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Senate adopts amended bill to create task force on mental-health services for foster and adopted children
Summary
The Utah Senate passed Senate Bill 33 after adopting an amendment that removed the words "entirely" and "capitated," broadening the task force's scope to study options for delivering mental-health services to foster and adopted children; the bill passed 28-1 and will be referred to the House.
The Utah Senate on Jan. 18 passed Senate Bill 33, creating a task force to study mental-health services for foster and adopted children, after adopting an amendment that removes two limiting words from the draft language.
Senator Davis, the bill's sponsor, said the task force would look at “human services and mental health services for foster and adopted children” and that the original language risked constraining the group to a single delivery model.
Senator Allen moved to delete the words “entirely” (line 34) and “capitated” (line 35) from the bill text. Allen told colleagues the change was intended to avoid narrowly defining the solutions the task force could consider.
Senator Maine and others asked whether removing those words would effectively open the definition of eligible providers to “any certified Medicaid provider.” Senator Davis responded that the change was intended to allow the task force to consider a broader range of delivery models — including, potentially, a capitated system — and that final decisions would be the subject of later proposals.
Senator Davis also said the bill carries a boilerplate fiscal note to cover typical task-force costs and that the Legislature has a process for placing task-force proposals on a list for consideration and funding.
Senator Davis made a disclosure that he previously worked in public relations for Valley Mental Health and noted that the bill originated from a task force rather than the mental-health industry. He stated this for the record as a potential conflict of interest.
The Senate adopted the amendment and then passed the bill as amended on a roll-call vote of 28 ayes, 1 nay and 0 absent. The bill will be referred to the House for further consideration.
The task force created by SB 33 will have a legislative membership and is designed to study how the state can provide appropriate, state-funded mental-health services to foster and adopted children; specifics about membership size, schedule and final funding will be set later as part of the task-force implementation process.
