LEGISLATIVE BUDGET BOARD
Austin, Texas
FISCAL NOTE
75th Regular Session
May 31, 1997
TO: Honorable Bob Bullock Honorable James E. "Pete" Laney
Lieutenant Governor Speaker of the House
Senate
Austin, Texas
FROM: John Keel, Director
In response to your request for a Fiscal Note on SB359 ( Relating
to the continuation and operation of the Department of Protective
and Regulatory Services, the provision of services to children
and families, and suits affecting the parent-child relationship;
providing penalties.) this office has detemined the following:
Biennial Net Impact to General Revenue Funds by SB359-Conference Committee Report
Implementing the provisions of the bill would result in a net
positive impact of $7,079,916 to General Revenue Related Funds
through the biennium ending August 31, 1999.
The bill would make no appropriation but could provide the legal
basis for an appropriation of funds to implement the provisions
of the bill.
Fiscal Analysis
The bill would provide for the continuation of the Department
of Protective and Regulatory Services (DPRS) for the standard
12-year Sunset review cycle. DPRS is subject to the provisions
of the Texas Sunset Act. The amount set forth for the administration
of the agency in the General Appropriations Bill, as introduced,
($526,225,721 for fiscal year 1998 and $540,736,010 for fiscal
year 1999) would be contingent upon passage of Senate Bill 359
or similar legislation. The appropriation would be financed
from the General Revenue fund, federal funds, appropriated receipts,
and interagency contracts, and would provide for approximately
5,907 employees.
Implementation of several provisions relating
to permanency planning for children in the temporary managing
conservatorship of DPRS would have a significant fiscal impact.
These provisions would require the court to dismiss a suit
affecting the parent-child relationship on the first Monday
after the first anniversary of the child's entry into temporary
managing conservatorship, unless the court had already rendered
a final order or granted an extension of up to 180 days. The
court could retain jurisdiction over the child, and not dismiss
the suit or render a final order, under certain circumstances.
The effective date for these provisions would be January 1,
1998, and they would apply to all suits commenced before, on,
or after September 1, 1997. The court could establish a later
dismissal date for suits involving children in DPRS temporary
managing conservatorship before January 1, 1998.
The bill
would require the county attorney to represent DPRS in any action
under the Family Code, unless the district attorney or criminal
district attorney elected to provide representation. It would
require the Attorney General to represent DPRS if the county
attorney, district attorney, or criminal district attorney were
unable to do so. It would require the Attorney General to deputize
a DPRS attorney to provide representation if the Attorney General
was unable to do so. It would also authorize DPRS to contract
with a private attorney to provide representation, and to represent
itself, in any action under the Family Code. The effective
date for these provisions would be January 1, 1998, and they
would apply to all suits commenced before, on, or after September
1, 1997.
The bill would require DPRS to conduct background
and criminal history checks when a child-care facility or family
home applies for licensure or registration, and at least once
every 24 months after a facility or home is licensed or registered.
Each check must include a search of child abuse and neglect
reports maintained by DPRS, and a search of criminal history
record information made available by the Department of Public
Safety (DPS) under section 411.114 of the Government Code, or
by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) or another criminal
justice agency under Section 411.087 of the Government Code.
The facility or home would be required to pay a fee that could
not exceed the department's administrative costs.
The bill
would require DPRS, by March 1, 1998, to enter into agreements
under which the sheriff or law enforcement agency in one large
county and one small county would investigate reports of child
abuse. DPRS must reimburse the sheriff or law enforcement agency
from available state and federal funds for the costs of conducting
the investigations. Seven-member local citizens review boards
would be established, and the State Auditor's Office would be
required to audit and evaluate the pilot programs on or before
March 1, 2001.
The bill would establish two caseload standards
advisory committees to recommend minimum and maximum caseloads
for each category of caseworker employed by DPRS and the Department
of Human Services. The effective date for these provisions
would be not later than March 1, 1998. The bill would also
require the Commissioner of Health and Human Services to adopt
rules prescribing caseload and other standards for each category
of caseworker employed by the two departments. The effective
date for this provision would be not later than September 1,
1999. Subject to the availability of funds, the bill would
require the Commissioner and the Executive Director of DPRS
to use the standards in determining the number of personnel
to assign as caseworkers.
The bill would implement Texas
Performance Review (TPR) recommendation HHS 5, in Disturbing
the Peace: the Challenge of Change in Texas Government, by requiring
DPRS to coordinate state monitoring inspections of licensed
day care centers, licensed group day care homes, and registered
family homes. It would require DPRS, the Texas Workforce Commission,
the Texas Department of Human Services, and the Texas Department
of Health to implement a new inspection protocol by June 1,
1998. It would also require DPRS to establish a computerized
database containing inspection information from other state
agencies and political subdivisions.
