HBA-GUM C.S.S.B. 996 76(R)BILL ANALYSIS Office of House Bill AnalysisC.S.S.B. 996 By: Lindsay Human Services 4/9/1999 Committee Report (Substituted) BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Under current law the Department of Protective and Regulatory Services (department) pays the funeral expenses when a child in the department's managing conservatorship dies in foster care. C.S.S.B. 996 requires the department to request the parents of the child to pay for reasonable and necessary funeral expenses of the child. In addition, the substitute provides that resources used to pay a funeral expense include the child's insurance policies or bank accounts. This substitute also provides that if the parents cannot pay all or part of the funeral expenses, that the department shall pay such expenses. 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 Section 264.012, Family Code, as follows: (a) Requires the Department of Protective and Regulatory Services (department) to request that the parents pay reasonable and necessary funeral expenses for a child for whom the department has been appointed managing conservator and who dies in foster care, including a request that if the parents have an insurance policy or bank account for the child, that the parents spend the proceeds form the policy or money in the account on the funeral expenses. Requires, rather than authorizes, the department to pay the funeral expenses if the parents cannot pay all or part of the funeral expenses. (b) Authorizes the department to accept donations, gifts, or in-kind contributions to cover the costs of any funeral expenses under this section. (c) Provides that this section does not apply to a foster parent. SECTION 2. Effective date: September 1, 1999. SECTION 3. Emergency clause. COMPARISON OF ORIGINAL TO SUBSTITUTE The substitute modifies the original in SECTION 1, by reorganizing text into Subsections (a) and (b), and creating Subsections (c) from new text. The substitute modifies the original by providing that the request to pay funeral expenses under this Act is made to the parents, rather than the biological parents, of a child described by this Act. In addition, the substitute modifies the original in Subsection (a) by specifying that if the parents have an insurance policy or a bank account, rather than a savings account, that the proceeds from the policy or money in the account be spent on the funeral expenses. The substitute also modifies the original by providing that the department spend appropriated funds for the child's funeral expenses if the parents cannot pay all or part of the funeral expenses, rather than all of the funeral expenses. The substitute modifies the original by creating Subsection (b) in SECTION 1, relating to the Department of Protective and Regulatory Services's authorization to accept donations, gifts, or inkind contributions to cover the costs of, rather than expenses in relation to, any funeral expenses under this Act. The substitute also modifies the original by creating Subsection (c) in SECTION 1 to provide that this section (Funeral Expenses For Child In Foster Care) does not apply to a foster parent. This provision does not appear in the original. Futhermore, the substitute modifies the original in SECTION 1 to make conforming and nonsubstantive changes.