One Voice Central Texas83rd Legislative Summary

83rd Legislative Session Summary: Effects on Health and Human Services

OVCT Legislative Principles

• Do no harm

• Endorse prevention strategies to avoid more costly solutions

• Support strategies that effectively and efficiently delay or avoid the need for institutional care or hospitalization, and promote high-quality services for those who are best served in the community

• Endorse cost effective budget solutions that reduce poverty, hunger, and homelessness and strengthen the State’s economic infrastructure so that low-income Texans are able to contribute more fully to their communities and local economies.

Support One Voice Texas priorities

• Housing for special populations

• Financial stability and the approved biennium budget

• Mental health and behavioral health services funding

• Child welfare and protective services

• Education

• Medicaid expansion, women’s health, immunization

Legislative Priorities

Legislative PrioritiesOne Voice Central Texas Additions

• Basic Needs: Increase access to healthy and nutritious food

• Housing: Increase access to safe and affordable housing

• Child and Youth Services: Juvenile Justice : Establish a continuum of services from prevention to intervention in the communities where youth at-risk or involved in the juvenile justice system can access them.

• Education: Ensure TEA provides appropriate accountability measurements for dropout recovery schools, which measure and honor the progress achieved by students who had fallen behind, during their previous schooling experience.

Recap on the 83rd Legislative Session Budget

SB 1 83rd Legislature

• Approved state budget of $196.9 billion for the biennium

• $73.9 billion in all funds for Health and Human Services; of which $23 billion in General Revenue

• $1.4 billion in tax cuts

• $3.9 billion to be taken from the rainy day fund

• Restores and creates new funding to education, health, mental health, and protective services

HB 1 82nd Legislature

• Approved budget of $173.5 billion over the biennium

• $68.6 billion for Health and Human Services; $22.9 billion in general revenue

• Drastically reduced per-student funding in public schools

• Ended the biennium with $6.8 billion in unmet costs (mostly Medicaid and public education)

Housing

• Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs powers extended for 12 years.

• Grant Applications: Changes the value of letters from State Reps. Eliminates letters from Senators but it maintains the letters in the scoring system. Includes a new “local support” application threshold requirement in the Private Activity Bonds which will most likely maintain existing fair housing issues and facilitate NIMBY movements

Housing

• Texas received $135 million dollars as part of a multistate settlement. Instead of directing this money toward housing, it was placed in the general fund.

• $5 million per year ($10 million /biennium) was put back in the budget for the Homeless Housing and Services Program. (HHSP) to fund grants to serve people experiencing homelessness and mental illness in the 8 most populous urban municipalities, including Austin

Housing

Tenants Rights Bills

• SB 630: establishes a tenant’s right to a copy of the lease.

• SB 1772: tenants must be provided with written notice of an apartment complex with pending gas or electric utility disconnection

• HB 1086: allows for utility disconnection rather than eviction as long as tenant is properly notified.

Housing for Special Populations

• HB 1191: requires information about housing for people with mental illness to be available via 211

• SB 109: adds veterans, farmworkers, youth aging out of foster care, and elderly people to state low income housing plan reports. This will influence suggestions on how to improve TDHCA services to these populations.

Basic Needs: Food• SB 376: School Breakfast: ensures that 700,000 school children will get

two square meals a day . Free breakfast is provided to all kids who attend schools where 80% of the students enrolled in the school qualify for free and reduced lunch

• HB 749: Summer Food:  instructs the Dept of Agriculture & the Texas Hunger Initiative at Baylor University to create a 5 year strategic plan to increase participation in the Summer Food Program

• HB 3401 requires HHSC to work with community organizations to encourage SNAP recipients to access existing online info and programs that provide nutrition and wellness education and promote healthy eating habits.

