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Behavioral Health Executive Council seeks funding for psychology exam design, staffing and NPDB continuous queries
Summary
The Behavioral Health Executive Council (BHEC) presented budget requests to the Senate finance committee that include $125,000 to begin designing a state-owned psychology licensing exam, funding to fill six vacant positions, and $400,000 to subscribe to a continuous National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB) query service for renewals.
The Senate Committee on Finance heard the Behavioral Health Executive Council (BHEC) present its 2026-27 budget recommendations and exceptional items, including a request to fund the initial design of a Texas-owned psychology licensing exam and to subscribe to a continuous National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB) query service for renewals.
The Legislative Budget Board recommended funding BHEC at just over $11,200,000 in all funds, a 2.7% biannual increase with no change in authorized FTEs. The agency identified two fiscal and policy issues in its packet: a request for $125,000 in General Revenue to fund early design work for a Texas-owned psychology licensing exam and a reclassification of several FTEs into indirect administration to more accurately reflect costs.
Daryl Spinks, executive director of BHEC, told senators the council and affected licensing boards were concerned about proposed changes to the national psychology licensing exam and want the option to develop a state-owned exam. "We are statutorily required to do NPDB queries for applicants and all renewals," Spinks said, explaining the agency is performing queries for applicants but lacks staff to review query self‑report results for more than 30,000 renewals annually. He said subscribing to a continuous NPDB query service is the more cost-effective and feasible option to comply with the statutory requirement and to address an SAO audit finding.
BHEC also requested funding to fill six vacant FTEs (two attorneys, one administrative assistant, one ombudsman, and two licensed nurse practitioners in supervisory roles) to reduce a growing backlog of complaints. Spinks said each of the agency's four staff attorneys currently carries about 125 cases and that workload is growing.
The agency asked the committee to leave certain FTEs and salary funding in licensing and enforcement strategies rather than moving them to indirect administration, saying the small agency's work is tightly concentrated in those functions. BHEC additionally requested a comptroller-contingency to pay judgments or settlements should the agency lose litigation enforcing Chapter 108 of the Occupations Code; the agency described that request as a narrow contingency tied to statutory enforcement rather than rules enforcement.
No committee votes were taken. Senators did not ask substantive questions during the presentation; BHEC materials and the LBB packet will inform the committee's budget deliberations on Article 8.
