BILL ANALYSIS

H.B. 35

By: Menendez

Public Health

Committee Report (Unamended)

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

Recent legislation established a pilot program in Bexar County to facilitate collaboration among parents, educators, state juvenile justice and health and human services agencies, and healthcare and mental healthcare providers. The legislation provided for the exchange of certain information relating to a child in the program among participating agencies, with proper parental consent, in order to better coordinate and reduce duplication of effort. Through memoranda of understanding, the program provides identification, intervention, and prevention services for certain at-risk children. 

The pilot program was authorized for two years. The memoranda of understanding were recently established and the scope and procedures of the program were finalized, allowing the program to begin serving over 150 children.  H.B. 35 seeks to extend the pilot program by an additional two years to allow Bexar County to continue the program and gather a sufficient quantity of data on outcomes to determine both cost savings and the effects the program is having on the children who have been determined eligible for the services.

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.

ANALYSIS

H.B. 35 amends Chapter 356 (H.B. 1232), Acts of the 81st Legislature, Regular Session, 2009, to extend from December 1, 2010, to December 1, 2012, the deadline by which the local mental health authority involved in a local behavioral health intervention pilot project must submit a report to the Department of State Health Services regarding the pilot project. The bill extends the expiration date of the pilot project from September 1, 2011, to September 1, 2013. The bill establishes the legislature's intent that the effect of the bill and that of any other legislation affecting the same provisions of law amended by the bill be harmonized, if possible, as provided by statute, so that effect may be given to each, but in the event any differences are irreconcilable statutes, the bill establishes the legislature's intent that the provisions of the bill prevail.

EFFECTIVE DATE

September 1, 2011.