Honorable James White, Chair, House Committee on Corrections
FROM:
John McGeady, Assistant Director Sarah Keyton, Assistant Director Legislative Budget Board
IN RE:
HB2744 by Neave (Relating to the access of a female inmate of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to certain educational and vocational programs and services.), As Introduced
The fiscal implications of the bill cannot be determined at this time.
Windham School District currently offers female offenders certain programming that may satisfy the requirements of the bill. To the extent that Windham's existing programming offered to female offenders meet's the bill's requirements, there would be no significant fiscal impact.
However, to the extent the legislation instead requires Windham School District to expand its programming for female offenders to also offer all programming currently offered to male offenders, costs associated with the bill cannot be determined, but are assumed to be significant.
The bill would require Windham School District to ensure that the programs and services available under Chapter 19 of the Education Code are made available to female offenders. The bill would authorize Windham School District to satisfy this requirement through telecommunications technology.
Windham School District currently offers certain programming to female offenders, but it is unknown whether this existing programming meets the requirement of the legislation. To the extent that the existing programming satisfies the bill's requirement, there would be no significant fiscal impact.
However, to the extent that the bill would require Windham School District to expand its program offerings to female offenders, there would be costs associated with implementing the bill. These would include costs associated with staff, equipment, and instructional space. Costs would be lower to the extent that Windham chose to restrict offerings to the male population to meet the bill's requirements.
Local Government Impact
No significant fiscal implication to units of local government is anticipated.
Source Agencies:
696 Department of Criminal Justice, 701 Texas Education Agency