Executive Summary
In 2023, the Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill 1849 to reduce the risk of harm to vulnerable populations in schools, child-care and juvenile justice facilities, and long-term care facilities by creating a search engine connecting state agency databases that include reportable misconduct. The Legislature directed the Texas Department of Information Resources (DIR) to develop a centralized technology platform that searches data registries within state agencies. This searchable platform contains the list of individuals who have been determined to have engaged in abuse, neglect, exploitation, or misconduct within school, long-term care, childcare, or juvenile justice settings. The additional agencies included in this initial effort include the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC), Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS), Texas Education Agency (TEA), and the Texas Justice Juvenile Department (TJJD).
This platform, now known as the Search Engine Multi-Agency Reportable Conduct Portal (or SEMARC), provides results from multi-agency searches on individuals having reportable misconduct. The vision for SEMARC is to provide an enhanced search engine that allows multiple agencies to search for individuals on a single platform.
Launched in May 2025, SEMARC addresses the gap in information sharing across state agency platforms, ensuring that workers who committed reportable conduct within school, long-term care, childcare, or juvenile justice settings cannot gain employment in another setting. SEMARC is a monumental step for Texas to share findings of abuse and neglect and preemptively protect some of the most vulnerable populations in the state.