The bill would implement
TPR recommendation HHS 7, by requiring the Health and Human
Services Commission to adopt rules establishing results-oriented
standards for providers of substitute care services. The effective
date for this provision would be not later than January 1, 1998.
The bill would require health and human service agencies to
include the standards in provider contracts and to report on
their effectiveness by January 31, 1999.
The bill would partially
implement TPR recommendation HHS 8, by requiring representatives
from each state agency that purchases substitute care services
to assess the total need for substitute care services, and to
develop and implement a competitive bidding process. DPRS would
be required to develop and implement a pilot competitive bidding
program by September 1, 1998 (which is one year later than the
date recommended by TPR).
The bill would address concerns
raised by the Sunset Advisory Commission's Staff Report, and
TPR issue HHS 9, relating to the use of assessment services
to determine the most appropriate placement for children entering
substitute care. It would require DPRS to regulate assessment
services provided by child-care facilities or child-placing
agencies, and to use these services before placing a child in
substitute care. It would also require the Board of Protective
and Regulatory Services to establish minimum standards for assessment
services by November 1, 1997.
The bill would partially implement
TPR recommendation HHS 10 by authorizing DPRS to represent itself
in certain child protection cases, and by requiring DPRS to
establish a working group of representatives from the Office
of Court Administration, the Texas Supreme Court, and district
and county attorneys' offices to coordinate the processing of
child protection cases. The working group would be required
to report its recommendations to the Texas Supreme Court by
September 1, 1998. The Texas Supreme Court would be required
to adopt rules regarding the processing of child protection
cases after considering the working group's recommendations.
The
bill would address other concerns raised by the Sunset Advisory
Commission's Staff Report, and TPR issue HHS 10, by providing
for the legal representation of DPRS in actions brought under
the Family Code, and by authorizing the presiding judge to appoint
a master for a court handling child protection cases if the
court needs assistance to process the cases in a reasonable
time.
Implementation of two provisions in the bill would
result in a gain to the General Revenue fund. The first provision
would authorize DPRS to charge a child-care facility or family
home for the reasonable cost of providing services related to
corrective action plans. The second would authorize DPRS to
impose an administrative penalty when a child-care facility
or family home violates the licensing law, or a rule or order
adopted under the licensing statute.
Methodolgy
It is assumed that the provisions relating to permanency planning
for children in DPRS temporary managing conservatorship would
significantly increase the workload of the department's child
protective services program. The workload increase would be
heaviest in the first two fiscal years, when the department
would implement new permanency planning procedures and begin
moving about 3,500 foster children who have been in conservatorship
for 12 or more months through the court system. Additional
child protective services staff would be needed to handle the
new permanency planning requirements. The cost estimate assumes
a ratio of six child protective service workers per clerk.
It
is also assumed that the provisions relating to legal representation
would increase the workload of the department's legal staff.
The department estimates that the new workload could be accommodated
without cost to local prosecutors by adding six attorneys, three
legal assistants, and one legal secretary. These individuals
would provide litigation support, training, and legal case management
statewide. The legal secretary would also maintain a statewide
legal tracking system for all DPRS legal cases.
The cost
of the additional workload would be more than offset by a savings
in foster care and other purchased service payments, because
the provisions of the bill would cause some children to leave
the system more quickly. The cost estimate uses federal revenue
from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program.
In the event that TANF funds are unavailable for allocation,
General Revenue may need to be substituted.
DPRS reports
that it already conducts background and criminal history checks
relating to certain individuals associated with regulated child-care
facilities and family homes. These checks are conducted at
no cost to the child-care facility or family home. It is assumed
that implementation of the provision requiring child-care facilities
and family homes to pay a fee would generate new revenue with
no additional costs.
Implementation of the provision requiring
background and criminal history checks at least once every 24
months would require DPRS to check on the background and criminal
history of nearly 70,000 persons associated with regulated child-care
facilities and family homes each year. The department would
need an additional 21.9 FTE positions to accommodate the new
workload.
It is assumed that DPRS would charge a fee to recover
administrative costs associated with the background and criminal
history check requirement. These would include staffing costs,
a $1 fee for DPS criminal history searches, and a $24 fee for
FBI fingerprint searches (which would be conducted on a very
small number of individuals). First year costs and revenues
have been reduced by 25% to give the department time to adopt
rules and phase-in the new program.
