HBA-RBT H.B. 3271 76(R)    BILL ANALYSIS


Office of House Bill AnalysisH.B. 3271
By: Goodman
Juvenile Justice & Family Issues
3/29/1999
Introduced



BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE 

Currently, the Office of Court Administration administers a system of 36
court masters through a contract with the Office of the Attorney General.
These court masters hear child support cases in about 40 areas of the
state.  After the court hearing, however, most of these cases are not
monitored to prevent further child support delinquencies.  H.B.  3271
requires the Department of Protective and Regulatory Services to work with
other agencies to help locate parents and relatives of children throughout
the state. 

RULEMAKING AUTHORITY

It is the opinion of the Office of House Bill Analysis that this bill does
not expressly delegate any additional rulemaking authority to a state
officer, department, agency, or institution. 

SECTION BY SECTION ANALYSIS

SECTION 1.  Amends Subchapter A, Chapter 231, Family Code, by adding
Section 231.011, as follows: 

Sec.  231.011.  COOPERATION WITH DEPARTMENT OF PROTECTIVE AND REGULATORY
SERVICES.  Defines "department" to be the Department of Protective and
Regulatory Services (department).  Requires the Title IV-D agency to
provide to the department access to all of the Title IV-D agency's
available child support locating resources, allow the department to use the
Title IV-D agency's child support enforcement system to track child support
payments and to have access to the agency's management reports that show
payments made, make reports on Title IV-E, Social Security Act (42 U.S.C.
Section 670 et seq.), foster care collections available to the department
in a timely manner, and work with the department to obtain child support
payment for protective services cases in which the department is
responsible for providing care for children under temporary and final
orders. 

SECTION 2.  Amends Subchapter D, Chapter 231, Family Code, by adding
Section 231.310, as follows: 

Sec.  231.310.  INTERAGENCY WORK GROUP.  (a) Requires the Title IV-D agency
to establish a work group to facilitate the sharing of data and resources
to locate parents and relatives of children served by the Title IV-D agency
and other health and human services agencies.  

(b) Requires the work group to consist of representatives from the
department, the Texas Department of Human Services, the Texas Department of
Health, the Texas Workforce Commission, the Texas Department of Public
Safety, the Texas Rehabilitation Commission, and the Texas Department of
Criminal Justice. 

(c) Requires the commissioner of human services or the commissioner's
designee to serve as the work group's presiding officer. 

(d) Requires the work group to evaluate the procedures used by each agency
in the work group to locate parents and relatives of children served by the
agencies and develop a  mechanism to ensure that each agency in the work
group, or any private contractor preforming location functions for an
agency, is able to access information in the database of each other agency
without paying a fee. 

(e) Requires the work group to evaluate opportunities for using outside
contracting and coordinating efforts with other community resources. 

(f) Requires the department and the Title IV-D agency to use outside
contractors and community resources to locate parents in child protection
and child support cases. 

SECTION 3.  Amends Subchapter C, Chapter 264, Family Code, by adding
Section 264.208, as follows: 

Sec.  264.208.  LOCATION OF PARENTS.  Requires the department to create a
division staffed by personnel trained in locating parents and relatives of
children throughout the state. Requires the department to use outside
contractors and volunteer resources to the extent feasible to preform its
responsibilities under this section. 

SECTION 4.  Effective date: September 1, 1999.

SECTION 5.  Emergency clause.