BILL ANALYSIS

H.B. 5284

By: Kitzman

Youth Health & Safety, Select

Committee Report (Unamended)

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

In the wake of school shootings in Texas and around the United States, a tremendous amount of media coverage exists regarding additional school safety initiatives and funding. However, the reality is that school shooters are opportunists and soft targets are a preferred area of attack. As schools become more hardened and secure, child-care centers may emerge as alternate targets of opportunity. While the Texas Administrative Code provides minimum safety response protocol standards for child-care centers, including evacuation, lockdown, and shelter response protocols, these centers are not required to conduct safety audits needed to identify and correct deficiencies. In addition, there is no standardized progress monitoring of the efficiency of safety and security for such facilities. H.B. 5284 seeks to resolve this issue by requiring the Texas School Safety Center to adopt safety and security audit procedures for licensed child-care centers in collaboration with the Health and Human Services Commission.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE IMPACT

It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly create a criminal offense, increase the punishment for an existing criminal offense or category of offenses, or change the eligibility of a person for community supervision, parole, or mandatory supervision.

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. 5284 amends the Education Code to require the Texas School Safety Center (TxSSC), in collaboration with the Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC), to do the following:

· research best practices regarding emergency preparedness of day-care centers, as defined by the Human Resources Code, and serve as a clearinghouse for that information;

· develop safety and security audit procedures for day-care centers that include the required frequency of the audits and the manner in which the audit results must be reported to the TxSSC;

· develop and publish guidelines for standard emergency response protocol requirements; and

· provide day-care centers with safety and standard emergency response protocol training and technical assistance.

H.B. 5284 amends the Human Resources Code to require each day-care center to do the following:

· follow the standard emergency response protocol guidelines developed by the TxSSC in collaboration with HHSC;

· conduct safety and security audits following the procedures developed by the TxSSC in collaboration with HHSC; and

· report the audit results to the TxSSC in the manner required by the audit procedures.

EFFECTIVE DATE

September 1, 2023.