By Hilderbran                                         H.B. No. 2660
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to area agencies on aging and the coordination of their
    1-3  planning and services within their health and human services
    1-4  regions.
    1-5        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-6        SECTION 1.  SHORT TITLE.  This Act may be cited as the Older
    1-7  Texans' Regional Coordination Act.
    1-8        SECTION 2. AMENDMENT.  Subchapter B,  Chapter 101, Human
    1-9  Resources Code, is amended by adding Section 101.032 to read as
   1-10  follows:
   1-11        Sec. 101.032.  AREA AGENCIES ON AGING.  (a)  Locally
   1-12  developed area plans and data regarding services to the elderly
   1-13  shall be aggregated and submitted to the department by the largest
   1-14  area agencies on aging in each of the state's health and human
   1-15  services regions established under Article 4413(502), Revised
   1-16  Statutes, and shall be incorporated into the department's strategic
   1-17  plan.  The department shall not allocate any additional resources
   1-18  to the area agency on aging to perform this task.  The department
   1-19  by rule shall establish the form in which the data must be
   1-20  submitted.
   1-21        (b)  Unless otherwise authorized by the legislature, the
   1-22  Legislative Budget Board, or the commissioner of Health and Human
   1-23  Services, the department shall decentralize its services through
    2-1  area agencies on aging designated by the department as of January
    2-2  1, 1995, pursuant to the federal Older Americans Act and shall
    2-3  maintain the boundaries of such agencies consistent with the
    2-4  planning areas, or subdivisions thereof established pursuant to
    2-5  Chapter 391, Local Government Code.
    2-6        (c)  Area agencies on aging within a health and human
    2-7  services region are jointly responsible for the coordination of
    2-8  their services within that region.
    2-9        SECTION 3. EMERGENCY.  The importance of this legislation and
   2-10  the crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   2-11  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   2-12  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   2-13  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
   2-14  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   2-15  passage, and it is so enacted.