H.B. 572 Behavioral Health, Mental Health, and Social Services Amendments: transcript

Uh, thank, thank you, Madam Chair. Um, I, uh, just wanna clarify that I'm gonna be speaking to the second substitute. Uh, the second substitute also pulls in HB 5 52. Um, so I'll explain the whole whole thing as best I can. The, the bill basically is, has two parts. Uh, the first part is the recommendations from the legislatively created Behavioral health commission. I'm joined by the chair of that commission, ally Isim. I'll give her, um, a little bit of time to talk about the commission's recommendations. The, the second part of the bill relates to significant efforts that have been going on for many months with a lot of stakeholders, looking at how we can make changes to our criminal justice system as it relates to individuals with, uh, a mental illness and or substance use disorder. Um, as part of my presentation, if the staff could promote, uh, somebody online, judge, uh, Steven Lyman, if he's, uh, he should be online. Um, I'd just like to start out by Judge Lyman is a retired judge from Florida who's considered the kind of the architect and father of the Miami-Dade model, which has had amazing results. I've been working closely with, uh, leadership from Salt Lake County. The mayor and the council, uh, on policies in this bill, um, actually made the, the, the, the journey down to Miami-Dade, uh, county, uh, in December. No, I didn't set foot on the beach. I wish I would have, but it was all business. Um, so to start out with, um, I'd like to have Judge Lyman, uh, just give a, a a brief, brief overview of what they've accomplished in, um, uh, Miami. And as, as he's getting online, I'll just mention that he's, he, he won't say it, but he's a big deal. He, he's received a significant award from Pope Francis has received the William Rehnquist Award from the Supreme Court. Uh, but his actions speak louder than words. So if we can turn the time over to Judge Lyman.

There you go. Thank you so much. Um, Madam Chair, members of the committee, uh, thank you very much for the opportunity to be here. Uh, my name is Steve Lyman. I was a judge in Miami-Dade County, Florida for 30 years. Uh, 25 of those years, I served as the chair of our 11 judicial circuits criminal mental health project. Uh, since retiring at the end of 2024, I'm working with several communities around the United States, uh, to help them restructure their systems to, uh, achieve the types of results that we were able to get here in Miami-Dade County, uh, including Salt Lake County. I, I want to thank the tremendous leadership that we have been working with in Utah. I recently met with the Speaker of the House. I want to thank him, particularly want to thank, uh, rep Ellison for the amazing work that he's doing on this. Of course, rep Clancy, I think may be there as well. And, um, of course, mayor, uh, Wilson and Salt Lake has really been moving mountains to, uh, make structural changes. Uh, we started our project, uh, 25 years ago as a result of a case that I had. Um, the reality is, this is not just a Utah issue, it is a national crisis. Um, we have about 70% of people in the United States who are in jail right now. Uh, they either have a serious mental illness, a substance use disorder, or both. Um, on any given day, there's about 380,000 people in custody, and another 574,000 around the United States on some type of community control, uh, that are living with very serious mental illnesses. Uh, the United States spends about a trillion dollars a year in direct and indirect cost related to incarceration, uh, with really horrible and poor results, um, and has endangered our public safety. It has wasted critical tax dollars, and it has done nothing to help this population, uh, get into recovery. Um, as I mentioned, our journey started 25 years ago with a terrible case I had in court where the defendant had a full blown psychotic episode. As a result, we put together a Summit where we brought all the stakeholders together for a two day event. We analyzed our assets, we looked at the gaps in our system, and we put together a two part approach. It was a pre and post arrest, uh, change that we could get access to treatment, new pathways to treatment for this population that kept cycling, uh, the bill before you does a, a terrific job of, um, starting to set up, uh, those pathways, starting to set up the mechanism in place that could help you get the kind of results that we had. Um, our pre-arrest, uh, system has resulted in the number of arrests in Dade County going from 118,000 a year to 53,000. Um, not only did our arrest significantly get reduced, but the, uh, our jail audit went from about 7,400 to 4,400. We closed one of our three main jails so far, saving Dade County over $239 million in actual savings, not cost shifting. We also found that our law enforcement officers were dealing with very serious mental health related issues, particularly PTSD. So we even set up a treatment program for law enforcement, which has resulted in our police shootings, almost stoppage. We set up a post-arrest, uh, system where we could create pathways to treatment. The recidivism rate among our misdemeanor population went from 75% to 20%, our felony population, because we expanded the program, our state attorney realized that if we really want to improve public safety, we had to make sure that this population, that continuously cycled through these very acute systems of care, we're not leaving the criminal system without access to treatment. So our felony recidivism rate dropped from about 75% to 6%. Um, we still have maybe 20 to 30% of the population that are just too ill for the services that are anywhere in the United States, because people fortunately don't always understand that when community mental health was designed the most acutely ill, were still in state hospitals. So most community mental health systems are actually for people with moderate mental illnesses, not the severe and persistent psychotic disorders. So, as a result of all the money that we've been able to save Dade County, we just finished building the first of its kind mental health diversion facilities. In fact, representative Ellison got to take a tour when he was here recently. This is a one stop shop for the most acutely ill that constantly cycle in and out of these very, very expensive systems with very poor results. Um, our hope is that once we get this open, we will finally break that cycle. We will have a complete continuum in our, in our entire community. We will get our homeless population, which right now is down to less than a thousand people to functional zero. And we will finally have the kind of system we all can be proud of. When that improves our public safety, it significantly saves our taxpayers a lot of money, and it helps this very vulnerable population get into recovery and have a life of hope and opportunity. Thank you so much for your time.

Uh, thank you very much, judge Lyman. Appreciate you taking time outta your busy schedule. Uh, next I'd like, uh, ally Isam, the chair of the Beaver Health Commission to go over the recommendations that are largely in the bill from the Utah Behavioral Health Commission.

