Funding tight as Crossroads pitches mental health plan

Oct. 12--It may take a lot of looking under couch cushions to fund a proposed, four-year plan to divert the mentally ill from Crossroads county jails.

"Warning. Warning. Warning. There is no money," State Sen. Lois Kolkhorst said at a Victoria Partnership meeting Tuesday.

Kolkhorst was there to talk about issues she's worked on in the interim.

Victoria County Commissioner Gary Burns urged Kolkhorst and State Rep. Geanie Morrison to review the plan, proposed by the Gulf Bend Community Collaborative.

It calls for mental health deputies and case workers to respond to mental health crises in the seven-county region, 24-7 for 365 days a year. They would also connect the mentally ill with services so they do not need hospitalization or get arrested. The plan is estimated to cost $10 million.

After the meeting, Kolkhorst clarified finding funding for the plan is "not impossible."

Kolkhorst serves on the Senate Finance Committee, which is determining where mental health dollars go and whether they can be spent more effectively.

"I've got to tell you, we didn't even know the dollars that were being spent in the Medicaid program specifically on mental health, so as we go through this process, it might not be new dollars, but redirected dollars," Kolkhorst said.

Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar estimated in October 2015 there would be $110.3 billion available to spend in the 2016-2017 biennium.

Hegar is not set to make another estimate until January.

Comptroller spokesman Chris Bryan said last year, voters amended the Texas Constitution to commit $5 billion of the more than $28 billion collected in sales tax to the state highway fund every biennium starting in 2018.

"In addition to it being a much tighter general economic environment in the state because of the ongoing price weakness in oil and gas, there were also some spending decisions made that are going to be an increased pressure," Bryan said.

Kolkhorst also did not see the plan competing with state psychiatric hospitals for funding, which need about $2 billion to renovate or rebuild.

Wait times are too long, Kolkhorst said, singling out Rusk State Hospital.

Rusk State Hospital was built 1878 as a 576-foot long, three-story penitentiary. It was converted to a psychiatric hospital in 1919 and now treats the mentally ill charged with committing crimes, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.

"Those are things we could potentially look at bonding," Kolkhorst said of the infrastructure improvements.

Another agency dominating the headlines is the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, which was not checking on almost a thousand children at immediate risk of physical and sexual abuse on any given day for the past six months, according to the Texas Tribune.

That agency is asking for more money to hire and retain employees.

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