2025 Texas sessionsRegular and both called sessions have ended. This index covers House and Senate bills, not resolutions. Statuses come from official reports.

2025 · Regular session · Senate bill

SB127

SB127 gives prosecutors more time to charge certain professionals who knowingly fail to report child abuse or neglect, with the clock running from discovery of the reporting offense.

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Official caption: Relating to the offense of failure to report child abuse or neglect by certain professionals and the statute of limitations for that offense; harmonizing other statute of limitations provisions.

Signed by governorSource-checked explanation published

Official report lists Senate author(s): Hall. This does not identify sponsors or amendment drafters.

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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.

SB127 gives prosecutors more time to charge certain professionals who knowingly fail to report child abuse or neglect, with the clock running from discovery of the reporting offense.
For the professional’s failure-to-report offense punished under Family Code Section 261.109(c), the deadline becomes three years from discovery for a Class A misdemeanor and four years from discovery for a state-jail felony.
The existing offense is normally a Class A misdemeanor; it becomes a state-jail felony if the professional intended to conceal the abuse or neglect.
Already expired prosecutions are not revived: If prosecution of the covered offense became time-barred before September 1, 2025, it remains barred.

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What does it do?

SB127 gives prosecutors more time to charge certain professionals who knowingly fail to report child abuse or neglect, with the clock running from discovery of the reporting offense. Signed June 20, 2025, it took effect September 1, 2025. Official history; final law.

For the professional’s failure-to-report offense punished under Family Code Section 261.109(c), the deadline becomes three years from discovery for a Class A misdemeanor and four years from discovery for a state-jail felony. Under the prior general rules, those periods were two and three years, respectively, measured from commission of the offense. The change affects both the length of the period and when it begins.

The existing offense is normally a Class A misdemeanor; it becomes a state-jail felony if the professional intended to conceal the abuse or neglect. SB127 does not newly create that distinction or increase those offense grades. It applies to the professional-reporting offense identified in subsection (c), not every failure-to-report offense or every underlying act of child abuse. Offense and penalty provisions.

Already expired prosecutions are not revived. If prosecution of the covered offense became time-barred before September 1, 2025, it remains barred. This is not a blanket “new offenses only” rule: the act protects already barred cases rather than excluding every earlier offense. These are deadlines for criminal charges, not permission for a professional to delay reporting suspected abuse. The reporting duties are in a separate provision. Reporting duties.

What changed along the way?

The introduced, Senate committee, engrossed, House committee and enrolled versions have the same operative provisions. Both committees reported the bill without amendments, and the amendment index lists no floor amendments. Text versions; Amendment index.

Section 1 also combines overlapping 2023 amendments to the felony-limitations article and renumbers provisions. For example, separate earlier paragraphs labeled (J) addressed corpse-related evidence tampering, specified child-custody interference and certain burglaries; the enrolled bill gives them separate letters. It also reconciles child- and disabled-victim provisions. The long list of other offenses reproduced in SB127 should not be read as a list of entirely new deadlines created by this bill. Earlier article and amendment annotations; Reenacted article.

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?

The only posted fiscal note, April 21, 2025 for the introduced bill, anticipates no significant state fiscal impact and no significant local costs from enforcement, prosecution, supervision or confinement. The operative language did not change before enactment. Fiscal note.

The criminal-justice statement recognizes that a longer charging window may increase demands on correctional resources, but assumes no significant effect on state correctional populations or resources. That is not a finding that no additional cases will be brought. Criminal-justice impact statement.

Discovery-based deadlines may make prosecution possible when a professional’s reporting failure comes to light later. Professionals accused of the covered offense face a longer period of potential prosecution, and investigators may need to establish when that offense was discovered. The sources do not quantify additional convictions, prevented abuse or costs to individual defendants; prosecutors still must prove the offense. Charging windows and transition rule.

Official sources

Catalog report retrieved 2026-10-25. Check the official record for corrections or later changes.