The BHEC Mandate and The Discrimination Clause
Today I want to deal specifically with (2) issues that bothered me greatly during yesterday’s BHEC meeting. A lack of understanding about BHEC’s role in our profession, the BHEC Mandate, and the Discrimination Clause. Everything we're about to lay out was taken from the public meetings held on Oct 12th and 27th; it was and is available to anyone who attended the meetings or wishes to watch a replay recording.
THE BHEC MANDATE
BHEC exists because the Sunset Commission had it created for the following, specific reasons:
- To clean up the mess created by the previous mental health boards including licensing request and complaint processing backlogs.
- Then, going forward, to provide an independent layer of oversight to the mental health boards in the area of rule-making.
This is built around a new protocol that requires those at the Board-level to provide the Council with evidence of need, and rationale for, any requested new rules or changes to existing regulations. The Council is the body that will approve new and amended rules, not the Board(s)! If needed, the Council will request opinion from the State's attorneys to ensure compliance, and a sub-ordinate position to current law.
- To assume the administrative duties of the Board(s). BHEC is the administrative arm of each Board to ensure that once the backlog mess is eliminated that that does not happen again.
THAT is what BHEC exists for. They're cleaning up someone elses' mess.
So, What Happened?
Oct 12th
The Council voted to remove the discrimination clause. Why? Two primary reasons:
#1-As part of the on-going mandate of BHEC to clean up the mess left by the previous Boards, a mess including individual sets of Board rules for each profession with conflicting regulations.
Part of what's happening is the "normalization" of the core rules for each of the Boards. There's no sense in having the same clause in each set of Board Rules written in different language, OR, having regulations that conflict with or are over-reaching in their relation to State law.
#2-To bring the Board rules in alignment with existing state law according to HB-1995, passed last year to assure that rules & regs of governed agencies do not exceed the reach of existing state law.
Then, a preliminary opinion was obtained from the OOG regarding the clause's viability for inclusion and the State's attorneys indicated that their initial opinion was that the clause exceeded the reach of existing State law and should be either removed or re-worded to sync with the current State law.
Because of public comment the Council left the clause in place, electing to discuss the issue in more depth, vote again on an updated course of action, and allow public comment at the Oct 27th BHEC meeting.
Oct 27th
Senator Menendez spoke and indicated that they were hopeful that they could effect satisfactory changes to the wording of existing law.
The Council voted to take the following course of action:
#1-Leave the current discrimination clause in place for now.
#2-Ask the State attorneys in the OOG to officially comment on the suitability of the discrimination clause as it is currently written as to whether or not it exceeds the reach of current state law and must be either re-written or removed. Then,…
#3-Act accordingly based upon the State attorneys' ruling.
It was very obvious to me that those that oppose the removal of the discrimination clause chose only to hear the decision to leave the clause in place and are running with that as a final and permanent decision. It is not.
SO, WHAT'S NEXT?
#1. The clause remains while....
#2. BHEC requests an opinion from the State's attorneys on the viability of the clause in its current form.
#3. Once that opinion is rendered in writing then BHEC will re-visit this subject and take action that comports with their mandate and current law.
Any other interpretation of what happened is wrong because the record of facts of what happened and what was said is available to anyone who wishes to see it and view the individual actions within their overall context.
Plan Smart. Be Safe. Serve Others.
Kathleen Mills, LPC-S, CEAP