Mental-health centers to handle crises pushed

FAYETTEVILLE — Provisions for new mental-health crisis centers have a good chance of survival in the Arkansas House, lawmakers told a forum in Fayetteville on Friday afternoon.

Washington County Drug Court also has a good chance of being the first to establish such a center if those provisions remain, said state Sen. Uvalde Lindsey, D-Fayetteville.

One of the issues brought up at the forum, hosted by the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce, were the crisis centers.

Senate Bill 472 by Sen. Jeremy Hutchinson, R-Little Rock, is the governor’s prison and sentencing overhaul package. It contains provisions to set up drug and mental-health crisis intervention centers, paid for by fees levied by drug courts. These centers would be open 24/7. The centers’ goal would be to intervene during a psychotic or drug-related incident before a crime is committed.

“It’s estimated that 25 percent of the people in the state’s prisons are there because of drug or mental-health issues,” Lindsey said. “If we could eliminate that, that would be a $400 million savings to the taxpayers.”

The bill passed the Senate with the crisis-center provisions intact and is before the House Judiciary Committee.

State Behavioral Health Services, a branch of the state Department of Human Services, has long had a framework for such centers in the planning stages, Lindsey said. That framework would require a court overseeing such a center to work closely with local mental-health counseling services.

Washington County Drug Court has a long and successful history of working with such services, said both Lindsey and Rep. Greg Leding, D-Fayetteville.

No such centers can start before the beginning of the next fiscal year, when the money from fees becomes available.

Rep. Charlie Collins, R-Fayetteville, and Lindsey are co-sponsors of another bill, HB1067, which allows creating nutrient trading areas. Environmentalists, property owners and cities could cooperate on solutions that, for instance, reduce phosphorus in streams.

“The stream doesn’t care if the phosphorus in it comes from fields or from a wastewater treatment plant,” Collins said. “If you can get an environmentalist who wants to restore a stream bank together with a property owner worried about erosion, and have it paid for in part by a wastewater utility that’s trying to meet phosphorus standards, that’s a win for everyone.”