Thank you representative, and thank you commission committee members for allowing me to join you here as a representative of the Behavioral Health Commission, I serve as a family member of a person. Sorry, I'm Ally Isam. I apologize. I thought he had said it. So I I did. Okay. I'm Ali Isam, chair of the Utah Behavioral Health Commission. Um, and some days I wonder who I am now. Um, I serve as a person with family members with lived experiences who, um, experienced mental illness. And we have an 11 member commission that has, uh, existed since 2024. Uh, developed a strategic plan with policy and budget recommendations annually. And, uh, while our governance structure has limited our ability to implement our strategic plan and, and lead coordination as we like it, nevertheless, we persist. And so we have submitted, um, prioritized request this year, um, and Representative Eliason has included them in his bill. And I just wanna make sure we're down to this one, right? Yeah. Okay. Um, the first priority is the relieving the facility backlog in the state hospital capacity. Uh, we recommended building costs for 60 beds and operational costs for the 31st 30 beds. He's modified that recommendation, understanding, you know, understandably, this year's a tight year. We also had recommended, uh, to fund the first of first two of 13 needed mobile crisis outreach teams. These teams are so incredibly important in helping families and communities when individual is in crisis, um, and diverts them from the ER as well as law enforcement interactions. Um, we also were recommended developing two additional rural behavioral health receiving centers, supporting peer recovery support services, and funding rural Utah pilots to develop humane crisis transport solutions. Those are the first five of our 10 recommendations. And these recommendations were developed through careful analysis and gaps of the gaps in Utah's behavioral health system and input from behavioral health subject matter experts in both the private and public sectors. We have four committees that inform our work and also submit their priorities. Implementing these recommendations and passing this legislation will help Utah families access behavioral healthcare. It will reduce deaths from suicide and drug overdoses, and promote wellbeing and health for all Utahans. And on behalf of Utahans and families with behavioral health needs, we strongly urge you to pass this bill. And we thank the good sponsor for his tireless work and dedication on our co on our behalf.

Numbers? Yeah, so o obviously I won't get a fiscal note for the second sub until it's adopted. If you take the fiscal note from HP 5 52 and H HP 5 72, it's a really big number. And let me be very clear. I am serving as the conduit from, for the commission for their recommendations. I even, I feel guilty 'cause I had to pare it down from even what they were asking for. Suffice it to say, uh, if this bill continues to move forward, it will have to be trimmed to whatever appropriations are available. I know that in the committee that you co-chair, there was some funding set aside for some of these priorities. Um, so I wouldn't pay a lot of attention to the fiscal note because we know we were swinging at the fences, but they knew that they were legitimate needs, and so they asked for them. And so with the permission of the chair, my intern has a flyer, we'll pass around that kind of lists the dollar amounts. But again, I, I'm not gonna, we're not gonna go into detail on, because we know that the vast majority will not be funded, but we hope that we'll be able to get some funding.

Um, higher and lower. Next session, we plan to present a whole bunch of RFAs instead of just one omnibus, uh, RFA.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thanks so much for your work on this, both of you and probably half the people in the room as well on this bill. Um, I, I was excited to meet Judge Lyman because I had heard him more than my own name, uh, by, by the end of this summer because of the great work that's been done in Miami. I just have two, two quick questions, Madam Chair on. Um, and this is on the second sub. I had to change my lines a little bit. So on, on line 4 91 on the second substitute, um, it talks about, um, rule. So, so it says, rules the office make in accordance with subsection 2D may not require the license center to notify a law enforcement agency or diversion contact of the status of a justice involved individual after the licensed center has referred the justice involved individual to another healthcare provider. Could you, could you just explain that to me as someone who, um, you know, I work with attorneys, but ye Yes.

Trying to, I'll, I'll, I'll, lemme do my best. Um, since the bills have become public, we've received a lot of feedback from stakeholders. One of the concerns was, let's say for a crisis receiving center, they, the vast majority of the individuals they serve are there for less than 24 hours. They may go out back into the community with a list of providers, maybe an appointment. Um, we've worked broader language in tasking the local, if there is a civil commitment, tasking the local mental health authority to be the, the entity that tracks that individual, because that's most appropriate. Because once they leave the crisis receiving center, there's HIPAA questions whether or not they even have access to their data. But to the extent that there's a civil commitment involved, then the local mental health authority needs to have that prerogative to track those individuals. So, and, and then, sorry, another part of the bill has, um, the automatization of the civil commitment process, which is a completely paper-based antiquated system that we're all scratching our heads, like, how do we get this far with a paper-based system? Uh, kudos to DHHS, chief Brian Red, Tracy Gruber, they had commenced working on this before we started these working groups, realizing if you can't measure it, you can't manage it. And so, um, only, uh, qualified people that are permitted to access that can see that that will also provide a paper trail. Another thing that is in the bill is creating the standardized form. That one thing they've done in Florida is they, uh, give, present a waiver to an individual to be able to share information between healthcare providers. They have about a 98%, um, subscription rate to that waiver, which is critical. So providers can share that information. So we're putting a lot of processes in place so that data can be tracked better, but it'll still may be very difficult for an individual who leaves that's not civilly committed to ultimately determine where they end up.

That makes a ton of sense. And, and you and I got to work together on another civil commitment legislation a couple years ago. The, my only thought there too is if it's a diversion, if it's a diversion, uh, piece of the system, then I would like to see something there that is appropriate, HIPAA compliant and everything because we're, you know, it would be in lieu of criminal charges. And so I, I would, if, if that's appropriate, I'd love to work with you on that. Second thing is, um, on the, one of the commission recommendations on 1455, talks about promoting judicial education. Would that be the commission that's doing the judicial education or would that, who, who, I guess who would be doing that judicial education?

Sorry, I went from 400 to 1400. Sorry, I'm scrolling fast. Um,

So it's under, it's, this is second sub, yes. Line 14, 5 5.

Um, As, as under the duties of the commission, Um, this gets into, um, how, how, how far, how many lines down are you going? Um, on 1455, it talks about pro promoting judicial education. And, and I, I'll just say this, I, it, if, if, you know, I recognize we, we have a stacked agenda, all I would say is that I would really love to see, to make sure that we have a public safety component on the judicial education piece. Because I think sometimes, as, as much as, you know, we're all touching a different part of the system, making sure that that judges take into account all of the factors, including the community safety. And so, you know, making sure that, that always is our priority, because that's, that's not gonna help anyone.

And I'll just wrap up by saying I'm so excited about this legislation. Um, as a former law enforcement officer, not a, not a law enforcement expert, just as a, just as a guy who was on the ground, I can tell you we spend to, to chair ISO's point, we, we spend an inordinate amount of time dealing and interacting with individuals who have a mental illness from having a bad day all the way on the continuum of, of individuals who I, I believe need inpatient treatment. And it, it breaks our heart. I can tell you as law enforcement, when all we can do is we can solve the problem for the next maybe 24 hours, that's, that would be good. And we drive away whether it's leaving the receiving center, leaving Utah Valley Hospital. And we hope and pray, literally pray that these folks can find the help that they need. And so a lot of people criticize law enforcement because they say law enforcement shouldn't be interacting with individuals that have mental illness. Well, 90% of us would agree with you, but when they call 9 1 1, we don't argue. We just go. And so this giving us more tools to help. This is such an important issue for the future of our state, for our country. I think this could be a model. Your legislation could be a model, but ultimately we want to see people heal and we wanna see people turn the corner. And whatever path that is, if it's outpatient, inpatient, community-based mental health, I, you know, the citizens of Utah, I think stand with you, Representative Monson on this because we, we are naturally, as law enforcement or, or fire or EMS, we are gonna interact with individuals in crisis. But if we can facilitate that interaction to a better path forward and a holistic healing, I'm standing with you a hundred percent. I think this is a great initiative that will help move our state forward. So thank you for bringing this forward.

