HB1965

The introduced and House committee versions required the Veterans Commission to conduct the study in collaboration with the Health and Human Services Commission. The sole listed floor amendment, offered by Josey Garcia and adopted on April 29, 2025, deleted that collaboration requirement. Its instruction matches the change from the House committee text to the House-passed text, and the deletion remains in the final law. Removing a mandatory collaboration clause is not a prohibition on agencies communicating or cooperating. Amendment text; index and disposition.

The rural focus, coordinator-expansion recommendations, report deadline and expiration date remained unchanged across all five versions. The House-passed, Senate committee and enrolled operative language match. All versions; final law.

Compare the published text versions in the official text index. A change is not attributed to a specific amendment here without a verified record.

Rural service members, veterans and families could benefit if the study leads to more accessible peer support. The Veterans Commission must perform and report the work. Actual expansion, funding and health outcomes depend on later decisions; the law does not award a grant, prescribe clinical treatment or promise that a coordinator will be available in every community.

The May 13, 2025 fiscal note anticipates no significant state or local fiscal impact, assuming study costs can be absorbed using existing resources. It gives no dollar amount or separate two-year or five-year forecast. That estimate concerns this bill’s requirements, not the cost of every possible expansion the report might recommend.