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 health and human services regions.
    1-4        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-5        SECTION 1.  SHORT TITLE.  This Act may be cited as the Older
    1-6  Texans' Regional Coordination Act.
    1-7        SECTION 2.  Subchapter B, Chapter 101, Human Resources Code
    1-8  is amended by adding Section 101.032 to read as follows:
    1-9        Sec. 101.032.  AREA AGENCIES ON AGING.  (a)
   1-10  Locally-developed plans and data regarding services to the elderly
   1-11  as prepared by area agencies on aging shall be aggregated by the
   1-12  department according to the state's health and human services
   1-13  regions established under Article 4413(502) and incorporated into
   1-14  the department's strategic plan.
   1-15        (b)  The department shall decentralize its services through
   1-16  area agencies on aging designated by the department as of January
   1-17  1, 1995, pursuant to the federal Older Americans Act and shall
   1-18  maintain the boundaries of such agencies consistent with the
   1-19  planning areas, or subdivisions thereof, established pursuant to
   1-20  Chapter 391, Local Government Code.
   1-21        (c)  Area agencies on aging are responsible for the
   1-22  coordination of the department's decentralized services within the
   1-23  health and human services region to which those agencies are
    2-1  assigned.
    2-2        SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
    2-3  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
    2-4  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
    2-5  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
    2-6  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
    2-7  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
    2-8  passage, and it is so enacted.