The Senate Committee on Veteran Affairs heard presentations and limited testimony on six bills affecting veterans’ services and benefits; committee members closed public testimony on each item and left all six bills pending for further work.

The measures ranged from transferring administration of veterans’ mental-health programs to the Texas Veterans Commission to a proposal to let service members voluntarily mark their military status on vehicle registration records. Committee authors and resource witnesses presented bill language and answered questions; several bills drew technical questions about implementation and data, and several witnesses urged further study before final action.

Senate Bill 2926: veterans mental health administration
Senate Bill 2926, carried in the hearing under the name of Senator Zaffirini and presented by Senator Eckhart, would transfer administration of the State’s Veterans Mental Health Program from the Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) to the Texas Veterans Commission (TVC). The bill, described by staff as a joint recommendation from HHSC and TVC, would repeal HHSC’s existing authority over the program, allow TVC to retain a portion of grant funds for administrative costs, establish a TVC grant program for community-based mental health services with scaled local match requirements based on county population, direct TVC to develop a statewide veteran suicide-prevention action plan, and require TVC to submit an annual report to the governor and Legislature on mental-health work for veterans. There was no public testimony. The committee closed public testimony and left the bill pending.

Senate Bill 2938: identifying and serving veterans in jails
Senate Bill 2938, presented by Senator Menendez, would change how county jails identify and assist veterans who are justice-involved. The bill would require county sheriffs to verify veteran status during intake, provide verified veteran inmates with assistance applying for federal benefits (including mailing required documents at no charge to the inmate), and give officers transferring inmates to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice documentation of an inmate’s veteran status. The bill would also require daily reports identifying veteran inmates to the Texas Veterans Commission and to the veteran’s county service officer and the court involved before incarceration, and permit in-person or video visitation between veteran inmates and either a veterans county service officer or a peer service coordinator. Menendez told the committee these steps are intended to ensure veterans in the criminal-justice system are identified and connected to services while incarcerated and after release. No public witnesses testified; the bill was left pending.

Senate Bill 2543: veterans cemeteries
Senate Bill 2543, presented by Senator Hancock, would give the Texas State Veterans Cemetery Committee additional flexibility to expand the State’s veterans cemetery system. Under current law the committee may select up to seven sites using criteria such as land donations, operational funding and federal grant requirements; the bill would allow the committee more flexibility to add locations as demand grows. The sponsor said a committee substitute will change a phrase to reference U.S. Department of Veterans’ cemeteries in statutory language. There was no public testimony; the bill was left pending.

Senate Bill 2545: manufactured homes and veteran homeownership
Senate Bill 2545, also filed by Senator Hancock, would create another pathway to assist veteran homebuyers by including manufactured homes as an eligible avenue for housing assistance through the Veterans Land Board programs. Tony Dale, executive secretary of the Texas Veterans Land Board, appeared as a resource witness and described implementation adjustments the agency would consider — for example, requiring closings at a title company for certain manufactured-home purchases so loans function more like conventional home loans. DJ Pendleton, executive director of the Texas Manufactured Housing Association, testified in support and said roughly 70% of manufactured-home sales are "home-only" (the home is financed separately from land) while about 30% are "land homes" (the home is real property). Pendleton described energy-efficiency improvements in newer manufactured homes and said the concept discussed in committee would consider reallocating a portion of sales-tax revenue on homes to a grant pool targeted to veterans. Committee members asked about financing, occupancy requirements and whether leased or cooperative land models should be eligible; witnesses said those topics merit further study. Public testimony closed and the bill was left pending.

Senate Bill 2007: voluntary military-status indicator on vehicle records
Senate Bill 2007, presented by Senator Hagembo, would add a voluntary option for vehicle registrants to indicate military service status on motor-vehicle records. The sponsor said the change would help vehicle-storage facilities, courts and agencies identify deployed owners and avoid the sale of vehicles belonging to service members who are deployed. Brian Walters and Gary Hoffman — who testified as private individuals and an owner of a towing business, respectively — urged passage, saying the lack of date-of-birth or Social Security number on motor-vehicle reports makes it hard to run reliable searches to detect deployed service-members and that courts and storage facilities sometimes sell vehicles before a deployed owner can be identified. Annette Quintero, vehicle titles and registration director at the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles (TxDMV), said TxDMV could add an opt-in indicator to motor-vehicle records and that the indicator could appear in the TLITS/plate-query returns used by law enforcement and other agencies. TxDMV staff cautioned that, because the indicator would be voluntary, the resulting dataset would be incomplete and should not be treated as a comprehensive roster of service members. Public testimony closed and the bill was left pending.

Senate Bill 2104: military status as a protected class
Senate Bill 2104, presented by Senator Blanco, would add military status to the State’s discrimination protections for employment, housing and utility services and would define "military status" to include active-duty service members, reservists, honorably discharged veterans and immediate family members. The sponsor cited veteran homelessness and unemployment among military spouses as reasons to extend explicit state protections. Senator Eckhart and other members asked whether the bill would duplicate federal protections such as the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) or overlap with the Americans with Disabilities Act or Title VII; witnesses and advocates including Mitch Fuller, legislative director for the Texas VFW, said the state law would augment federal protections and cover areas not fully addressed by federal law. The committee closed public testimony and left the bill pending.

What’s next
Committee staff and resource witnesses answered technical and implementation questions during the hearing. For several bills members asked for more detail on financing, data privacy and operational steps; sponsors and agency witnesses said fiscal notes and implementation options would be developed and that language might be refined before the committee takes further action. The committee recessed at the end of the hearing, with all listed bills left pending for follow-up work.