If I may just answer his question, uh, now that I've had time to look at this and maybe a little help from a friend that actually was a pre-existing duty of you save it's being moved into different sections, so it's underlined, but your comment still stands. Thank you.

No, I didn't. We had some questions and I think it's more important to answer questions. Okay. But I'm gonna wrap up really quickly. Okay.

Um, just super high level, in addition to the commission's recommendations, which we're gonna fight for as hard as we can, because they have, I really want to give a huge shout out to all the 11 members of the commission and our staff, me and Nger and others that have worked extremely hard to come up with the recommendations we have. And they, they deserve to be acknowledged. That's why I put 'em in the bill, even though fiscal reality is that we won't be able to get 'em all in here. Um, the, the high level of this bill is if we can, uh, there's a, a great PBS documentary entit entitled The Definition of Insanity. That's about the work Judge LeMans done in Florida. And the kind of premises, what we've been doing for so many years with individuals that intersect with criminal justice system is insane because they keep revolving through the system at tremendous cost to the taxpayers, tremendous cost to their lives and the lives of their family. So overall, the diversion component of this bills, we already have diversion in our code. They had to pass the Tristan Murphy Act in Florida to even put diversion in. We've had it for years. We're now connecting the dots with accountability. So if a, uh, law enforcement officer pre-arrest a court, uh, pre uh, charging, pre-hearing, or even post, um, hearing, wants to divert an individual to substance use or mental health treatment, they can. And if they do that, then there's a mechanism to follow up to indicate whether they have completed their program and are being accountable to the program that they've been sent to. This creates kind of that system to do that. There's a lot of dots that we had to connect with, with hipaa, with, um, coordination and with, um, just, just, just overall coordination. So I, I'm happy to, I for sake of time, that's the, the big picture of what we're doing with this bill, in addition to the excellent recommendations and Behavioral Health Commission. Um, I'll, I'll leave it at that, uh, Madam Chair and happy to answer additional questions.

Okay. All right, go ahead. Yeah, We frequently talk about privacy and security, um, especially around sensitive mental health and, you know, substance use issues. And so I, I totally understand the motive and the utility for the data sharing and the standard form. Um, which, but also justice involved folks are particularly vulnerable. And so I just, uh, want an assurance that, um, when folks are consenting to disclose their info, uh, that they're doing so in, in a completely voluntary way and there isn't any way that they could be coerced, um, as a condition of probation or, you know, compliance with the court or something like that. Um, is that a question or just a statement?

Both. Okay. Well then I'll answer the question. Part of it that I heard, I, I completely agree with you. Um, at no point in our numerous stakeholder meetings or site visits, have I heard anything about coercion. A lot of times, I mean, these people want to get better. They want help. And so often when systems can't talk to one another, that coordination is stifled. So of course there will be, um, high expectations for sensitivity or confidentiality, and happy to look at any guardrails we need to put in there that we don't already have in there. But it's well said, well taken and completely agree.

Evan Donn with Utah Support Advocates for Recovery Awareness. Uh, I'm also a person in long-term recovery and a member of the Behavioral Health Commission. Uh, I just wanted to speak to this bill. I think that it's a great bill. We'd urge you to support it. Um, one thing that, you know, I'm often the person in the room who is looking after the rights of individuals with mental health and substance use conditions. And I think that this bill does a good job in striking the right tone, making sure that people's rights are protected, while also offering opportunities for people to get the help and support that they need to get better.

Yes, Madam Chair of I'm Debra Whitmer. I'm the Director of Utah Shattering Silence Coalition Chair and members of the committee. I am, uh, the director again of the coalition. I'm a family member with lived experience caring for a loved one with serious mental illness. Families like mine know how quickly untreated mental illness can turn into a crisis that brings our loved ones into contact with the criminal justice system. Too often jail becomes the place where serious mental illness is first recognized and addressed. This is not the system that we want. House Bill 5 72 moves Utah in a better direction by strengthening early mental health screening and improving coordination between courts, corrections, and behavioral health providers. This bill helps ensure that people with serious mental illness are identified sooner and connected to appropriate care. When systems works together, people stabilize sooner. Communities are safer, and families are not left carrying the burden alone. On behalf of the Utah Shattering Silence Coalition Families, we represent, I respectfully ask that you support House Bill 5 72.

Ahead. Thank you, Madam Chair and Committee. My name is Richard Morrow. I'm the Executive Director of the Salt Lake Legal Defenders Association. And one of the people that has been working with the Representative Eliason, I Uintah Miami with him at the time, I also did not go to the beach. And so, because we were actually, it was working trip, but what he's talking about is something called a sequential intercept model. Our office is working on that, helping, that helping people. The vast majority of people that will be affected by this bill are people in our office. We try very hard to represent them and to protect their information. That's something that is one of the most important things. But I would ask for support of this bill because I think a lot of people, certainly in Salt Lake County, have worked very hard. And in fact, our office in, in part because of this legislation and because of other things, has actually started a case management program. He has peer supports that help us work through this process that are part of this bill. And, and we're really trying to adopt a number of the things that are happening in Miami. And, and, you know, I've seen it for myself and I know Representative Eliason saw it when we were there, that there's been a great deal of success in looking at alternatives to a traditional jail model. And this, this bill really strikes a good balance. And we would ask your support for the bill.

Hi, my name is Anne Jensen. I'm a resident of pro uh, Provo, Utah, and I'm here with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. I'm a field advocate, and four years ago I was actually part of our in-house population. I was part of that population for about two years. And I want you guys to know that you're doing so many good things. There's so many opportunities that I was able to, um, reach beyond what I was dealing with in my, my own mental health. And I was able to be able to reach beyond that and get to the point where within the last four years, so I was homeless for two years, and then within getting housed within two years, I was actually almost off of all government services. I was almost to the point where I had like $200 that they were paying in Section eight housing. That's, I wanna say not normal, but I'd like for it to be. So what you guys are doing is helping, one of the first places I was received when I was becoming homeless was one of the receiving centers. It was the one in Provo. And without that, I wouldn't have been able to actually later get into what was the Food and Care Coalition of Provo, Utah. So one of our dear officers at in Provo actually was able to, um, get me and take me to that area. So what you guys again are doing is helping so much. We've just gotta get that extra little bit in there to make those differences. So we could keep people like me outta situations where I do end up in the justice system instead of health and Human services. So, thank you. Thank you very your time.

Ahead. Uh, all the question was, when you said that little extra piece in there, what would you like to, what would you like to see there?