• HB 3787: Department of Public Safety is required to share driver’s license application info, including SSN, with HHSC for determining SNAP eligibility

Behavioral Health• $312.5 million added to the budget for mental health

services over and above the base appropriations for mental health and substance abuse services

• DSHS will receive $240 million of which $137 million is new funding

• DADS: $13.841 billion (7.8% increase from last biennium)

• DSHS: $6.236 billion (7.6% increase from last biennium)

Behavioral HealthDSHS

• DSHS must report on the prevalence of criminal offenders with mental impairments and disclose info relating to special needs

• DSHS will allocate $8 million per fiscal year over the biennium to be used to support outpatient substance abuse competency restoration pilot programs (see SB 1475)

• DSHS was given $48.2 million in General Revenue to eliminate the Community Mental Health Services waitlist (children and adults)

Behavioral Health

• DSHS designated $43 million in General Revenue over the biennium to address per capita inequities between Local Mental Health Authorities (LMHA’s).

• DSHS: $6 million over the biennium must be used to increase the per person funding available to adult and child enrollees

Behavioral Health

• Veteran Mental Health: DSHS will allocate $5 million each fiscal year to expand the Mental Health Programs for Veterans. (see HB 2392)

• SB 846: Texas Veterans Commission must coordinate DSHS to incorporate suicide prevention training for veteran county service officers

Behavioral Health

• HB 978: parents and individuals with an interest in a person’s welfare may not transport a person to emergency detention or commitment when ordered by a court

• HB 1738: peace officers will now have one standard form to complete when transporting a person in mental health crisis to a mental health facility

• SB 34: requires residents in facilities (primarily state schools) to consent to psychotropic medications and allows them to refuse medications. If they refuse medication, they may only be given psychotropic drugs in a medication related emergency

Behavioral Health• SB 152: creates more accountability of care of state hospital

employees. Employees are required to take a competency training in working with people with mental illness. DSHS must create a tracking system of abuse and neglect.

• SB 718: 16 year old may consent to outpatient mental health services for themselves

• HB 144: Authorizes a juvenile court to test a juvenile for substance use disorder, and if the person is determined to have a problem the court must refer them to the local provider.

• HB 908: allows LPC’s to assess elderly or disabled psychological status for purposes of determining and emergency order to receive adults protective services

Behavioral Health

• SB 58: Integrates behavioral health and physical health care under state Medicaid MCO program. Could increase a person’s ability to receive mental, behavioral, and physical health care in the same setting. Creates a behavioral Health Integration Advisory Committee. It includes language from SB 126 requiring a public reporting system regarding outcome reporting of state funded mental and behavioral health programs.

• HB 3793: Requires a state hospital plan to separately allocate civil and forensic bed. It also provides for Mental Health First Aid training for nonmedical professionals on how to recognize mental illness. Also expands diagnoses eligible for treatment at LMHA’s

• SB 646: requires that when a judge orders outpatient mental health services, the judge must identify who is responsible for providing these service within 3 days after the hearing

Intellectual and Developmental Population

• DADS must create a 10 year plan for State Supported Living Centers that Considers current needs/costs and future needs

• DADS will create a cost comparison report comparing the community based and state facility run IDD services.

• DADS may use $1.5 million from Balancing Incentives Program to implement a standard functional assessment tool used across IDD programs and a resource methodology for the HCS waiver program

• SB 7: This bill improves the delivery and quality of health and human services, including Medicaid acute care services and long term services and supports. It is intended to reduce the waiting lists for Medicaid waiver programs serving the IDD population over the biennium.

• DADS will receive increased funding to provide habilitation services

Long-term & Acute Care for the Elderly

• SB 7: redesigns long-term and acute care services for the elderly, which are among the most costly services provided by Medicaid, and allows Medicaid managed care to cover services provided in nursing homes

Child Welfare• HB 2111: Foster Child Nutrition bill: mandates foster

youth aging out of foster care to be in a currently optional transitional living services, and adds nutritional education to the program.  

