 other health services related to the person's mental disability;
2-5 (3) counseling or training programs that assist a
2-6 family in providing proper care for the family member with a mental
2-7 disability or assist the person with a mental disability who lives
2-8 independently, and that provide for the special needs of the family
2-9 or person;
2-10 (4) attendant care, home health aid services,
2-11 homemaker services, and chore services that provide support with
2-12 training, routine body functions, dressing, preparation and
2-13 consumption of food, and ambulation;
2-14 (5) respite support for a family that is the client;
2-15 (6) transportation services for the person with a
2-16 mental disability; <and>
2-17 (7) transportation, room, and board costs incurred by
2-18 the family or the person with a mental disability during evaluation
2-19 or treatment of the person with a mental disability that have been
2-20 preapproved by the department; and
2-21 (8) a basic room and board grant.
2-22 SECTION 3. The importance of this legislation and the
2-23 crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
2-24 emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
2-25 constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
3-1 days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
3-2 and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
3-3 passage, and it is so enacted.