Bill to merge mental health boards fails in House committee

LITTLE ROCK — Legislation that would merge four state boards into a newly created Arkansas State Board of Mental Health Professionals failed to clear the House State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee on Wednesday, after about a dozen people testified against the bill.

In a voice vote, the House committee balked at sending House Bill 1359 by Rep. Fran Cavenaugh, R-Walnut Ridge, to the House of Representatives.

The bill would abolish the Arkansas Board of Examiners in Counseling, the state Board of Examiners of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Counselors, the Arkansas Psychology Board and the Arkansas Social Work Licensing Board. It would transfer their authority, budgets and other functions to the Arkansas State Board of Mental Health Professionals.

The Arkansas Board of Mental Health Professionals would be comprised of 17 members appointed by the governor under the bill.

The Arkansas Board of Examiners in Counseling has 5,523 licensees and the Arkansas Social Work Licensing Board has 4,238 licensees, while the Psychology Board has 770 licensees and the Board of Examiners of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Counselors has 70 licensees, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health said afterward.

Cavenaugh told the House committee that her legislation arose from concerns raised repeatedly by providers to the mental health working group that she participated in that “our licensure is slower [and] it is harder to get licensures through.

“There was some concern about some of [the licensing boards] not actually meeting and not being able to process licensures and that actually came from providers, and that’s kind of where this impetus came from,” she said.

The state Department of Health has indicated the bill wouldn’t delay or interfere with any type of licensure and is neutral on the bill, Cavenaugh said.

“We are actually just looking to make it easier to get more licensures,” she said.

But Rep. Jamie Scott, D- North Little Rock, said she has received emails from about 150 people with concerns about the bill, and she asked Cavenaugh to address their concerns.

Cavenaugh said “a lot of this is fear, and I understand that because it is new [and] it is different.

“The goal here is not to penalize anybody,” she said. “The goal here is to make it easier, make it more streamlined.”

“For all the people that we received emails from we also did receive the emails from the other ones that actually did have some concern about the way the boards were actually operating,” Cavenaugh said.

But Carol Moore, a licensed social worker, told lawmakers she has worked with all four boards that would be eliminated under this bill and she is puzzled about the need for the bill.

“What is the problem [and] how does this fix it?” she asked.

Johanna Thomas, a former president of the National Association of Social Workers’ Arkansas chapter, said the bill would likely create a bottleneck in the licensing of more than 10,000 licensed mental health professionals.

She urged lawmakers to either vote against the bill or to remove the Arkansas Social Working Licensing Board from the bill.