According to the Legislative Budget Board (LBB), HB 2301 would have an estimated one-time fiscal impact of approximately $2.27 million to the state’s General Revenue Fund in fiscal year 2026, with no anticipated ongoing costs in subsequent years. The primary driver of this cost is the technological infrastructure needed to support the bill’s requirement that the Department of State Health Services (DSHS) furnish a certificate of search results from the paternity registry within 10 days of receiving a request.

To comply with the 10-day turnaround mandate, DSHS would need to overhaul its current, largely manual and mail-based system for handling registry searches. This would include developing a new module within the Texas Electronic Vital Events Registrar (TxEVER) system, at an estimated cost of $325,000. This module would allow the Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS), which does not currently pay for such inquiries, to access registry data directly and securely online.

Additionally, the bill would necessitate the creation of a new public-facing online service through the Texas.gov platform to allow qualified applicants outside DFPS to request searches and obtain results in real-time. This development is estimated to cost $1.6 million. Further expenditures include $216,360 for IT staff augmentation to support project management, $61,250 for additional IT informational staff, and a $70,237 contingency allocation to account for potential unforeseen implementation costs.

There are no anticipated new revenue streams or fee increases as a result of the bill, and the agencies involved (HHSC and DFPS) report that they can absorb any minor additional administrative costs within existing budgets. Likewise, there is no significant fiscal impact projected for local governments. Overall, while the bill carries a notable upfront cost to modernize systems, it lays the foundation for a more efficient, responsive digital process in handling paternity registry requests statewide.

HB 2301 proposes a limited administrative change to the state’s paternity registry process. Specifically, it would require the Department of State Health Services (DSHS) to furnish a certificate of the results of a registry search no later than 10 days after receiving a request. This provision is designed to improve administrative efficiency and reduce delays in adoption proceedings by accelerating the timeline for obtaining legally required documentation. However, while this change is procedurally helpful, it is substantially narrower in scope than the originally filed bill and omits several key reforms that would have more meaningfully supported adoption stability and permanency for children.

The original version of HB 2301 proposed to shorten the window in which a putative father could register with the state paternity registry, from the current 31 days after a child’s birth to just 14 days. It also allowed adoption petitioners to request registry searches earlier (on or after the 15th day after birth), rather than waiting until the 32nd day, as currently required. These provisions were designed to reduce legal uncertainty in the early stages of the adoption process and to mitigate the risk of last-minute challenges by absentee or non-participating biological fathers. Many in the adoption community, including agencies, attorneys, and prospective adoptive parents, have expressed that the current timeline creates unnecessary disruption and undermines permanency planning for children.

Unfortunately, these substantive provisions were removed in the Committee Substitute. What remains is a single efficiency-focused mandate on DSHS, requiring timely certificate issuance. While important, this technical fix does not address the broader systemic barriers that can delay or destabilize adoptions. Moreover, it imposes a one-time cost of approximately $2.27 million in FY 2026 to upgrade IT systems (TxEVER and Texas.gov), even though the policy benefit no longer reflects the meaningful reforms initially intended by the author. For lawmakers committed to supporting adoption through clearer legal timelines and faster court processing, the Committee Substitute falls short of delivering those outcomes.

As such, Texas Policy Research recommends that lawmakers vote NO on HB 2301 unless amended as described below. This position recognizes that the bill’s intent, to streamline and support adoption-related procedures, is worthy, but its current form is insufficient to accomplish that goal. The bill should be amended to reincorporate the original provisions that:

• Reduce the putative father registration window to 14 days
• Allow earlier registry search requests (on or after day 15 post-birth)
• Notify untimely registrants of their ineligibility
• Maintain clear transition provisions tied to a child's date of birth

Restoring these reforms would strike a better balance between protecting parental rights and ensuring timely, secure placements for children. Until then, the current Committee Substitute may be seen as an underpowered measure that misses a critical opportunity to bring certainty, fairness, and improved outcomes to Texas adoption proceedings.

• Individual Liberty: At its core, individual liberty involves the ability of persons to access information and make decisions regarding their legal rights and obligations without undue interference or delay. The bill contributes positively to this principle by requiring the Vital Statistics Unit to issue the results of a paternity registry search within 10 days of receiving a request. This benefits individuals, particularly potential fathers, birth mothers, courts, and adoption professionals, by ensuring faster access to critical legal information that may affect parental rights, custody, or adoption proceedings. However, the impact is limited because the bill does not change substantive rights or redefine who is entitled to notice or participation in these legal processes. It facilitates access to information, but it does not directly empower individuals with new legal choices or protections.
• Personal Responsibility: The principle of personal responsibility involves holding individuals accountable for timely, informed participation in legal processes. The originally filed version of the bill would have strongly supported this principle by shortening the window for putative fathers to register with the paternity registry from 31 days to 14 days after birth. That change would have encouraged earlier action and greater responsibility on the part of biological fathers, ensuring that only those who take timely steps to assert their rights have legal standing in adoption cases. However, the Committee Substitute removes this key reform, thus preserving the longer 31-day window. This weakens the bill’s alignment with personal responsibility, as it allows putative fathers more time to delay action, potentially disrupting adoptions late in the process.
• Free Enterprise: The bill does not directly impact private enterprise or market dynamics. While adoption agencies may benefit indirectly from faster registry search results, there are no new costs, obligations, or opportunities for private actors under this legislation. Thus, the impact on free enterprise is neutral.
• Private Property Rights: The bill does not touch on ownership, use, or transfer of property in any form. It strictly concerns access to legal records maintained by the state. Therefore, it has no impact on private property rights.
• Limited Government: On one hand, the bill preserves limited government by merely imposing a timeline on an existing agency function, without creating new bureaucracies or regulations. It mandates that a service (already provided) be done more quickly, which arguably enhances accountability. However, from another angle, the bill authorizes a $2.27 million expenditure to modernize IT systems, without enacting the originally proposed reforms that would have increased the efficiency and predictability of the adoption process. In effect, it increases government spending without achieving structural policy change. From a limited government standpoint, this is an inefficient use of state resources.