Ooh. Um, the peer to peer programs are really important. One is it actually takes a little bit of the burden also for mental healthcare providers. 'cause that's a, that's a hard job. Um, also being able to provide more training for our officers and, um, letting them know, I guess, different deescalation tactics that don't essentially start to make the person feel like dehumanized in the process of them actually going into the system. And so things like that. Um, also the tracking system is really important, and being able to find who's in what program, what they're doing. Caseworkers were huge, but, um,

That's great. That's super Helpful. Just yeah, in general, I'm like, I could, could give you a huge list, but in general, those would be ones I would note. Awesome. Thank you. Thank You. Thank you.

Hello. Thank you for having me. My name is Robin Holcomb and I am the Executive Director of NAMI Utah. And here to ask for your support of this legislation, both, um, for the Miami-Dade model, which, which you've heard about. You know, I hope that our mission at NAMI Utah is to simply, positively impact anybody who, uh, experiences mental illness or family members throughout the state. And we come from a peer support space, and we know, and again, I hope that, you know, that research shows that peer support saves money, it saves lives, and, and it works. And we just heard that by the, from the person who spoke before me. Um, in particular today, I'm here to ask for your support of the Behavioral Health Commission. Um, this, uh, what they have come up with has been the result of hundreds of hours of planning. I've sat in on meetings where they've tediously gone through, um, just looking at lots of different kinds of perspectives to plan for us. And these are thought leaders, and we, we need the support of our behavioral health commission, um, for, to, to move the needle forward in Utah. Uh, the other thing I want to say about that is that they do have legislation in there for peer support funding. And we all know that that's critical, especially here in Utah where we have a shortage of professionals.

Go Ahead, Madam Chair. Uh, my name's Mark Moffitt. I'm a criminal defense lawyer, and I'm here on behalf of the Criminal Defense Lawyers Association to speak in support of Representative Olson's Bill. Um, we very much appreciate his work in this very important area. Um, representative Delson talked about insanity. Um, and I guess those people that are involved in the criminal justice system, seeing insanity play out in different ways every day. But one of the ways it's playing out in the streets of Salt Lake City is that we have a large population of persistently and severely mentally ill people that are on our streets, and they cycle through the system. They get arrested, they go to jail, uh, they may see a, they see a judge, they're sentenced, but they're released and they're released and oftentimes back to homelessness and without real adequate access to services. And I think that we need off ramps for these people. And I think what Representative Eons Bill does here is provide those off ramps. It does a lot of really important things, but the thing that I wanna focus on is the diversion component. It allows for the use of diversions, um, in various areas. Uh, it allows for the, the use of diversions in a pre charging environment after arrest, before a person ends up in the criminal justice system. I think that's a really, really important component. It authorizes the use of these receiving centers. Uh, and it, you, it allows the receiving centers to share information with other stakeholders, um, so that these people, when they're in the system, they can, people can follow 'em to make sure that they're following through with what they need to do. We really urge your support for this bill. We think it's really important. Thank you. Thank

Good afternoon, Madam Chair, members of the committee. My name is Brett Robinson. I'm the Chief Policy Advisor at the Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office. And we are excited about the direction of this bill. Um, for us, it is a public safety bill. We've talked a lot about what these diversion agreements are, and I think it's also really important to understand that diversion agreements, if somebody doesn't adhere to that, then prosecution's still available with all of the traditional methods of accountability. This makes it, um, an added measure of incentive for people to engage with training and treatment early on in the process. And we believe that with the increased communication afterwards, that this accountability will produce results earlier in the process at a much less cost with better results for everybody. So we also are want to thank Representative Eliason for bringing this forward. We think it's gonna work, and we encourage its passage. Thank you. Thank

Hi, my name is Sherry Whitworth and I'm the chair of the Utah Coalition for Severe Mental Illness. Our volunteer coalition includes mental health professionals, attorneys and business leaders, all who advocate for people who are living with severe mental illness and their families. And I'm also, uh, someone who has a loved one with a severe mental illness. We are truly grateful to Representative Elison for bringing forward this bill and strongly encourage your support. This bill for all the reasons that have been stated, offers a better path forward by improving early screening access to treatment and coordination across systems. This bill promotes outcomes that are more humane and more effective. And over time, these reforms are also far more cost effective, reducing strain on families, taxpayers, and public systems alike. This Bill moves Utah forward toward treating severe mental illness as the medical conditions they are. And we respectfully ask for your support for this bill.

So I just wanted to address the issue of the database, and we've talked about this, but, um, I just wanted to express, so this is on lines of the sub, I believe.

Now I wanna talk to the second substitute. Okay, perfect. I really appreciate the work you're doing. We've had a lot of testimony today saying there's a lot of positive things in this bill. The database is what gives me heartburn right now. And we've talked, but I'm just saying this so I get this out there. So I totally agree. A database would create a lot of good, there's a lot of good that can come from this because I think law enforcement, hospitals, healthcare providers, whatever it is, would benefit by knowing information about individuals who are repeat, um, I guess customers right? With, or they interact with those organizations on a repeated basis. But what you have in here is just, um, it isn't developed because we're just saying HHS figure this out, create some rules, make it work. We have law enforcement who has certain databases that they typically query when they interact with people. I'm not sure how an HHS database interacts with law enforcement. We have hospitals who use their own separate set of databases that they look at when they interact with patients. Um, I'm not sure how this interacts with that. I guess this would be a third party database they'd both have to go out and query somehow. I'm concerned about privacy as well. Um, you include both temporary civil commitment or involuntary commitment and, uh, involuntary commitment. The involuntary commitment, um, I guess it would depend what's in that database is to how helpful it is to the various parties who might query the database. But the temporary, I'm afraid that net is large. You're capturing a lot of people, um, who don't need to be in a database. And there's really no benefit to anybody of being in a database. And whether we believe there's a stigma or not, I think a lot of those patients think there's a stigma. And so we're violating, I think, their preferences and maybe even their rights by putting them in a database when it really doesn't benefit us. And then obviously, who gets access to that database? What can it be used for? Um, I think there's a lot of issues there. And so I, I know you're gonna have to trim this back because of budgetary constraints are most likely you will, that's probably not a very expensive part of this, but maybe that's the first thing to go, or we fix it somehow. Um, I think the fix is big because there's so little detail on what you have in that database, but I think it could be fixed. It's possible to get there, but we'd have to work pretty hard over the next week to figure out exactly how to fix that. So that's the, the concern I wanted to express to you and to the rest of the committee is I have serious, serious reserves about the, the state of the database as it sits here today. So thanks.

Representative Ward. Thank you. I do have one other question for the sponsor. So maybe it's just my same question from before. Is it the sponsor's intention to lobby in an all or nothing fashion for all of these items on, on here? Or are there really one or two that the sponsor will be lobbying for? And so really those are the one or two that we're voting for if we vote the bill through.

