Mental health funding urged
Conn. school massacre, jail problems prompt Senate to seek boost.
Senate budget writers are pushing to boost spending for mental health programs by more than $200 million, restoring care for thousands of Texans who saw service cutbacks during the past decade and easing the strain on prisons and jails that deal with the ensuing flow of mentally ill inmates.
Connecticut’s Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in December, blamed on a mentally ill gunman, is a key reason for the push, several state senators say.
“There’s no doubt this is getting much more attention this year — in large part, I think, because of Sandy Hook,” said Senate Criminal Justice Committee Chairman John Whitmire, D-Houston. “People are realizing you either pay now or you pay later after there have been victims. People who have emotional issues, who get off their meds, who have mental illness that is not treated, will end up involved with the criminal justice system at some point. History shows us that.”
The policy shift includes adding an additional $195 million to the proposed budget for mental health care in the state’s health and human services programs and more than $5.9 million to expand
mental health services for parolees to give them a better chance of succeeding after prison.
Suggestions of increased mental health funding have also cropped up in ongoing discussions over school discipline and providing proper treatment for military veterans. Lawmakers in both the Senate and the House also have proposed more money for community-based services and programs in local jails, including a proposed pilot program at the Harris County Jail in Houston, the state’s largest lockup, where mental health caseloads have been a growing issue for several years.
“Keeping nonviolent people with mental health issues out of our jails is the fiscally and socially responsible thing to do,” said state Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, who proposed the Harris County pilot program. Community-based treatment costs $12 a day, she noted, far less than the $137-a-day cost to keep someone in jail.
Officials have increas- ingly complained that jails and prisons became Texas’ largest mental health treatment sites as state budget cuts shrank funding for community health clinics and prison treatment programs.
In January, more than 32,000 of the state’s 150,000 prison convicts were in mental health programs, officials said Thursday, and more than 18,795 were receiving psychotropic and related prescriptions for mental health conditions.
In Harris County alone, more than 18,600 prisoners who needed mental health services were booked last year, including many who didn’t receive appropriate treatment and services because of a lack of funding, according to officials.
Other counties across Texas, including Travis, have faced growing mental health caseloads, officials said. And without state-funded programs to provide treatment and services, the bill has to be paid by local taxpayers.
The state spends more than $2 billion for mental health treatment and programs, most of it for community care and state hospitals.
Senate officials said the proposed additional funding would restore a large number of the cuts from previous years.
Senate Health and Human Services Chair Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, has made increased mental health
The state spends more than $2 billion for mental health treatment and programs, most of it for community care and state hospitals.
funding a priority — in a state that currently ranks 49th in per capita spending for mental health services. Even as the state’s population grew in the past decade, mental health spending for all types of programs hasn’t kept pace.
“We want to see lawmakers make a sound investment in our state’s mental health system,” said Greg Hansch, a policy coordinator for the National Alliance on Mental Illness that held a rally last month at the Capitol for more funding. “People aren’t able to access services so they end up out on the streets, sleeping under bridges and exposed to the elements. ... They end up in our emergency rooms and prisons, which cost a lot of money for our state.
“We could be using our dollars more effectively.”