2025 · Regular session · House bill
HB35
HB35 creates a Texas Division of Emergency Management (TDEM) peer-support network for firefighters and emergency-medical services personnel.
Official caption: Relating to a peer support network for first responders.
Official report lists House author(s): Thompson. This does not identify sponsors or amendment drafters.
Bill explanation published · Version and amendment review scope is stated below · Individual amendment records may not be separately annotated.
Bill highlights
Selected points from the published explanation. Follow each point to its source-linked context; conditions and limits may matter.
- HB35 creates a Texas Division of Emergency Management (TDEM) peer-support network for firefighters and emergency-medical services personnel.
- The network must include peer-to-peer support, training—including suicide prevention—for peers and coordinators, assistance with program development and implementation, and identification, screening and retention of licensed mental-health professionals.
- Participation information under the network is confidential and exempt from disclosure under the Texas Public Information Act.
- TDEM must report annually by December 1 on participation, trained peers and retention, regional facilities, critical-incident responses, service evaluation and recommendations.
What does it do?
HB35 creates a Texas Division of Emergency Management (TDEM) peer-support network for firefighters and emergency-medical services personnel. Its special definition of “first responder” does not include police officers merely because they are police officers. Eligible firefighters include permanent paid employees and volunteers of a state agency or a local-government fire department; peers may be current or retired responders. The law was signed June 20, 2025, and took effect September 1, 2025. Final law; official history.
The network must include peer-to-peer support, training—including suicide prevention—for peers and coordinators, assistance with program development and implementation, and identification, screening and retention of licensed mental-health professionals. TDEM must seek and provide specialized training for peers who want to help. It must support both urban and rural jurisdictions to the extent possible using its resources. It may, rather than must, establish a program connecting responders with clinical resources at no cost to them. The law therefore does not promise every participant free clinical treatment or a nearby staffed center. Section 1.
Participation information under the network is confidential and exempt from disclosure under the Texas Public Information Act. The Texas Commission on Fire Protection and the Department of State Health Services may not base the specified regulatory discipline on participation in peer-support services or consider that participation in those disciplinary proceedings. This protects help-seeking; it is not general immunity for misconduct or a blanket restriction on every employer’s decisions. Sections 1–3.
TDEM must report annually by December 1 on participation, trained peers and retention, regional facilities, critical-incident responses, service evaluation and recommendations. The network-development deadline was March 31, 2026. Although the act makes mandatory implementation conditional on a specific appropriation, the enacted budget supplied one: $1.975 million in fiscal 2026 and $1.975 million in fiscal 2027. That rider was not vetoed. This establishes funding authority, not proof that all services are operational or that the deadline was met. Sections 4–5; SB1, Article IX Section 18.90, PDF page 1018; veto proclamation.
What changed along the way?
The filed bill would have transferred and expanded the existing police-officer network to Texas Southern University. The House substitute instead created a separate TDEM network for emergency-medical personnel and firefighters and left the existing law-enforcement network provisions in place. Its firefighter definition excluded volunteers. The House-passed text was substantively unchanged from that substitute. Filed bill; House substitute; House-passed text.
The Senate substitute added volunteer firefighters, replaced mandatory regional hubs with support to the extent possible using TDEM resources, simplified the reporting and technical-assistance provisions, and added the March 2026 deadline and funding condition. The amendment index lists one floor amendment, West’s adopted second-reading amendment: it added state-agency firefighters and restored a report item counting critical-incident events served. Both instructions appear in the final law. The adopted whole-bill Senate substitute was also checked in the official packet; the House concurred May 28. Senate substitute; amendment index; entire floor amendment; Senate packet, substitute and amendment PDF pages 4–8.
For the full amendment record, open the official amendment index.
Official bill versions
Compare the published text versions in the official text index. A change is not attributed to a specific amendment here without a verified record.
Who could benefit—and who could bear the costs?
Firefighters, emergency-medical personnel and their families could benefit from trained colleagues, easier connections to professional help and protection against specified discipline for seeking peer support. Rural access is an explicit goal, but available resources matter. The law does not demonstrate reduced suicide rates, treatment success or universal access; those require implementation and outcome evidence.
The final fiscal note estimated $3.95 million in state general-revenue costs over 2026–27, or $1.975 million annually, while saying staffing costs under a private-sector/shared-employee approach could not be determined. It anticipated no significant local-government fiscal effect. Its narrative still describes regional hubs and no-cost clinical connections more categorically than the enacted text: the final law’s resource limitation and optional clinical program control. The earlier House-committee estimate was about $9.08 million over two years under different staffing and vehicle assumptions; it is not the final estimate. The separate $3.95 million appropriation matches the final estimate’s stated amount but does not resolve its unquantified staffing caveat. Final fiscal note; earlier committee fiscal note.
Official sources
- Bill history and latest recorded action
- Bill versions, analyses and fiscal notes
- Action history and votes
- Amendment index
Catalog report retrieved 2026-10-25. Check the official record for corrections or later changes.