Uh, thank you Madam Chair. Um, let, let, let me go clinician on the clinician, even though I'm not a clinician. Okay. Um, I, I don't, uh, as part of cognitive behavior therapy, we don't want all or nothing thinking. So no, I am not saying this bill is all or nothing. I I'm under no illusion, um, that we'll be getting everything in this bill. Um, it will come down to ultimately what executive appropriations allocates, you know, to, to this bill through the, the EAC process. I would then work very closely with the leadership of the Behavioral Health Commission to determine what those priorities are. The thought of getting the 88 million for the 60 bed step down unit that is desperately needed, the state hospital, I don't believe for a second that's gonna happen. Maybe we could get funding to open up 30 beds that had been closed at the state hospital for 17 years. I would hope we can do that. But that's still an expensive, uh, component. There's a number of other very small components with small price tags. Many of the items are also very customizable in terms of, they're not all or nothing requests, like peer support. If we got, you know, $10,000 that would be put to put to great use, if we got a hundred thousand dollars, that would be put to great use. So I, I wish I could say specifically, but we'll do the best we can with whatever funds are available. So the intention is to try and get an amount from EAC first that they're willing to support. And then once you know that amount, then to choose some items off the list to decide which they are Correct. And lemme just be very clear, if we get $0 for this bill, there's still a lot of very important policy in the bill that, you know, I'd like to see move forward that can move forward without, uh, an appropriation.

Okay. Thanks. Thank you.

I didn't hear a question, but I'm happy to answer that. We've talked offline, but I, I maybe really quickly. I, I completely agree. There's a really good analogy here, which is the prescription dug drug database, which there was, you know, lots of concern about that before. That is very carefully controlled. Uh, lot, a lot of that's done by rulemaking, severe penalties for getting in there. The thought of putting all of the details in this bill versus allowing the public process to work through the rulemaking. I, I don't think it's good policy to try to say thou shalt this or that without, you know, allowing the, the input like we did for the prescription drug database. Um, I went into a restaurant, saw some AP and P officers, and I said, can we eat lunch together? And I said, tell me what the biggest thing on your mind is, and they said, we deal one thing in paper civil commitments. We're civilly committing the same person with different people over and over. Nobody knows who's on first or third. It is unbelievable that this is the last paper thing we have to deal with. Unbeknownst to myself at the time, uh, chief Red had already started working with the state to try to automate this for the sake of law enforcement. I visited with a psychiatrist who said, the other day I interviewed intervened in a case where they were going to let somebody out of the emergency room. But I happened to have personal knowledge how many civil commitments this person had had in the proceeding weeks or months, and I said, absolutely not. We are doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results. And he says, if I'd had access to a database, I wouldn't have had to go off my knowledge. The clinicians would've been able to see, we see a pattern here. We need to break that pattern and get this person the help we need. So I, I think the need is very real, but completely agreed that we have to have the appropriate guardrails around it. And we'll continue working to do that. Thank you.

Um, thank you Madam Chair. Uh, I would like to make a motion that we pass House Bill 5 72 second substitute out with a favorable recommendation. That

No. Thank you. Okay. All right.

Thank you. So, I, like I say, I like a lot of this bill and I want to vote for it. I'm gonna vote no because of this database issue. It's important enough to me, but I, I, I hope we can get it fixed. Let me just give you an example of somebody that gets picked up into this database. You got a 22-year-old young person who has some suicidal thoughts. Um, they go to the emergency room, um, they don't wanna stay. So they're placed under a temporary order of commitment. Technically, they're committed to the local mental health authority, but the local mental health authority is never notified, and that temporary order of commitment is dropped after 12 hours. That person now goes into the database and presumably it's gonna be there forever. We don't need that brought of a database. And so I wanna fix that. I don't want to just say HHS, you guys do it. I want us at least to have some guardrails on that. So Thank you.

I've taken enough the committee time. I'll waive. Thank

Yes. The, the, the third sub, the, the simple answer is, the difference is the bill has funding from executive appropriations and it whittles it down from close to a hundred million to less than a million. But the good news is, is that the funding in the bill fits what's on the sheets handed out earlier today by EAC. So that's, that's the basics of what the bill does in terms of the difference between the subs.

Uh, yeah. We had to, to eliminate a lot of important programs, but I would be in violation of cognitive behavior therapy principles if I let Perfect be the enemy of good. So, okay. We're, we're tickled pink to have what we've got, even though there's a lot of other good things we had to take out. Okay.

Somebody wanna move? Oh, I'll, okay. Senator Quant. I move that we delete title and Body of House bill or third sub house bill, uh, 5 20 72 and replace it with four sub 5 72.