• HB 915: increases oversight and medical accountability in regards to doctors treating foster youth with psychotropic drugs

• SB 1589: requires foster care providers to provide financial responsibility training

• HB 1227: lays the foundation of creating an internet information system that will allow CASA volunteers to access info at remote locations

Child Welfare

• SB 172: Provides a variety of assessment tools for diagnosing reading development and determining kindergarten readiness. These tools will include social/emotional development rather than only reading proficiency.

• SB 426: requires that 75% of appropriated home visiting programs (DFPS clients) are evidence based interventions/practices. Outcome standards will be set and home visiting programs must meet these standards.

• SB 427: Requires residential child care workers and CPS workers who work directly with kids receive background checks prior to working in the foster care system.

Public Education

• This biennium, the legislature restored $3.9 billion of the $5.4 billion that was cut in the 2011 state legislature.

• HB 5: Cuts the number of standardized tests high school students must pass to graduate from 15 to five, changes the Foundation School Curriculum, creates 5 diploma “endorsements”, changes rating system for school districts

• $11 million increase for Communities in Schools (part of the $3.9 billion restoration)

Public Education

• HB 742: Relating to a grant program for certain school districts to provide summer instruction for students who are educationally disadvantaged and summer teaching opportunities for teachers

• HB 1122: creates pilot 3 year high school diploma plan and cost neutral expansion of full day prekindergarten programs

• HB 1741: relating to requiring child safety alarms in certain vehicles used by child care facilities to transport children

Public Education

• SB 460: requires teachers to be trained in the detection and education of students with mental or emotional issues

• SB 831: DSHS, TEA, and Education Service Centers must create a list of best practice mental health promotion, positive youth development, and substance abuse prevention and intervention programs that school districts can implement

Early Education

• $40 million of the $3.9 billion restored to education was earmarked for supplemental pre-K funding

• Early Childhood Intervention: HB 376: Increases reimbursement rates for early child hood centers based on quality rating. This bill uses federal money from the Child Care and Development Fund

• SB 430: Requires that DFPS is only paying for day care services as a last resort for relative and foster caregivers.

Workforce Development• SB 441: The establishment of the Texas Fast Start Program a

workforce readiness initiative aimed at high school students; provides a pathway to quickly earn technical certificates (CTE) or associate degrees

• HB 809: Requires Texas Workforce Commission to provide the TEA with info at least quarterly regarding projected employment opportunities in Texas used for advising CTE programs

• HB 842: Provides career and technical students (CTE programs) opportunities to get college credit while working toward a certificate/associate degree

• HB 2201: adds three more advanced career and technology education courses that would satisfy a fourth math credit required for graduation

Health Care• SB 7 includes a rider that bans

Medicaid expansion in Texas without legislative approval

• Added $100 million in funding for women’s health care; 60% will go to family planning services

• Added $32 million to a family planning grant program to replace a federal grant (if the Title X federal grant isn’t renewed)

• $71.3 million state dollar towards Women’s Health Program- 90% to cover loss of federal money

Health Care

• SB 166: allows licensed health care providers to collect information from a patient’s drivers license, something only hospitals can do currently. 

• SB’s 644 and 1216: standardize the preauthorization forms used for prescription drugs and health services. 

Other

• Immigration: Bill to allow undocumented immigrants get drivers’ licenses, passed its first test but failed to make it to the House floor. No other significant legislation.

• Payday Lending: Legislature failed to pass SB 1247 which established a reasonable regulatory framework for short-term loan products .

• Nonprofit Council:  For three sessions, the Legislature and nonprofit community has worked to coordinate faith and community-based organizations with state agencies to enhance delivery of services to the neediest Texas while streamlining state government.  SB 993 makes permanent a nonprofit council to coordinate those efforts. 

Other

• Military physicians are authorized to volunteer their services as long as they are licensed in good standing

• Adult education funding was successfully moved from TEA to the Texas Workforce Commission

• Tx Department of Agriculture has included $18 million over the biennium for home delivered meals