According to the Legislative Budget Board (LBB), the implementation of HB 1 is projected to have a negative fiscal impact on the state’s General Revenue Fund, totaling approximately $5.43 million over the FY 2026–27 biennium, and continuing at around $2.55 million annually in subsequent years. While the bill does not include a direct appropriation, it provides the statutory authority to support future funding allocations necessary for implementation.

The Department of State Health Services (DSHS) is the primary agency impacted and would require the addition of 16 full-time equivalent (FTE) employees, including sanitarians and emergency management coordinators. These positions are necessary to handle the review of emergency preparedness plans submitted by camps, conduct required inspections in response to parental complaints, and enforce the bill’s safety regulations. Each year, these staff costs, along with travel and vehicle expenses, are estimated to exceed $2.5 million.

Technology costs are also a component of the fiscal burden. DSHS would need approximately $265,000 in FY 2026 for configuration, deployment, and licensing of systems to store and share camp emergency plans, with ongoing annual maintenance costs of about $12,000. Despite leveraging existing infrastructure, this added digital management responsibility increases the long-term budget footprint.

No significant fiscal impact is anticipated at the local government level. However, the state costs reflect a sustained commitment to regulatory enforcement, inspections, and coordination with emergency response entities. The bill grants DSHS new authority over plan approvals and licensing compliance, which drives much of the anticipated expense. Importantly, the fiscal note assumes any financial effect on the Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) to be minimal.

HB 1 was filed in the wake of the tragic July 4, 2025, flooding along the Guadalupe River, which resulted in the deaths of more than 100 people, including dozens of campers and staff at Camp Mystic in Kerr County. The intent of the legislation, to prevent such tragedies by ensuring youth camps are prepared for emergencies, is noble and understandable. However, the bill’s current form, especially as substituted in the Senate, expands far beyond its necessary scope and introduces a broad and inflexible state regulatory regime that raises significant liberty, fiscal, and structural concerns.

The bill requires all resident youth camp operators to annually develop, implement, and submit comprehensive written emergency preparedness plans to the Department of State Health Services (DSHS). These plans must address a wide array of potential scenarios, ranging from natural disasters and fires to medical emergencies, aquatic incidents, unauthorized persons on-site, and more. Each plan must designate an emergency preparedness coordinator, identify muster zones, detail communication protocols with local emergency agencies, include evacuation procedures, and prescribe specific training for camp staff, volunteers, and campers.

The plans must be submitted to DSHS annually for review and approval. If the department finds deficiencies, camps are required to revise and resubmit within 45 days. Camps must also notify DSHS of any changes to structures or activity areas, and DSHS may require additional updates to the emergency plan in response. The department is further authorized to deny or suspend licenses for noncompliance. In addition, the bill prohibits waivers for any requirement under these new emergency planning mandates, even in cases of financial hardship, operational uniqueness, or demonstrated low risk.

New infrastructure requirements are imposed as well. Each camp must maintain real-time weather alert radios, install public address systems capable of functioning without internet, post illuminated evacuation signage in every cabin, and maintain redundant broadband internet connections from two separate providers, regardless of location or feasibility. These are fixed mandates with no differentiation based on camp size, seasonality, or location.

The bill establishes a new Youth Camp Safety Multidisciplinary Team within DSHS to recommend minimum emergency planning standards. Camp operators must share their emergency plans with local emergency management officials and must provide session rosters of campers, staff, and volunteers to county and municipal entities before each session begins. Campers and their guardians must receive the emergency plan and, if applicable, be notified in writing that the camp is located within a floodplain. Guardians must also sign and return an acknowledgment form prior to participation.

While HB 1 does not include a direct appropriation, the Legislative Budget Board (LBB) estimates the bill would have a negative impact of at least $5.4 million over the 2026–27 biennium, primarily to support 16 new full-time employees at DSHS tasked with inspections, plan review, and enforcement. These positions include sanitarians and emergency preparedness coordinators. Additional vehicle and travel costs, as well as ongoing technology licensing and database management, would further increase costs beyond the biennium. The bill allows for civil penalties of up to $1,000 per violation per day, enforced by the Attorney General, with any revenues directed back to DSHS. However, the Comptroller has stated that the number of violations and resulting penalty revenues is too speculative to estimate and is likely to be insignificant in the near term.

As currently written, HB 1 imposes a uniform, top-down enforcement model that applies equally to large, urban camps and small, rural, or faith-based programs. It makes no distinction for seasonal camps with low risk profiles and provides no legal safeguards for religious organizations, privacy protections for sensitive data, or safe harbor provisions for good-faith compliance. It also introduces significant regulatory uncertainty by relying on future rules yet to be written by DSHS and the Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC), which are granted broad discretion under the bill.

