Committee advances pilot to create mental‑health crisis teams for violent students; DHS notes Medicaid cost range

The House Education Committee advanced Senate Bill 451 on Oct. 11, a pilot program intended to create regional mental‑health crisis response teams to serve students whose behavior poses substantial risk of harm to themselves or others.

Representative Scott Richardson, sponsor, said the measure would have the Department of Education and the Department of Human Services "work together, to create, mental health crisis response teams, specifically for these, violent students, and that they would respond to and create, for those students, appropriate action plans to help them deal with the violent tendencies." He described the proposal as a pilot capped at 500 students and estimated the annual cost for that cohort at about $4 million.

Courtney Salas Ford of the Department of Education and DHS Secretary Christie Putnam both briefed the committee. Salas Ford explained how the bill intersects with Alternative Learning Environment (ALE) funding rules: if students are served under the pilot and are ALE‑eligible, ADE would pay ALE reimbursements on a per‑student basis and funding would follow the student. She told members, in the event expenditures exceed the current ALE appropriation, the department would seek reallocation or additional appropriation through the legislature.

Secretary Christie Putnam, Department of Human Services, told the committee DHS' review shows a Medicaid state‑share cost of about $4,000,000 for a three‑month average placement for 500 students and that costs could reach higher levels depending on length and intensity of services. "It is a $4,000,000 Medicaid state share cost," she said, and added that commercial insurers could cover services for students not eligible for Medicaid.

Members from both parties expressed support during a lengthy discussion but raised questions about implementation and safeguards. Representative Kevin McGruder urged caution about how students would be identified and warned against stigma, saying some community interventions and extracurricular mentoring have had salutary outcomes. Other members—Representative Duke, Representative Meeks and Representative Nazarenko among them—said they welcomed the preventative focus and the goal of returning students to their home schools when appropriate.

Department of Education and DHS officials said the pilot would draw on existing programs and facilities where feasible; Melissa Weatherton (DHS) noted day‑treatment models had been retired in 2017 and that the pilot would reuse effective components from prior programs and ongoing pilots. Officials also told the committee that districts would remain the responsible educational authority for transported students and would arrange student transportation for placements, similar to how ALE transport is currently handled.

The fiscal discussion included ADE’s calculation that, in a worst‑case scenario, ADE reimbursements for students in the pilot could amount to roughly $12 million of ALE funding drawn from a $35.7 million ALE appropriation (a scenario ADE staff characterized as unlikely because ALE has not been fully expended in previous years). DHS provided a supplemental fiscal estimate to the committee with the $4–8 million range for state Medicaid share depending on service duration.

After agency testimony and member discussion the committee voted to pass the bill. Sponsors said the pilot is intended to produce implementation details and empirical data to refine any larger program and to reduce the number of students requiring higher‑acuity, longer‑term placements later.