HB5342

The introduced bill and House committee report would have authorized HHSC, with the emergency-communications commission, to impose a fee on specified landline, wireless, internet-phone and prepaid-wireless services. They listed broader fund sources and uses, including crisis outreach, uninsured people’s stabilization services and outreach-team personnel, and annual financial reports to the legislature and FCC. These proposals must not be confused with the final law. Introduced text; House report.

The index lists one floor amendment, offered by Landgraf and adopted May 6. It replaced everything below the enacting clause: removed fee-imposing authority, narrowed the fund’s listed sources and permitted uses, added detailed investment-management rules, retained and defined crisis-center usage reporting, and substituted the funding-feasibility study for the fee. Its full replacement language survives in the House-passed, Senate-report and enrolled texts, whose substantive sections match. The Senate passed the bill without further amendments. Amendment index; complete amendment; House-passed text; Senate report; version index.

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

People contacting 988 and the centers answering them could benefit if the fund receives resources and uses them to improve staffing or technology. The law provides a funding vehicle and planning duties, not guaranteed response times, free treatment for every caller or a fixed service expansion. HHSC bears reporting and study responsibilities; the trust company handles investment and liquidity, with reasonable management expenses charged to the fund. Telephone customers do not owe the proposed new fee under this act.

The latest indexed fiscal note, May 13 for the engrossed bill, anticipates no significant state or local fiscal implication and assumes HHSC can absorb costs with existing resources. It gives no dollar total or five-year estimate. It also warns that money outside the treasury can be spent without legislative appropriation, potentially limiting future legislative appropriation decisions. The indexed later texts preserve the engrossed substantive language. Applicable fiscal note.

The April 13 introduced-version note instead modeled a 10-cent monthly fee, $54 million annual revenue and four additional staff, with personnel-related costs of $682,209 in fiscal 2026 and $644,545 in fiscal 2027. Those were assumptions about a proposal that was removed, not a fee, revenue promise or staffing mandate enacted by HB5342. That note also described the fee as required, while the introduced text said HHSC “may impose” it; neither wording supplies fee authority in the final act. Earlier fiscal note.

Review boundary: all final sections, official history, all five indexed text versions, the complete sole amendment and its adopted disposition, and both indexed fiscal notes were read and compared. This is an enacted-law explanation, not verification that gifts have arrived, money has been spent or the December 2026 study has been delivered.