While the desire to ensure the safety of campers is valid and important, HB 1 in its current form expands the regulatory footprint of the state too far, too fast, without proportionality, flexibility, or adequate protection for private institutions. As such, Texas Policy Research recommends that lawmakers vote NO on HB unless amended as described below. To make this bill supportable, the following amendments should be considered essential:

• Introduce tiered requirements based on camp size, location, or risk profile;
• Restore DSHS authority to grant waivers in cases of demonstrated hardship or low risk;
• Provide explicit exemptions or alternative compliance paths for faith-based and nonprofit organizations;
• Limit the scope of data sharing and include retention and privacy safeguards for sensitive rosters and plans;
• Establish a sunset review process or require legislative reauthorization after a fixed period;
• Consider offering model emergency plan templates and optional compliance incentives rather than mandates.

Without these reforms, HB 1 remains incompatible with the principles of limited government, free enterprise, and private autonomy, and it risks unintended consequences for Texas’s diverse and deeply valued community of youth camps.

• Individual Liberty: The bill mandates that all resident youth camps, including those operated by private, religious, or nonprofit organizations, submit detailed emergency plans, staff and volunteer rosters, and camper session lists to the Department of State Health Services (DSHS). This includes submitting potentially sensitive internal operational information to the government, regardless of whether the camp has ever posed a public safety concern. There are no exemptions or accommodations for religious liberty, freedom of association, or ideological distinctiveness. The bill also requires disclosure of these materials to local government entities such as emergency services districts and municipal coordinators. This could place camps in conflict with their own privacy policies or religious commitments, particularly for organizations that value operational independence from government oversight. By failing to include protections for First Amendment freedoms or allowing for non-state oversight alternatives (e.g., third-party accreditation), the bill imposes a blanket regime that encroaches on individual liberty, particularly for parents, guardians, and camp operators who seek to choose or run a camp that reflects their own values and risk tolerance.
• Personal Responsibility: On the surface, the bill encourages preparedness by requiring camps to train staff, volunteers, and campers in how to respond to emergencies. This might suggest support for personal responsibility in crisis management. However, these actions are not voluntary or organic; they are mandated by the state under narrowly defined rules. Instead of allowing camp leadership to assess risks and develop custom safety protocols suited to their specific geography, camper population, or program model, the bill imposes a standardized approach, substituting state judgment for individual and institutional responsibility. The result is a diminished role for private initiative and problem-solving. Operators who might otherwise exceed state standards based on deep local knowledge may instead be constrained by rigid regulatory expectations.
• Free Enterprise: The bill imposes uniform compliance costs across the board, regardless of camp size, location, or budget. Camps must purchase and maintain redundant broadband internet service, install emergency communication systems (including non-internet PA systems), provide printed and illuminated evacuation signage, and engage in state-prescribed staff training, all of which can be prohibitively expensive for small, rural, or seasonal camps. The risk of civil penalties of up to $1,000 per violation per day, along with the potential for license denial or suspension, introduces significant legal and financial liability for operators. These enforcement tools function more as punitive threats than as incentives for continuous improvement. Because the bill lacks proportionality or flexibility, it may unintentionally drive small operators out of the market, reduce diversity in the camp sector, and create a regulatory moat that protects large, well-funded camps at the expense of community-based or mission-driven alternatives.
• Private Property Rights: The bill requires camp operators to alter their property and operations to meet specific government mandates. This includes the installation of infrastructure (e.g., evacuation lighting), modifications to communication systems, and changes to the ingress/egress of cabins. Operators must also submit detailed information about changes to their facilities, including bed counts, cabin access, or program modifications, which can trigger further regulatory oversight. Moreover, by requiring submission of camper rosters and operational plans to public entities, the bill effectively compels the disclosure of private information, raising questions about data ownership, access, and retention. Camps located on private land must comply with state-defined standards for how that land is used during emergency situations, even when those standards might be unnecessary based on local risk assessments. These provisions amount to a regulatory encroachment on the use and management of private property, a trend that could extend to other private educational or recreational institutions in future legislation.
• Limited Government: Perhaps the most significant liberty concern lies in the bill’s expansion of state authority and administrative bureaucracy. The bill creates a new regulatory framework within DSHS, mandates an interagency Youth Camp Safety Multidisciplinary Team, establishes a centralized digital database for emergency plans, and empowers the Attorney General to pursue civil enforcement actions. The bill grants broad rulemaking authority to DSHS and HHSC to define minimum standards, training hours, communication protocols, and other specifics, effectively leaving core operational details of private camps to the discretion of unelected bureaucrats. It also includes no sunset provision or automatic legislative review, meaning the regulatory regime it creates will continue indefinitely unless actively repealed. By codifying state control over how private youth camps prepare for emergencies, the bill sets a precedent for similar mandates on other private associations, such as homeschools, church youth groups, or extracurricular clubs, thus risking future expansion of state power into traditionally independent sectors of civil society.