“Governor Abbott appreciates Kristin Tips’ service,” Andrew Mahaleris, Abbott’s press secretary, said in an email Tuesday. “An announcement on a replacement will be made at a later date.”
He did not respond to questions immediately about whether she was terminated or resigned, nor did he say when she left the board.
Tips, who has run San Antonio’s prestigious Mission Park Funeral Chapels, Cemeteries & Crematories with her husband, Dick Tips, was appointed to the board by the governor in 2017 and made the presiding officer in May 2024. Tips did not respond to a request for comment.
The funeral commission is a small agency tasked with regulating the business of death care, mandated to protect consumers against abuses like price gouging and unlicensed funeral directors and to license and inspect funeral providers and crematories. The agency also oversees the donation of body parts for research or educational purposes. The governor appoints the commissioners, who in turn can hire and fire an executive director to run day-to-day operations.
The agency publicly imploded in the summer of 2025, when the commissioners unanimously voted to fire their executive director of less than a year, Scott Bingaman.
Before he was fired, Bingaman accused Tips of using agency resources to further her own interests. Shortly after his termination, he sued the commissioners. Tips, he claimed in the filings, had “crossed ethical and legal lines” and “state resources for her own personal interests and lobbying efforts”; he also claimed he’d raised concerns about her to Abbott’s office. The commissioners denied the allegations he made and, in their own filings, alleged “Bingaman misappropriated funds, undermined the statutory functions of the Commission, and violated public trust.” The lawsuit is ongoing.
After Bingaman, numerous other staffers were fired, including the former deputy director, two attorneys and a licensing staffer.
Previous audits, both before and during Tips’ tenure, have found the funeral commission suffers from high staff turnover, missing and incomplete paperwork and poorly secured files, among other issues. The agency has long struggled to resolve consumer complaints quickly.
The new presiding officer of TFSC, Eric Opiela, did not respond to a request for comment. The interim head of the agency also did not respond to a request for comment.
This is a breaking news story and may be updated with further comments.