BILL ANALYSIS

H.B. 1061

By: Branch

Higher Education

Committee Report (Unamended)

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

Interested parties note that a Legislative Budget Board (LBB) performance report issued to the legislature in the mid-1980s found the success of the State Rural Medical Education Board (since renamed the State Medical Education Board) questionable and recommended that the board be abolished. The LBB found that only a small percentage of the people who had received loans administered by the board were practicing medicine in rural Texas counties, with only a slightly larger percentage of those individuals practicing in areas designated as medically underserved. No new loans have been made by the board in more than 25 years, and the board currently has no appointees and receives no program funding. H.B. 1061 seeks to eliminate obsolete provisions relating to a State Medical Education Board and a State Medical Education Fund, neither of which is operational.

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. 1061 repeals Chapter 348 (H.B. 683), Acts of the 63rd Legislature, Regular Session, 1973 (Article 4498c, Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes), relating to the statutory authority of the State Medical Education Board.

EFFECTIVE DATE

On passage, or, if the bill does not receive the necessary vote, September 1, 2013.