Implementation of the
provision requiring DPRS to reimburse two counties for the costs
of conducting child abuse investigations should have no significant
fiscal impact since DPRS would have been required to conduct
the investigations directly without the county pilot programs.
The
fiscal implication of provisions relating to caseload standards
for each category of caseworker at DPRS and the Department of
Human Services (DHS) would depend on the rules adopted by the
Commissioner of Health and Human Services. Any normative caseload
standard per worker could require DPRS and DHS to exceed their
Full Time Equivalent (FTE) levels established by the Legislature.
This would be a cost to the General Revenue Fund.
The Comptroller
of Public Accounts estimates that implementation of the bill's
provisions relating to child-care monitoring inspections (TPR
recommendation HHS 5) would result in a net annual General Revenue
savings of $498,000. This includes a $13,000 cost to maintain
the DPRS database which would be offset by a $511,000 savings
from streamlining the inspection process. The savings would
be allocated among DPRS ($247,023), the Texas Workforce Commission
($254,895), and the Department of Human Services ($9,082).
The method of financing would be 100% General Revenue funds.
The
Comptroller estimates that implementation of provisions relating
to the DPRS pilot competitive bidding program for substitute
care services (TPR recommendation HHS 8) would result in an
$850,000 annual savings, including $634,000 in General Revenue
funds and $216,000 in federal funds. It is assumed that these
savings would begin to accrue in fiscal year 1999.
The Comptroller
estimates that implementation of provisions relating to the
use of assessment services for children entering substitute
care would result in a $8,921,000 annual savings in foster care
payments, including $6,651,000 in General Revenue funds and
$2,270,000 in federal funds (these savings would begin to accrue
in the second half of fiscal year 1999). However, the bill
does not fully implement the recommendations in TPR issue 9,
which would have required DPRS to create a separate licensing
program for assessment "centers." This fiscal note assumes
that implementation of the bill's provisions relating to the
regulation and utilization of assessment "services" would have
no significant fiscal implication beyond that already included
in the permanency planning provisions cited above.
The Comptroller
estimates that implementation of provisions relating to the
legal process for child protective services would result in
a net annual savings to the General Revenue fund of $657,000
(these savings would begin to accrue in the second half of fiscal
year 1999). However, the bill does not fully implement the
recommendations in TPR issue 10, which assumed that state law
would be amended to require that all legal actions on child
protection cases be processed through the Attorney General's
Child Support Enforcement court masters system. This would
speed-up the resolution of child protection cases, and increase
the collection of child-support payments that would used to
fund DPRS legal staff and county court master programs. This
fiscal note assumes that implementation of the bill's provisions
relating to DPRS legal representation and the appointment of
court masters would have no significant fiscal implication beyond
that already included in the permanency planning provisions
cited above.
The probable fiscal implications of implementing the provisions
of the bill during each of the first five years following passage
is estimated as follows:
Five Year Impact:
Fiscal Year Probable Probable Probable Probable Change in Number
Savings/(Cost) Savings/(Cost) Savings/(Cost) Savings/(Cost) of State
from General from General from Federal Funds from Federal Funds Employees from
Revenue Fund Revenue Fund FY 1997
0001 0001 0555 0555
1998 ($3,577,481) $871,918 ($2,066,809) $562,862 119.8
1998 (6,478,215) 13,661,010 (4,067,016) 6,360,442 238.9
2000 (3,624,121) 19,313,770 (2,031,160) 9,037,369 123.7
2001 (2,847,987) 13,535,049 (1,476,951) 6,243,335 89.3
2002 (2,917,468) 13,534,345 (1,535,426) 6,244,686 89.6
Fiscal Year Probable Revenue
Gain/(Loss) from
General Revenue
Fund
0001
1998
1999 1,376,474
2000 1,344,640
2001 1,344,640
2002 1,344,640
Net Impact on General Revenue Related Funds:
The probable fiscal implication to General Revenue related funds
during each of the first five years is estimated as follows:
Fiscal Year Probable Net Postive/(Negative)
General Revenue Related Funds
Funds
1998 ($1,479,353)
1999 8,559,269
2000 17,034,289
2001 12,031,702
2002 11,961,517
Similar annual fiscal implications would continue as long as
the provisions of the bill are in effect.
Implementation of provisions requiring DPRS to fund two pilot
programs in which county law enforcement officials assume the
responsibility to conduct child abuse investigations would result
in higher local government costs that would be offset by additional
revenues from DPRS.
Implementation of provisions requiring
DPRS to develop and implement an outreach program to help counties
apply for federal funds could result in increased funding for
local units of government.
Source: Agencies:
LBB Staff: JK ,BB ,NM