In 1957 the Legislature created an interim Committee To Study and Recommend Legislation To Aid Aged Citizens (Senate Concurrent Resolution 60, 55th Legislature, Regular Session), composed of 15 members: five state senators, five state representatives, and five private citizens. In 1965 the Texas Legislature created the Governor's Committee on Aging (Senate Bill 12, 59th Legislature, Regular Session), with a mandate to serve the state's citizens aged sixty years and older. The duties of this committee were transferred in 1981 to a newly created state agency, the Texas Department on Aging (House Bill 1112, 67th Legislature, Regular Session, 1981). The Department is primarily funded by the federal Older Americans Act (OAA) of 1965, which seeks to help the elderly obtain the best possible physical and mental health services, suitable housing, full restorative services, and immediate benefit from proven research knowledge. Services provided through the department include nutrition (congregate and home-delivered meals), transportation, information and referral, home repair, senior centers, volunteer programs, health screening, case management, and in-home services. The Long-Term Care Nursing Home Ombudsman program investigates and acts on complaints by nursing home residents or their families. In 1971, and again in 1981, the Committee/Department on Aging coordinated Texas' participation in White House Conferences on Aging; these conferences were held to develop a national policy on problems of the aging, and to recommend action at various levels of the public and private sectors. The Department on Aging has created a statewide network on aging, composed of 28 Area Agencies on Aging (AAAs), which hold public hearings throughout the state to discuss and study possible solutions to the problems of aging.
The Board on Aging was created in 1981 as the governing body of the department, and (like the original Governor's Committee on Aging) is composed of nine members appointed by the governor with the advice and consent of the senate, for overlapping six-year terms. Board members must have demonstrated an interest in, and knowledge of, the problems of aging. These are non-salaried positions, and the governor appoints the chair.
The 1965 legislation also created the Governor's Citizens Advisory Council on Aging, composed of at least two members from each state Senatorial District, appointed by the Governor and serving at the pleasure of the Governor. In 1981 the legislature replaced this council with the State Citizens Advisory Council of the Department on Aging, composed of one member from each Area Agency on Aging advisory council (i.e., 28 members), appointed by the chair of the Board on Aging, with consent of the Board, for staggered three-year terms. The purpose of each of these advisory councils has been to assist the Board on Aging by providing advice.
In 1999 the 76th Texas Legislature (Senate Bill 374) decided to abolish the Texas Department on Aging in 2003, merging its functions with some of the functions of the Texas Department of Human Services, and creating a new agency, the Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services. This merger was postponed until September 1, 2005 by Senate Bill 535, 77th Legislature, Regular Session, 2001.
From the guide to the Records, 1957-2002, (bulk 1979-1994), (Repository Unknown)
