2025 · Regular session · Senate bill
SB500
SB500 sets deadlines for sharing adoption-history information and expressly permits access to certain confidential records with privacy safeguards.
Official caption: Relating to access to certain information in the adoption process.
Official report lists Senate author(s): Sparks. 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.
- SB500 sets deadlines for sharing adoption-history information and expressly permits access to certain confidential records with privacy safeguards.
- The existing duty to prepare the report remains, with distribution now expressly required.
- Prospective adoptive parents’ examination right expressly includes confidential information other than protected identities.
- Every Social Security number must be redacted.
- The bill was signed June 20, 2025, and took effect September 1, 2025.
What does it do?
SB500 sets deadlines for sharing adoption-history information and expressly permits access to certain confidential records with privacy safeguards. The Department of Family and Protective Services must ensure that a licensed child-placing agency, a single source continuum contractor—a community-based foster-care contractor—or another adoption-placement person receives the department’s portion of a child’s health, social, educational and genetic history report within 45 days after the later of two events: adoption becomes the child’s primary permanency-plan goal, or a court terminates parental rights. It is not 45 days from whichever event happens first. Report deadline.
The existing duty to prepare the report remains, with distribution now expressly required. Existing Section 162.005 excludes adoptions by a grandparent, aunt or uncle by birth, marriage or prior adoption, or stepparent. Its separate rule still calls for prospective parents to receive the report as early as practicable before their first meeting with the child. Amended preparation rule; Retained exceptions and early delivery rule.
Prospective adoptive parents’ examination right expressly includes confidential information other than protected identities. Before confidential information is released, the prospective parent must sign a nondisclosure agreement. The department, agency or other placement person must provide information under Section 162.0062 within 90 days after it is requested. These are information deadlines, not a guarantee that an adoption will be completed in 45 or 90 days. Access, agreement and request deadline.
Every Social Security number must be redacted. Records must protect biological parents’ identities, biological siblings adopted by a different family and those siblings’ adoptive parents, abuse or neglect reporters, and persons protected by the safe-haven infant law. The existing subsection (c) remains: after reviewing the history report and deciding to proceed, prospective parents may be allowed further examination at the department’s discretion, but the department must provide the child’s case record if they request it. Required redactions; Retained case-record request rule; Safe-haven confidentiality.
The bill was signed June 20, 2025, and took effect September 1, 2025. History and effective date.
What changed along the way?
The introduced bill proposed a 30-day report deadline after the permanency plan changed to include adoption. The Senate substitute changed it to 45 days after the later of adoption becoming the primary goal and termination of parental rights. That narrower trigger and longer deadline survived the engrossed, House committee and enrolled versions. The 90-day information-request deadline, nondisclosure agreement and redaction protections remained. Introduced proposal; Senate substitute; All versions.
No floor amendments are listed in the official index. The material revision was the Senate committee substitute. Amendment index.
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?
Prospective parents can obtain information needed to assess a child’s care needs with clearer delivery deadlines, while identities and Social Security numbers remain protected. Agencies must manage requests, redactions and nondisclosure agreements. The act does not open adoption files to the general public or guarantee complete historical information that does not exist. Access and safeguards.
The April 7 fiscal note estimated a $6,955,560 general-revenue-related cost for fiscal 2026–27 for the introduced 30-day proposal, largely because it would require many more reports. That is not the estimate for the enacted version. The April 17 substitute note anticipates no significant state fiscal impact, assumes costs can be absorbed within existing appropriations and anticipates no local-government fiscal impact. The final law retains that substitute’s timing. Introduced-proposal estimate; Latest 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.