Uh, great. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh, this bill is the work, uh, LA largely, uh, uh, two parts. The first part is of the work of the, the Utah Behavioral Health Commission. The legislatively created commission that has been in operation now for going on two years. Uh, chaired by I Ali Isam and, uh, vice Vice Chair Tamara Tala and Kyle Snow from the UNA Basin. Um, huge thanks to the Behavioral Health Commission that's made up all of volunteers that have vetted a lot of great ideas. Uh, the reason that the original bill had such a large fiscal note is we were hoping for funding for a 60 bed step down unit at the state hospital, which is desperately needed. That funding was too much money. So then we were hoping to open up 30 beds that had been closed at the state hospital for nearly two decades, but we didn't get the funding for that either. But the bill still does a lot of good things. So, um, the, it has both policy recommendations as well as appropriations. Um, in terms of the, uh, the funding items that are in the bill, um, looking at, uh, just a little background, the Behavioral Health Commission has got, uh, 11 members and there's a five member oversight legislative board, which is myself, uh, Senator Wilson, Senator Vickers, uh, and myself and, uh, representative Provo and did, I said Senator Escamilla. So we're the five member oversight board. So we kind of worked together on taking recommendations from the Behavioral Health Commission to put in the bill. The, the items that have ended up prioritized in the bill for the seven 50,000 is, uh, 200,000 for, uh, receiving center grant program. We were desperately hoping to get funding to open up the fully constructed receiving center in the UN Basin. We've tried for several years now. The funding has fallen just short of that. So this grant program will be administered to our existing receiving centers that are seeing a lot of people. Madam Chair, my intern does have a flyer about the bill, if that's, uh, just seek your approval to share that with the committee. Um, the bill has funding that will, uh, allow our Collaborative care Medicaid rates to be, uh, uh, updated to closer to Medicare rates, which I could, I could speak for hours about collaborative care. This is behavioral health integration, which has taken off in Utah. It allows people to get care much quicker at a much cheaper cost. Uh, where they consult with a psychiatrist allows us to leverage psychiatrists. It's a national best practices model for, uh, uh, mental health integration into physical healthcare. Uh, the third item is to, to continue funding for a program that's been funded using One-Time Money, a family outreach specialist at the Office of Medical Examiner. Uh, this is one sadly, that my own family extended families had experience with. On average, we have two people a day die from suicide in Utah. The Team Medical Examiner goes to the scene to do the death investigation. They often have, they always have a family that's in, you know, that's devastated. This Family Outreach specialist is a social worker that stays with the family, works with them through this moment of huge crisis, and then helps them with resources, uh, for coping and life insurance and other things moving forward. My opinion, one of the best uses of taxpayer dollars, the Peer Support grant program, uh, peer Support specialists, uh, working our mobile crisis outreach teams. They staff our Utah Warm line. They work in all sorts of other programs. Um, USS a RA is a fabulous nonprofit that, that helps getss peers out in the community. This will help fund more peer outreach. And then, uh, we have, uh, various people around the state with our local mental health authorities that do suicide, suicide prevention programs. This helps with, uh, just a small amount for ongoing to keep those programs going. So that's what the, the, the funding components of the bill does. It also has some technical amendments to renaming some items within the Behavioral Health Commission allows us to use some funds differently in the Governor's Suicide Prevention Fund that have kind of been locked up. But the, the other part of this bill that I'm super excited about is there's been a lot of people working on the Sequential intercept model. I dunno if you know Judge Steven Lyman, uh, he's been working with people here in Utah. He's the judge from Florida that oversaw the, kind of the Miami-Dade model. In 25 years, they've closed one of their jails, uh, cut their police shootings to almost nothing reduced recidivism. They took their homeless point in time count from over 9,000 to less than 800. Miami-Dade is the model for the nation. Bar none. Um, judge Lyman has been to Utah a number of times working with us on this and with Salt Lake County in particular. And, uh, I could, a lot of these items in here, uh, have come from the Lifeman Working Group, uh, with the goal of taking individuals that are consuming significant amounts of taxpayer dollars, spending lots of times in emergency rooms trying to figure out what is the root reason these people keep recidivating recidivism through our emergency or through our, our criminal justice system. And look how we break the cycle with behavioral health, substance use disorder interventions, all the while holding them accountable. So if they're diverted from going to jail, this has a mechanism that if they don't complete the treatment program, the law enforcement is notified. The, the charges can then either be filed or, um, uh, you know, pursued. Um, it, another thing the bill does that is long past due, a year over a year ago, direct or Chief Red asked Tracy Gruber, Hey, can we get our civil commitment process automated? It's the only paper-based system we deal with in the criminal justice system. DHHS started working on it. This bill, uh, furthers that to make sure it includes white sheets, pink sheets, blue sheets, and yellow sheets, um, polka dot sheets if we have those two. It very comprehensive also puts important data guardrails around that data that is critical for law enforcement and for, uh, healthcare providers to know how to help people that are circulating throughout the system. Um, it also amends some of the duties of the Behavioral Health Commission. Um, and, well, I could go on and on for sake of the committee's time. Those are a lot of the highlights. Um, we've worked with a broad stakeholder group on this. Um, we have a number of people here from the Behavioral Health Commission community groups. I wanna be sensitive to the committee's time, but I'll just conclude with that, that I think this is an extremely important bill to, uh, address Utah's stubbornly high suicide rate. The fact that we have such a high risk citizenism rate in Utah is 66%. And the fact that there are national models that show we can do better, that will save taxpayer dollars, treat people in a more humane way, and, uh, help people that are dealing with mental illness step back into our community instead of just having to continue to rotate through the criminal justice system. This will help break that cycle. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Okay. Please come up, introduce yourself, everybody on Good afternoon, Madam Chair. Uh, in the, into the committee. Uh, my name's Adam Cohen. I am testifying today as a member of Utah's Behavioral Health Commission, our 11 member commission. Thanks, Representative Elison for his tireless efforts to improve the health and of Utah children, families, and communities. The Utah Legislative Auditor General has identified behavioral health as one of the top 10 critical vulnerabilities facing our state. The legislature created the Behavioral Health Commission to turn the tide and better coordinate our efforts to improve behavioral health and wellbeing across the state. Since our creation in 2024, we have developed a strategic plan and provided the legislature with policy and budget recommendations each year, which is in this bill. Um, this bill would enact some, some of the recommendations of the Utah Behavioral Health Commission addressing both policy needs for the state and structural changes for the commission itself. The commission developed these recommendations through careful analysis of the gaps in Utah's behavioral health system and input from behavioral health subject matter experts in the private and public sectors. On behalf of all Utah families, um, with behavioral health needs, we strongly encourage you to pass this bill. Thank you very much.

Thank you Madam Chair. I move that we favorably recommend, uh, house Bill 5 72 4 sub to the full body of the Senate.

Uh, would very much appreciate your support and I think this bill is a really important statement that the legislature cares about these important issues that affect every family, whether they're urban rule, rural, uh, Democrat, Republican, male, female. It's an issue that affects all of us. Thank you very much.

Thank you Mr. Speaker Pro Tim. Motion to move. Uh, substitute number three in my name.

Thank you Mr. Speaker Pro Tim. Motion to move. Uh, substitute number three in my name.

Okay. Uh, it's online.

Thank you. Thank you Mr. Speaker. Motion to circle.

Uh, thank you Mr. Speaker Prote. Motion to move substitute number three in my name.

Uh, yes. Uh, per the committee vote on the board, there was one no vote. And the substitute should resolve the concerns related to the one no vote.

