According to the Legislative Budget Board (LBB), HB 4798 would have a negative impact of $1,141,052 to General Revenue Related Funds for the 2026–27 biennium. The bill would not make an appropriation, but the LBB states that it could provide the legal basis for an appropriation to implement the bill.

The projected state cost is $585,274 in fiscal year 2026 and $555,778 in fiscal year 2027, with similar recurring costs projected through fiscal year 2030. The LBB attributes these costs to the Health and Human Services Commission’s need for 3.0 additional Architect III full-time-equivalent employees to handle increased architectural plan reviews for assisted living facilities.

The main workload driver is HHSC’s assumption that plan review requests would increase from an average of 18 reviews per year to 61 reviews per year, because facilities may submit plans as construction progresses or as plans change. The fiscal note also assumes additional life safety code-related review workload and implementation tasks, including rule amendments, internal policy updates, provider notification, and related administrative actions.

The LBB identifies $30,582 in fiscal year 2026 as one-time General Revenue costs for implementation. Other administrative costs are assumed to be absorbable within existing HHSC resources. No significant fiscal implication to units of local government is anticipated.

Texas Policy Research recommends that lawmakers vote YES on HB 4798 while also considering amendments as described below to strengthen the bill. The bill has a narrow and generally favorable purpose: it allows a person constructing or modifying an assisted living facility to submit building plans to HHSC for architectural compliance review before the project is completed, rather than only before construction begins. That change gives regulated providers more flexibility and may help avoid a situation in which a project loses access to review simply because some construction activity has already started. The bill analysis frames the measure as a response to that restrictive timing issue.

The bill does grow the size and scope of government. It requires the executive commissioner of HHSC to adopt rules implementing the new process, and the fiscal note assumes HHSC would need 3.0 additional Architect III full-time-equivalent employees to complete the increased number of plan reviews in a timely manner. The bill does not create a new agency or a new regulatory program from scratch, but it expands the workload, staffing, and rulemaking activity of an existing agency.

The bill also increases the burden on taxpayers unless amended. According to the LBB the Committee Substitute would have a negative impact of $1,141,052 to General Revenue Related Funds for the 2026–27 biennium. The projected cost is $585,274 in fiscal year 2026 and $555,778 in fiscal year 2027, with recurring annual costs continuing through fiscal year 2030. Because the cost is tied to reviews requested by assisted living facility developers or operators, the bill should be amended to recover those costs through reasonable user fees rather than shifting the cost to General Revenue.

The bill does not appear to increase the regulatory burden on individuals or businesses in the usual sense of adding a new mandate, penalty, or licensing requirement. Instead, it makes an existing review process more accessible by allowing plans to be submitted before completion rather than only before construction begins. The committee analysis also states that the bill does not expressly create a criminal offense, increase punishment for an existing offense, or change eligibility for community supervision, parole, or mandatory supervision. However, the bill does preserve and expand reliance on HHSC review capacity, and repeated submissions during construction could increase administrative interactions between providers and the agency.

For those reasons, we support the bill’s regulatory-flexibility objective but also encourage lawmakers to provide for amendments that limit government growth and taxpayer exposure. Recommended amendments should require HHSC to charge reasonable review fees sufficient to cover added costs, limit repeated submissions to material plan changes or authorize additional fees for repeat reviews, and place clearer statutory deadlines or public reporting requirements on HHSC review timelines. These changes would preserve the bill’s practical benefit for assisted living facility projects while preventing a narrow timing reform from becoming a recurring taxpayer-funded expansion of agency staffing and discretion.