According to the Legislative Budget Board (LBB), the fiscal implications of SB 2058 are minimal. According to the Legislative Budget Board’s fiscal note, there is no significant cost expected to the state. The two agencies responsible for implementing the bill—the Texas Board of Nursing and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board—are expected to carry out the bill’s provisions using existing resources and infrastructure without requiring additional appropriations.

The key reason for the negligible cost is the bill's narrowly tailored requirement: it mandates only that each board provide a prominently placed website link to existing nursing education reports produced by the Texas Center for Nursing Workforce Studies. Since no new reports or data-gathering functions are created under the committee substitute, the implementation involves only web and content management tasks, which fall well within the routine capabilities of both agencies.

Moreover, there is no anticipated fiscal impact on local governments or political subdivisions. The legislation does not impose any mandates, reporting requirements, or service obligations on local entities. As such, it ensures improved public access to healthcare workforce information without expanding the cost footprint of government at either the state or local level. This fiscal prudence likely contributed to the bill’s unanimous committee support.

Texas Policy Research recommends that lawmakers vote YES on SB 2058 based on its alignment with transparency, minimal fiscal impact, and support for critical healthcare workforce development in Texas. The bill addresses a significant challenge facing nursing education: the limited access to clinical training site data, which can create bottlenecks for nursing programs and delay student progression. As outlined in the bill analysis, this lack of accessible information has contributed to inefficiencies in coordinating student placements, despite the state’s urgent need to expand its nursing workforce.

Rather than imposing new mandates or regulatory burdens, the committee substitute adopts a streamlined solution. It simply requires the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and the Texas Board of Nursing to prominently post a link on their homepages to existing nursing education reports produced by the Texas Center for Nursing Workforce Studies. This light-touch policy promotes informed decision-making by nursing programs while preserving operational flexibility for healthcare providers. It also maintains agency efficiency by leveraging existing data without imposing new data collection responsibilities.

Financially, the Legislative Budget Board has confirmed that the bill will not result in a significant fiscal impact to the state or to local governments, as agencies are expected to absorb any related costs using existing resources. This makes SB 2058 a prudent example of targeted government intervention that delivers high public value with minimal expenditure.

• Individual Liberty: The bill empowers citizens, particularly students, educators, and healthcare stakeholders, by expanding access to public data about nursing education. It ensures that individuals and institutions can make informed decisions about clinical training opportunities without government interference in private choices or professional autonomy.
• Personal Responsibility: By increasing transparency around available clinical training sites, the bill reinforces a culture of accountability among nursing programs. Schools and students are better equipped to plan and adjust to workforce conditions based on accurate, publicly available data. It also enables prospective students to research program outcomes more effectively, fostering responsible educational and career choices.
• Free Enterprise: Access to workforce data enhances the ability of the private healthcare and education sectors to respond to labor market demands. Hospitals, clinics, and nursing schools can identify underutilized capacity and potential partnerships. By removing information barriers, the bill helps align market supply and demand, encouraging efficient private-sector responses to the state’s nursing shortage.
• Private Property Rights: The bill neither infringes upon nor expands private property rights. Importantly, the bill explicitly avoids imposing any new reporting mandates on healthcare facilities or forcing participation in clinical programs. This protection of institutional autonomy respects the property and operational rights of private-sector healthcare providers.
• Limited Government: The bill is narrowly tailored, relying on existing data from the Texas Center for Nursing Workforce Studies and requiring only the posting of a link on agency websites. It imposes no new rulemaking authority, no mandates on external entities, and no expansion of bureaucratic functions. It demonstrates how the government can facilitate access to information without expanding its regulatory or fiscal footprint.

• HB 4071 (Same As)