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Committee rejects late-session $16 million regional psychiatric funding plan, cites staffing and planning concerns
Summary
The Human Services committee voted to recommend 'do not pass' on Senate Bill 2096, a proposal to appropriate $16 million for regional acute psychiatric treatment. Sponsors argued for closer-to-home services; opponents said the bill lacked vetted business plans and that workforce shortages make rapid build-out risky.
The Human Services committee recommended "do not pass" on Senate Bill 2096, a proposal that would have appropriated $16 million for regional acute psychiatric treatment. Representative Rohrer moved the committee's do-not-pass recommendation and Representative Hawley seconded; the clerk recorded the motion as carried by a roll-call vote reported as 9 yes, 1 no and 3 absent.
Sponsors described the proposal as an effort to expand psychiatric care closer to patients' homes. A sponsor said the $16 million figure in the bill matched the Senate allocation for a St. Alexius proposal but expressed concern that authorizing a broad grant to the department, without specific project proposals and business plans, could lead to poorly justified spending.
Committee members who opposed the bill emphasized that hospitals and providers who had previously presented concrete plans—St. Alexius, an unnamed Williston-area provider, and Altru Health System in Grand Forks—had analyses showing bed need and operational plans. One member said those applicants had prepared proposals and financial justifications; by contrast, giving a lump-sum grant to the department "and having them come up with some of the parameters is maybe not the right way to go with this kind of money."
Several members also raised persistent workforce concerns. The committee heard that building or funding additional beds will not solve access problems if staff are not available to operate them. "As much as we could fund all the buildings in the world, if there's no one to staff them, we're not gonna get it done," one member said.
Committee members discussed alternative approaches such as supporting expansions inside existing hospitals, tuition reimbursements and grow-your-own workforce incentives that some hospitals have proposed to address staffing shortages. The committee recorded a do-not-pass recommendation and noted that proponents could return with targeted proposals tied to business plans and staffing commitments.
The clerk's roll-call recorded the motion as carried 9 yes, 1 no, 3 absent. Committee members said the decision reflected concerns about late-session timing, the absence of firm project plans for the department to administer, and unresolved staffing and operational questions.
