Honorable Four Price, Chair, House Committee on Public Health
FROM:
Ursula Parks, Director, Legislative Budget Board
IN RE:
HB2467 by Davis, Sarah (Relating to a grant program to support the provision of critical incident stress debriefing to certain peace officers.), Committee Report 1st House, Substituted
Estimated Two-year Net Impact to General Revenue Related Funds for HB2467, Committee Report 1st House, Substituted: an impact of $0 through the biennium ending August 31, 2019.
The bill would make no appropriation but could provide the legal basis for an appropriation of funds to implement the provisions of the bill.
Fiscal Year
Probable Net Positive/(Negative) Impact to General Revenue Related Funds
2018
$0
2019
$0
2020
$0
2021
$0
2022
$0
Fiscal Year
Probable Savings/(Cost) from Federal Funds 555
Change in Number of State Employees from FY 2017
2018
($908,042)
1.0
2019
($657,042)
1.0
2020
($658,042)
1.0
2021
($657,042)
1.0
2022
($658,042)
1.0
Fiscal Analysis
The bill would Government Code relating to a grant program to support the provision of critical incident stress debriefing to certain peace officers.
The bill would require the Criminal Justice Division (CJD) in the Trusteed Programs Within the Office of the Governor to establish and administer a grant program for law enforcement agencies to apply for grants to provide critical incident stress debriefing to peace officers. The bill would also allow the grants to fund the development of critical incident stress debriefing curricula, materials or best practices for use by law enforcement agencies. The bill would require CJD to establish certain criteria and procedures for the grant program. The bill would require CJD to biennially report the results and performance of the grant program. The bill would require the CJD to establish the program by October 1, 2017 and to begin to award grants not later that January 1, 2018.
The bill would take effect September 1, 2017.
Methodology
The Office of the Governor anticipates the proposed program expenses will be eligible for federal Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) funding administered by CJD. Based on information provided by the Office of the Governor, the agency would have an estimated cost of $908,042 in fiscal year 2018, and $657,042 in fiscal year 2019 in Federal Funds to implement the provisions of the legislation, related to the curriculum development, grants, and one Full-time Equivalent (FTE) to implement the program.
According to fiscal year 2016 information submitted by law enforcement agencies to the Attorney General's Office, there were 273 incidents of officer-involved injuries or deaths across 93 separate agencies, and 33 incidents of peace officer injuries/deaths across 17 separate agencies due to firearms. This totals 306 incidents across 110 agencies. At an estimated 35% application rate, CJD expects to fund 39 agencies under this program.
According to the Office of the Governor, Critical Incident Stress Debriefings (CISD) generally consist of a small homogeneous group of officers who have had the same level of exposure to the incident 24-72 hours after the incident. These CISD groups are led by a specially trained team of 2-4 people depending on group size. The debriefings generally take 1-3 hours to complete and may require several sessions a week over 2-3 weeks. Considering maximum VOCA contractual rates ($81.25/hr) and using the above CISD guidelines, the Office of the Governor anticipates that personnel costs for each CISD performed will be approximately $5000.
This analysis assumes each agency would experience an average of three critical incidents per fiscal year, resulting in awards of $585,000 (39 agencies x 3 incidents x $5,000 per debriefing) each fiscal year for a total of $1,170,000 in grants over the 2018-19 biennium.
The Office of the Governor anticipates a one-time cost of $250,000 in fiscal year 2018 to develop or adopt evidence-based curriculum to be implemented across all agencies.
According to the Office of the Governor, one FTE would be hired for the administration and monitoring of the grants, funded with Federal VOCA dollars. The costs would include one Grants Coordinator I ($52,000), employee benefits such as retirement and insurance ($19,042), other operating expenses ($1,000 every other year), and travel ($1,000), for a total of $145,084 for the 2018-19 biennium.
The Department of Public Safety and the Department of Criminal Justice indicated that the duties and responsibilities associated with implementing the provisions of the bill could be accomplished within each agency's existing resources.
Local Government Impact
According to the Office of the Governor, the bill would result in a probable cost savings of $1,170,000 to local governments that seek to implement a critical incident debriefing program.
Source Agencies:
300 Trusteed Programs Within the Office of the Governor, 405 Department of Public Safety, 696 Department of Criminal Justice