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F I S C A L I M P A C T R E P O R T

SPONSOR Powdrell-Culbert

ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

1/21/08

HB 136

SHORT TITLE

13

th

District Mental Health Court Program

SB

ANALYST C. Sanchez

APPROPRIATION (dollars in thousands)

Appropriation

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

FY08

FY09

$250.0

Recurring

General Fund

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

Duplicates,

(SB 214) Mental Health Court Resource Replacement

Relates to,

(SB 63) First District Mental Health Court; (HB 48) 1

st

District Mental Health Court.

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

Responses Received From

Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC)

Department of Correction (DOC)

NM Health Policy Commission (NMHPC)

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

House Bill 136 appropriates $250,000 from the general fund to the thirteenth judicial district for

expenditure in fiscal year 2009 to provide staff, contractual services, and other operating costs

for an adult mental health court program in the thirteenth judicial district. Any unexpended or

unencumbered balance remaining at the end of fiscal year 2009 shall revert to the general fund.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS

This appropriation is recurring and increases the operating budget of the thirteenth judicial

district court.

The cost of incarcerating mentally ill offenders in jail will be reduced substantially due to their

House Bill 136 – Page

2

earlier release from jail and effective use of existing resources in the community. The costs of

treatment while inmates are incarcerated will be avoided which, while not affecting the court

budget, will be a cost avoidance for the counties, since Medicare/Medicaid benefits stop while

people are incarcerated.

It is likely that some of the individuals who would be adjudicated under this program would be

Medicaid-eligible recipients. If this were the case, any monies used to provide mental health

services that are part of the State Medicaid benefit package would be eligible for Federal match.

The number of eligible clients and the amount of this impact cannot be readily determined.

The state will likely avoid future costs as the program successfully serves more clients.

Nationally, estimates are that between 6% and 15% of people that in jail have serious mental

illnesses. Since there are approximately 150 state prisoners incarcerated in the Sandoval

County Detention Center, it is likely that somewhere between 9 and 23 of them would have been

potential candidates for diversion and treatment under a mental health court system. At least half

of the people in jails have a co-occurring substance abuse addiction and the mental illness

frequently needs to be primary treatment emphasis

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES

According to the AOC, this bill reflects a commitment by the Thirteenth Judicial District to

address the problem of untreated mental illness and its affect on the community.

This bill funds a mental health program that reduces the incidents of arrest and incarceration of

repeat offenders with mental illness using the Court to mandate appropriate treatment rather than

incarceration. This appropriation would allow the thirteenth judicial district court to establish

and operate an adult mental health court program.

Mental Health courts are part of the growing national trend towards therapeutic justice programs,

or problem-solving courts, which are modeled on the nationally successful drug court programs.

Like drug courts, mental health courts combine treatment with the coercive power of the

judiciary and close supervision to ensure participants adhere to the treatment plan and other

program requirements.

As with drug courts, mental health courts require close collaboration between the courts, the

public defender’s and district attorney’s offices. Because of the time demands of such programs,

mental health court budgets often include funds for all three agencies. Such programs also

require treatment staff, in the form of psychologists or psychiatrists, family counselors, as well as

court staff to administer and run the program who are trained for mental health diversion or

supervised release services. This legislation is not contained in the judiciary’s unified budget,

though the unified budget does contain requests for mental health court programs at three other

courts: the 1

st

Judicial District, the 11

th

Judicial District, and at Bernalillo Co. Metropolitan

Court.

PERFORMANCE IMPLICATIONS

FY 08 is the fifth year that the courts are participating in performance based budgeting. This bill

may have an impact on the measures of the district courts in the following areas:

House Bill 136 – Page

3

•

cases disposed as a percentage of cases filed

•

percent change in case filings by case types

•

clearance rate

The success of the program will be measured by tracking the success of treatment and

medication compliance and continued checking of court records for recidivism.

ADMINISTRATIVE IMPLICATIONS

There is an immediate administrative impact on the court resulting from added judicial and staff

time needed to dispose of these types of cases in keeping with the dictates of the mental health

court program. Over the long term, successful treatment of program participants should lead to a

decrease in court workload as such participants recover sufficiently to lead more normal, law-

abiding lives.

The mental health court program could prevent certain individuals from ever being sentenced to

prison or placed on probation or parole for certain crimes, it could reduce the prison population

and probation/parole caseloads to a minimal degree.

CONFLICT, DUPLICATION, COMPANIONSHIP, RELATIONSHIP

(SB 214) Mental Health Court Resource Replacement; (SB 63) First District Mental Health

Court; (HB 48) 1

st

District Mental Health Court.

WHAT WILL BE THE CONSEQUENCES OF NOT ENACTING THIS BILL

Status quo. Mentally ill offenders will remain in jail longer than required due to insufficient staff

to arrange for aftercare.

Untreated or inadequately treated mentally ill offenders will likely re-offend. The program will

reduce the number of mentally ill offenders who are jailed repeatedly. . . “the revolving door."

This occurrence increases the risk to the community and perpetuates chronic re-entry into the

criminal justice system.

CS/mt