Uh, thank you Mr. Speaker Pro Tem. Uh, this bill represents the work of, of many people over many months. Uh, two primary groups. One is the Utah Behavioral Health Commission that was legislatively created. They've had numerous meetings throughout the year and have studied the gaps in our behavioral health system and have come up with a number of recommendations to address those. That includes, uh, one of the, the big issues is that for almost 20 years, we've had 30 empty beds in our state hospital that we closed during the Great Recession. And that would restore funding for to open up those much, those much needed beds. Also would have funding for things like mobile crisis outreach teams. Uh, out in the UN basin, we have a crisis receiving center that is completely constructed, ready to go. Uh, but there's no people, there's no patients, there's no employees because they don't have funding. Uh, that almost completely, uh, if, if funding was available for that closes the gap, uh, of crisis receiving centers. They have to drive miles and miles to, uh, have patients come to the Wasatch front. This would allow them to keep patients in their own community and have the same benefit that every other major Urban Center has along the Wasatch Front. Uh, bill has also, uh, funding for things like, uh, family outreach support from the Office of the Medical Examiner. Uh, they're the first on the scene when somebody dies by suicide. They use temporary funds to, uh, deliver, uh, services to a family immediately after the death of a loved one that would help continue that program. So a lot of great recommendations from Behavioral Health Commission. Thank them for their tireless work on these important issues. Second part of the bill is a group of, of local officials from Salt Lake County, prosecutors, defense attorneys, philanthropists. Uh, we've been studying the Miami-Dade model that has been in place for 25 years related to in the cross section of individuals with mental illness and the criminal justice system and substance use disorders. Miami-Dade County, under the leadership of Judge Steven Lyman, has been able to reduce, uh, arrests dramatically reduced recidivism, reduced police shootings, closed one of their three jails, saving the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. And so this bill contains, uh, recommendations from that, uh, working group to look at how we can have more accountability for individuals that, uh, come in contact with the criminal justice system in terms of getting treatment for the underlying issues. One quick example. I spoke with a police chief who had sent somebody to a crisis receiving center. He said usually we have great experience, but the individuals almost beat the officer back to the community, resulting in another police call. Currently there's not a connection if law enforcement diverts somebody because of a mental health issue to such a center. This helps connect the dots. So if the individual leaves before the, the recommended treatment is delivered, law enforcement is notified. So those are, uh, just some of the things in the bill. Mr. Speaker, the amendments put guardrails around the civil commitment database, which is critically needed, was a request of Brian Red, our former corrections director, now the police chief for our capital city that would allow law enforcement, healthcare professionals and others to access this information, uh, relating to the various types of civil commitments. That up to this point has been a paper-based system. So I will conclude my presentation, Mr. Speaker ProAm, and happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker ProAm. I, I rise in support of this legislation when I've talked to folks about the criminal justice system and what they want to see across partisan lines across every geographic area of the state. People say the same thing that if someone enters the criminal justice system because they're a hardened criminal, they want that person to go away. But if someone enters the criminal justice system because they're addicted to drugs, they want 'em to get help. And more pertinently to, uh, legislation in front of us today, Mr. Speaker ProAm. If someone enters the criminal justice system because of a mental health issue, they want them to get the help that they need to get 'em on the right path to healing and to not making those choices again, but also to further their life and to, and to heal in that way. I think this legislation from the good sponsor from Sandy, puts us in a great position to fulfill what our constituents want to see when it comes to a criminal justice system that acknowledges those differences. I appreciate the work that's gone into us. Uh, it's a significant piece of legislation and I actually think that's reflective of the significant amount of work and stakeholders that the sponsor worked with to get this to this position that's in today. So colleagues, I would urge a yes vote on HB 5 72. Thank you, Mr. Speaker Proto.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Uh, I really appreciate what I, my good, uh, colleague from Provo has to say about this bill. I'd like to add too that in my part of the world, we, uh, would, could really benefit from this. We have a, we have a, a facility that needs to be staffed and, uh, we don't have the money to staff it. This will help, uh, bring those people there instead of us having to take the folks that need help to where they can be, uh, serviced. When we have to do that, lots of times it takes our emergency personnel away from the, uh, the basin from our area for up to eight hours just to make a round trip. Our, uh, uh, like I said, our emergency personnel, our, uh, if it takes a, um, a law enforcement officer to, to travel with that individual, why, uh, that's a eight hours minimum away from, uh, being home where we need them to be. So, uh, this, this bill would really benefit folks in my area and I appreciate the good sponsor for, for, um, making the opportunity and let's, uh, let's take care of 'em.

Thank you. I, I rise in support of this bill. I appreciate the hard work that the sponsor has done and I do believe that this is a good step in the right direction. I appreciate his work on the third sub. I think that makes it even better, so thank you.

Thank you Mr. Speaker proto I rise in support of this bill. Uh, we've talked about a lot of the issues that deal with, uh, with mental health and, and living in rural Utah and they not only have to travel up here because we don't have a receiving center, but, uh, what what we're also doing is taking our constituents, the people that we love and care for in rural Utah. We have to bring them up here and take the beds that people on the Wasatch front need. And so where we have, especially where we have, uh, a facility that's all ready to go and all we need is the funding to open it up. Uh, I just think that's so critical and uh, I'm Juab just asking my colleagues to support this. Thank you Mr. Speaker Pro.

Thank you Mr. Speaker Pro Tem. This bill is not a partisan issue. Addiction does not care who you voted for. Doesn't care if you live in an urban or rural area. Depression does not care about care about your party affiliation. Families in crisis are not red or blue. They're American families asking for help and I believe this bill moves us in the right direction to help those people in need. Thank you Mr. Speaker Pro Tem.

Uh, thank you Mr. Speaker Pro Tem. Uh, this bill represents the work of, of many people over many months. Uh, two primary groups. One is the Utah Behavioral Health Commission that was legislatively created. They've had numerous meetings throughout the year and have studied the gaps in our behavioral health system and have come up with a number of recommendations to address those. That includes, uh, one of the, the big issues is that for almost 20 years, we've had 30 empty beds in our state hospital that we closed during the Great Recession. And that would restore funding for to open up those much, those much needed beds. Also would have funding for things like mobile crisis outreach teams. Uh, out in the UN basin, we have a crisis receiving center that is completely constructed, ready to go. Uh, but there's no people, there's no patients, there's no employees because they don't have funding. Uh, that almost completely, uh, if, if funding was available for that closes the gap, uh, of crisis receiving centers. They have to drive miles and miles to, uh, have patients come to the Wasatch front. This would allow them to keep patients in their own community and have the same benefit that every other major Urban Center has along the Wasatch Front. Uh, bill has also, uh, funding for things like, uh, family outreach support from the Office of the Medical Examiner. Uh, they're the first on the scene when somebody dies by suicide. They use temporary funds to, uh, deliver, uh, services to a family immediately after the death of a loved one that would help continue that program. So a lot of great recommendations from Behavioral Health Commission. Thank them for their tireless work on these important issues. Second part of the bill is a group of, of local officials from Salt Lake County, prosecutors, defense attorneys, philanthropists. Uh, we've been studying the Miami-Dade model that has been in place for 25 years related to in the cross section of individuals with mental illness and the criminal justice system and substance use disorders. Miami-Dade County, under the leadership of Judge Steven Lyman, has been able to reduce, uh, arrests dramatically reduced recidivism, reduced police shootings, closed one of their three jails, saving the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. And so this bill contains, uh, recommendations from that, uh, working group to look at how we can have more accountability for individuals that, uh, come in contact with the criminal justice system in terms of getting treatment for the underlying issues. One quick example. I spoke with a police chief who had sent somebody to a crisis receiving center. He said usually we have great experience, but the individuals almost beat the officer back to the community, resulting in another police call. Currently there's not a connection if law enforcement diverts somebody because of a mental health issue to such a center. This helps connect the dots. So if the individual leaves before the, the recommended treatment is delivered, law enforcement is notified. So those are, uh, just some of the things in the bill. Mr. Speaker, the amendments put guardrails around the civil commitment database, which is critically needed, was a request of Brian Red, our former corrections director, now the police chief for our capital city that would allow law enforcement, healthcare professionals and others to access this information, uh, relating to the various types of civil commitments. That up to this point has been a paper-based system. So I will conclude my presentation, Mr. Speaker ProAm, and happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker ProAm. I, I rise in support of this legislation when I've talked to folks about the criminal justice system and what they want to see across partisan lines across every geographic area of the state. People say the same thing that if someone enters the criminal justice system because they're a hardened criminal, they want that person to go away. But if someone enters the criminal justice system because they're addicted to drugs, they want 'em to get help. And more pertinently to, uh, legislation in front of us today, Mr. Speaker ProAm. If someone enters the criminal justice system because of a mental health issue, they want them to get the help that they need to get 'em on the right path to healing and to not making those choices again, but also to further their life and to, and to heal in that way. I think this legislation from the good sponsor from Sandy, puts us in a great position to fulfill what our constituents want to see when it comes to a criminal justice system that acknowledges those differences. I appreciate the work that's gone into us. Uh, it's a significant piece of legislation and I actually think that's reflective of the significant amount of work and stakeholders that the sponsor worked with to get this to this position that's in today. So colleagues, I would urge a yes vote on HB 5 72.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Uh, I really appreciate what I, my good, uh, colleague from Provo has to say about this bill. I'd like to add too that in my part of the world, we, uh, would, could really benefit from this. We have a, we have a, a facility that needs to be staffed and, uh, we don't have the money to staff it. This will help, uh, bring those people there instead of us having to take the folks that need help to where they can be, uh, serviced. When we have to do that, lots of times it takes our emergency personnel away from the, uh, the basin from our area for up to eight hours just to make a round trip. Our, uh, uh, like I said, our emergency personnel, our, uh, if it takes a, um, a law enforcement officer to, to travel with that individual, why, uh, that's a eight hours minimum away from, uh, being home where we need them to be. So, uh, this, this bill would really benefit folks in my area and I appreciate the good sponsor for, for, um, making the opportunity and let's, uh, let's take care of 'em. Thank you Representative Chew for their discussion.

