LEGISLATIVE BUDGET BOARD
                          Austin, Texas

                           FISCAL NOTE
                       74th Regular Session

                          April 25, 1995



 TO:     Honorable Toby Goodman, Chair          IN RE:  House Bill No. 1189
         Committee on Juvenile Justice and              By: VandePutte
         Family Issues
         House of Representatives
         Austin, Texas






FROM: John Keel, Director

In response to your request for a Fiscal Note on House Bill No.
1189 (relating to reporting certain delinquent child support
payments to a consumer reporting agency) this office has
determined the following:

The bill would amend the Human Resources Code by adding Section
76.010 which requires the Office of the Attorney General to
provide information to a consumer reporting agency that submits a
written request regarding the amount of delinquent child support
owed by a noncustodial parent in a Title IV-D case.  Before
disclosing the information, the Attorney General must send the
noncustodial parent a notice by certified mail that the
information requested by the consumer reporting agency will be
released if the noncustodial parent fails to contest the
disclosure before the 21st day after the date of mailing of the
notice.  If the noncustodial parent does not contest the
disclosure within the time specified, the Attorney General must
provide the information to the consumer reporting agency and may
charge the agency a reasonable fee for providing the information,
including all applicable mailing costs.

The bill would also amend Section 76.006(c) of the Human
Resources Code to authorize the Office of the Attorney General to
release information from its child support files and records to a
consumer reporting agency, in accordance with the above cited
Section 76.010.

The Attorney General currently has in place a Credit Bureau
Reporting program that automatically refers approximately 1,000    




new delinquencies a month to one credit reporting agency, TRW,
which makes the information available on a nationwide network to 
other credit bureaus and financial institutions.  The Attorney
General sends 120,000 updates to the credit reporting agency
annually.  The Attorney General believes that the bill would
terminate the current enforcement process for credit reporting
and replace it with one where the Attorney General could only
respond to credit bureau requests.

The Office of the Attorney General estimates that it would need
one additional employee, an administrative technician II, to
implement the provisions of the bill.  The Attorney General's
estimate of the costs of the bill, including salary, benefits,
and overhead for the one employee are $40,726 for fiscal year
1996, and $35,477 for fiscal years 1997-2000.  Additionally, the
Attorney General estimates that the costs of postage for
notifying noncustodial parents would be $30,240 per year for
fiscal years 1996-2000.  While the bill would allow the Attorney
General to charge a consumer reporting agency a "reasonable fee
for providing information under this section, including all
applicable mailing costs," it is not clear if this would include
the cost of mailing approximately 12,000 notices by certified
mail annually to noncustodial parents or if the fee could be
structured to include the cost of an additional employee and
overhead.




The overall fiscal implication to the State cannot be determined.

No fiscal implication to units of local government is
anticipated.


Source:   Office of the Attorney General
          LBB Staff: JK, JC, RR