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Committee advances bill to create multi‑agency team to speed placements for children stuck after crisis treatment
Summary
Lawmakers recommended do‑pass for House Bill 677 as amended to establish a multi‑agency “MATCH” team to identify appropriate placements for children who remain in crisis or psychiatric facilities after discharge is appropriate; the bill was amended to remove several sections and passed with funding language dependent on appropriations.
A House committee voted to recommend passage of House Bill 677 after Representative Dempsey described a pattern in which children who receive crisis or psychiatric care cannot be discharged because no guardian or placement is available. The measure would establish a multi‑agency treatment coordination team ("MATCH team") to find appropriate placements and require annual reporting to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees.
"There's been a discovery recently that we have an awful lot of children that are stuck," Representative Dempsey said. She described children who spend several days in crisis treatment and then have nowhere appropriate to go, sometimes remaining in hotels or facilities because no placement exists. Dempsey said the bill's section 1 would create the MATCH team and that other sections address funding; she indicated sections 1, 5 and 6 were the focus for the committee hearing.
Candace Perez, identified in the transcript as commissioner of the Georgia Department of Human Services, told the committee the department encounters these situations frequently. Perez said the cases are not always abandonment in the criminal sense; families sometimes are reachable but lack resources or fear consequences such as child protective investigations. She warned that children can be placed into foster care unnecessarily and that the situation strains agency budgets and workforce. "For our agency, what that means is that they come into care unnecessarily," Perez said.
Stan Jones of Nelson Mullins, representing provider groups including Together Georgia and the Multi Agency Alliance for Children, urged the committee to advance the bill and noted the financial complexities. He said existing psychiatric residential treatment facilities and hospitals serve children across multiple systems and that a MATCH structure could coordinate care more effectively while work continues to expand crisis and step‑down capacity.
Committee members asked how many children are affected and whether intermediate placements exist; testimony estimated that the state is caring for "hundreds" of children in custody in these high‑cost placements and cited examples of per‑day costs as high as $1,000. The bill requires an annual MATCH team report to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees by Dec. 31 and directs that implementation depends on available appropriations, testimony said.
The committee approved an amendment striking sections 2, 3 and 4 and advanced the bill as amended on a voice vote (LC461197S). The transcript records that legislative staff reviewed the text to update cross‑references before the vote. No roll‑call tally was recorded in the hearing transcript.
