MMA C.S.H.B. 2613 75(R)BILL ANALYSIS HIGHER EDUCATION C.S.H.B. 2613 By: Cuellar 4-12-97 Committee Report (Substituted) BACKGROUND Compensation levels for primary care faculty positions in Texas medical schools are too low to compete successfully with financial opportunities offered by the private sector and other medical schools. Since the state's capacity for training more medical students for primary care careers depends on the availability of these faculty members, recruiting and retaining them is of vital importance to the state. PURPOSE C.S.H.B. 2613 would establish a funding system to attract people to generalist faculty positions in Texas medical schools. RULEMAKING AUTHORITY It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly grant any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency or institution. SECTION BY SECTION ANALYSIS SECTION 1.Makes a statement of the problem of uncompetitive salaries for primary care faculty at Texas medical schools and why a remedy is needed. SECTION 2. Amends Chapter 58, Education Code, by adding Section 58.007(h) as follows: (h) Requires the Primary Care Residency Advisory Committee (committee) to: (1) review applications for the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) pertaining to improvements of the faculty enhancement program as described in Section 58.009; (2) recommend award standards and criteria to THECB; (3) monitor contractual compliance with the awards; and (4) evaluate the program's success rate at Texas medical schools. SECTION 3. Amends Chapter 58, Education Code, by adding Section 58.009 as follows: Section 58.009. FACULTY ENHANCEMENT PROGRAM FOR GENERALIST PHYSICIANS. (a) Establishes medical schools' eligibility to receive these funds. (b) Establishes that eligible individuals must be full-time clinical faculty in positions in family practice, general internal medicine and general pediatrics, at a faculty rank not higher than assistant professor or equivalent, to receive these funds. (c) Requires the committee to recommend to THECB which generalist faculty positions should receive these funds. Requires the committee to consider the following factors for their allocation recommendation: (1) the faculty-student ratio in the generalist speciality at that school; (2) the length of time a budgeted generalist faculty position has gone unfilled; (3) whether the position is a new one; and (4) other factors as determined by the committee. (d) Requires THECB to support an award made to a particular school for a total of two academic years. Provides that after that time, the medical school will provide the yearly faculty enhancement award from its operating budget. (e) Prohibits THECB, for the first biennium after the effective date of this section, from spending more than five percent of the total appropriated fund on administration of this program. Prohibits THECB from spending more than three percent thereafter. SECTION 4. Emergency clause. COMPARISON OF ORIGINAL TO SUBSTITUTE C.S.H.B. 2613 makes non-substantive language changes and some technical corrections as recommended by Legislative Council. Deletes "tenure-track" from subsection (b). In addition, C.S.H.B. 2613 amends the language in subsection (e) to prohibit the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to spend no more than five percent of the appropriation on administration in the first biennium and adds language to decrease it to three percent thereafter.