Thank you. I, I rise in support of this bill. I appreciate the hard work that the sponsor has done and I do believe that this is a good step in the right direction. I appreciate his work on the third sub. I think that makes it even better, so thank you.

Thank you Mr. Speaker proto I rise in support of this bill. Uh, we've talked about a lot of the issues that deal with, uh, with mental health and, and living in rural Utah and they not only have to travel up here because we don't have a receiving center, but, uh, what what we're also doing is taking our constituents, the people that we love and care for in rural Utah. We have to bring them up here and take the beds that people on the Wasatch front need. And so where we have, especially where we have, uh, a facility that's all ready to go and all we need is the funding to open it up. Uh, I just think that's so critical and uh, I'm Juab just asking my colleagues to support this. Thank you Mr. Speaker Pro.

Thank you Mr. Speaker Pro Tem. This bill is not a partisan issue. Addiction does not care who you voted for. Doesn't care if you live in an urban or rural area. Depression does not care about care about your party affiliation. Families in crisis are not red or blue. They're American families asking for help and I believe this bill moves us in the right direction to help those people in need. Thank you Mr. Speaker Pro Tem.

The next motion is to, uh, accept amendment number two in my name. Okay. And that is a fiscal note Correction. Yeah. This is another slight correction, uh, to get the fiscal note in line.

The bill is further amended. There Is an amendment one number one on line, but we're not going to move that one. Number two is the one we need to move. So thank you.

Alright, proceed. Okay. Thank you Mr. President ProAm. This bill is the one that we do each year working with the Behavioral Health Commission. A couple years ago we set up the Behavioral Health Commission to start having as an umbrella organization over all the behavioral health issues that are going on in the state. And I gotta tell you, the people that have been working on this are just, they, they need sainthood. They're, they really have been wonderful people to work with and their, you know, their expertise and, and they bring so many experiences to, to the, to the, uh, process of working with people that are struggling with these issues. The bill this year, uh, the funding is going to help with a couple of things. One is going to, um, bring money to a receiving center in the UN basin. We were able to fund that with, you know, state, state money and, and combination of state and other money to put that in place. This will be the ongoing operational money for that. And also we'll help to, uh, fund a Family Outreach specialist in the Office of the Medical Examiner. Those are, that's the funding component of it. Some of the others are, you know, recommendations from the commission to change where some of the reporting goes and how the reporting is done. Uh, and men's, the duties of the Behavioral Health Commission, including adding certain duties that were previously designed, assigned to the Utah Substance Use and Mental Health Advisory Committee and bringing other things in line. The bottom line is that as they look through each year and as they meet, they look at the overall com components of the what's going on in mental health, behavioral health in this state. And they're trying to do a better job of aligning those, working with the Department of Health and Human Human Services and others and all the other, uh, silos that are working in this space. Uh, and try to improve the efficiency and help with those with that. So with that, I'm open for any questions.

You Mr. President. Pro

Uh, the difference, uh, there was, this is the behavioral health commission bill that we've doing, working with the Behavioral Health Commission and doing a number of things, including some funding for the operation of a receiving center in the UN Basin. Uh, but the sixth substitute also brings in a, an important piece of, uh, policy from another bill that is dealing with, uh, homeless shelters. Basically just giving the author authorization to expand their capacity under certain critical situations. And so that's what the sixth substitute is doing, is bringing that into this bill.

Uh, further motion a motion to amend amendment number one in my name. That Motion is according motion.

This is a coordination piece with the, uh, funding.

Thank you. As I mentioned, this is the behavioral health commission bill that we've been working on, uh, throughout working in coordination with the commission and, uh, moving forward does the funding piece is to fund, primarily fund the operation of the receiving center in the UN basin. So with that, I'm open for any questions.

Thank you. I'd wa further summation to move that six substitute house bill 5 72 pass.

Oh. For the rest of the day, I make a motion that we suspend the constitutional three reading requirements for the rest of the day or For the rest of the day. I think let's just do it for the rest of the day. I have to do that every day so The rest of The day can't do it for the rest of the session, even though we'd like to.

Yeah. Under suspension the rules I move the six substitute house Bill 5 72 as amended pass.

Uh, thank you Mr. Speaker. A motion to concur.

Uh, yes. Thank you. This was a, a fiscal note bill that, uh, was funded. We, uh, in the Senate amended it to make sure that the fiscal note, uh, uh, matched what was appropriated by EAC. Uh, we also included, um, in the extra components that the good representative from Sandy, uh, had talked about due to, uh, related to the key provisions of the, the homelessness bill. Uh, no conflict there. Exact same language. Uh, so tho those are the basics of what the, the Senate amendments are. Mr. Speaker.