2025 · Regular session · House bill
HB4144
HB4144's final text requires a political subdivision to provide a critical-illness supplemental income benefit or comparable health-benefit coverage for qualifying retired firefighters and peace officers diagnosed with specified …
Official caption: Relating to supplemental benefits for retired firefighters and peace officers diagnosed with certain diseases or illnesses.
Official report lists House author(s): Turner, Bumgarner, Patterson, McQueeney, Plesa. 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.
- HB4144's final text requires a political subdivision to provide a critical-illness supplemental income benefit or comparable health-benefit coverage for qualifying retired firefighters and peace officers diagnosed with specified diseases within three years after retirement.
- The diseases are those described in Government Code Sections 607.055 and 607.056: specified cancers, acute myocardial infarction (heart attack), or stroke.
- The cash benefit is the smaller of the retiree's final yearly salary or $100,000, payable as a lump sum or in equal payments over three consecutive months.
- A political subdivision is exempt from this requirement if it provides retiree health coverage comparable in both coverage and cost to the retiree's plan immediately before retirement.
What does it do?
HB4144’s final text requires a political subdivision to provide a critical-illness supplemental income benefit or comparable health-benefit coverage for qualifying retired firefighters and peace officers diagnosed with specified diseases within three years after retirement. It applies only to someone retiring from a fire department or law-enforcement agency with at least 50 firefighters or peace officers, respectively, and only to retirements on or after January 1, 2026. The law itself took effect September 1, 2025.
The diseases are those described in Government Code Sections 607.055 and 607.056: specified cancers, acute myocardial infarction (heart attack), or stroke. The cancer list includes cancers originating in the stomach, colon, rectum, skin, prostate, testis or brain; non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma; multiple myeloma; malignant melanoma; and renal cell carcinoma. This is not a benefit for every possible illness.
The cash benefit is the smaller of the retiree’s final yearly salary or $100,000, payable as a lump sum or in equal payments over three consecutive months. The workers’ compensation commissioner must adjust the dollar ceiling by rule, by September 1 in each year ending in five, for any increase in the specified consumer price index over the preceding ten years. The enacted $100,000 figure is therefore an adjustable statutory starting amount, not a guaranteed payment to every retiree.
A political subdivision is exempt from this requirement if it provides retiree health coverage comparable in both coverage and cost to the retiree’s plan immediately before retirement. The law does not require both that comparable coverage and a separate cash payment.
What changed along the way?
The introduced bill covered governmental entities including state agencies and political subdivisions, without the final 50-person department threshold. The House substitute added the comparable-retiree-health-plan exemption and moved inflation-adjustment responsibility from the insurance commissioner to the workers’ compensation commissioner. The engrossed and Senate committee texts retained that substance.
The amendment index lists one floor amendment. Senate amendment F1, adopted May 28, narrowed the obligation to political subdivisions and added the 50-firefighter or 50-officer threshold. Those limits appear in the final law. The official history records House concurrence and the governor’s June 20 signature.
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?
Eligible recent retirees could receive income support or health coverage after a qualifying diagnosis. Smaller departments, state-agency retirees, earlier retirees and diagnoses outside the three-year window are not brought into this new benefit by HB4144. Local governments may bear benefit or coverage costs unless they meet the comparable-plan exemption.
The final fiscal note could not determine the fiscal impact because the number of qualifying retirees was unknown. It likewise did not quantify local-government costs. That is an uncertainty, not a finding that the program costs nothing.
Review boundary: This explains the enacted benefit and its statutory limits, not an individual eligibility determination or a current inflation-adjusted benefit quote. Sections 607.055 and 607.056 also contain employment-related presumptions; this briefing does not promise that every diagnosis automatically establishes an individual claim.
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.
