Mental Health Funding, Unfunded Mandates Among Key County Concerns
The 89th Session of the Texas Legislature began on Jan. 14, meaning state senators and representatives are now settling in and scheduling hearings. With that said, the County Judges and Commissioners Association of Texas (CJCAT or Association) and its Legislative Committee have been prepping for months, studying the Association’s legislative platform and combing through filed bills and resolutions since prefiling began on Nov. 12, 2024. The regular session adjourns on June 2.
During the 2023 regular and four called special sessions, the 88th Texas Legislature passed 1,252 bills and adopted 14 joint resolutions after considering 8,616 measures filed.
Of the thousands of bills and resolutions filed each year, an estimated 2,000 impact county government, reported CJCAT Senior General Counsel Jim Allison.
The Association’s Legislative Platform is dictated by the CJCAT Resolutions, published in full in the January issue of County Progress. The Resolutions are available for download at www.countyprogress.com.
The following priority issues are among those Resolutions, stated CJCAT Program Director Rick Thompson: 1) Increased Mental Health Funding; 2) Opposition to Unfunded Mandates; and 3) Opposition to Efforts to Silence the Voice of County Officials.
Mental Health Funding
More than 1,800 people in county jails are waiting on state hospital beds, Thompson reported.
The CJCAT has asked the State of Texas to consider the following four requests:
- Implement additional funding for mental health services.
- Implement the state mental health plan to ensure the efficient and effective use of these resources.
- Reimburse counties for the costs of operating diversion centers that serve individuals ruled incompetent to stand trial until a state mental health bed is available.
- Immediately reimburse counties for the cost of incarceration of offenders who have been committed to state facilities.
Henderson County Judge Wade McKinney was appointed to the Joint Committee on Access and Forensic Services (JCAFS) in October 2024. The JCAFS provides recommendations to the Health and Human Services Commission on improving mental health services and increasing access to forensic services throughout Texas. One current focus of the committee is addressing the state’s list of people waiting for court-ordered mental health treatment in state facilities.
“This is about making resources available to address those needs throughout the state,” McKinney said. “I took this because of my role as the mental health magistrate for the county. We deal with these issues on a daily basis.”
McKinney is one of two County Judges serving on the committee; the other official is Chambers County Judge Jimmy Sylvia.
“Since the last legislative session, Texas made a huge down payment in pushing state resources into the treatment of mental health,” McKinney observed. “But due to a decades-long period of inadequate funding, we’re playing catch up.”
The rising demand for mental health services continues to exceed available resources, he added.
“When you have rising demand and fewer resources to meet that, it’s in these positions, these appointments, where we are drilling down to try to find alternative methods and to help bring new ideas forward,” McKinney shared.
Unfunded Mandates
The approximate percentage of the Texas county budget consumed by unfunded mandates from the Texas Legislature varies from 50 percent to 70 percent, Allison said.
An unfunded mandate is a state law or regulation that requires a local government to perform certain actions with no money provided for fulfilling those requirements.
“Unfunded mandates can have a devastating impact on county budgets and can limit a county’s ability to provide essential services by diverting funds already allocated to specific programs to the mandates sent down from the state,” explained Hays County Commissioner Debbie Gonzales Ingalsbe, a CJCAT past president and current chairman of the CJCAT County Commissioners Education Committee.
“Unfunded mandates come down to the word ‘shall,’ ” added Johnson County Commissioner Rick Bailey, chairman of the CJCAT Legislative Committee. For example, Texas counties “shall” provide indigent defense and indigent health care, as required by state law. In Johnson County, indigent defense costs average $1.2 million to $1.6 million every year.
“We receive roughly 10 percent back from the State of Texas,” Bailey reported. “The rest of the cost for indigent defense is passed down to our taxpayers. It’s all taxpayer money,” Bailey emphasized, “meaning these unfunded mandates are reflected in our tax rate.”
Efforts to Silence the Voice of County Officials
During the last several sessions, certain legislators have attempted to eliminate the ability of counties to maintain a collective voice before the legislature and their ability to support their associations to advocate for the needs of their constituents, Thompson said.
Using the term “taxpayer-funded lobbying,” this legislation would bar local officials from expending funds to contact the legislature or support nonprofit associations that communicate on their behalf, like the CJCAT, Allison explained.
“If successful, proposed legislation would also eliminate the county’s ability to hire lobbyists to represent them on special matters such as transportation projects, state grants, and unfunded mandates,” Thompson added.
CJCAT Immediate Past President Jen Crownover, Comal County Commissioner, likened the term taxpayer-funded lobbying to “a cute little bumper sticker slogan that makes it sound like what we are doing is bad.
“By coming together as an association, which is absolutely no different from any other industry or service, we are able to advocate for our constituents and help legislators understand the impacts of the bills being proposed. We, as Judges and Commissioners, are personally involved in the issues we are advocating for, and we are accountable to our friends and neighbors back home.”
Crownover said the “menial cost” of Association dues pales in comparison to the cost that would be incurred should counties have to add staff at the county level to monitor the thousands of bills filed and analyze them for county impact.
“That is just not an efficient or practical way for us do business,” Crownover declared. “With so many issues coming across their desks in such a relatively short amount of time, you would think that legislators would welcome and appreciate the efficiency of Judges and Commissioners communicating collectively and unifying on matters of county importance.”
For more on your role and the Texas Legislature, go to https://countyprogress.com/89th-texas-legislature/