Hello Friends, Hayley Broadway and Kris Cue’ here.
With great sorrow, we are once again having to report that the Texas Legislature did not pass our Co-Navigator services bill. Senator Kolkhorst, the Senate Health & Human Services Committee Chairperson, took great issue with the fiscal note, and was also concerned that family members might be paid as co-navigators for their DeafBlind relatives. Regrettably, we did not find out about these concerns until it was apparently too late.
We did try to quickly address Senator Kolkhorst’s concerns, and were of the belief that she would finally calendar the required public hearing for Friday, May 19. She didn’t.
The fiscal note that was submitted this session, based on information provided by the Health & Human Services Commission (HHSC), increased the total projected costs (“five year impact”) by 86%, compared to the fiscal note submitted by this same agency two years ago. This reflects, in large part, 1) HHSC’s addition of a full time “data analyst V” position and 2) the addition of real time transcription services for the stakeholder advisory council meetings — a tremendous increase in cost for advisory council meetings. For specific HHSC cost estimates listed in this fiscal note, click here.
We do not know the reason(s) behind HHSC’s 86% increase in projected costs, as there were absolutely no changes whatsoever in the bill. HHSC did not reach out to us to get our input, and regrettably, we assumed they were going to use the same, frugal figures that they provided in 2021. Moreover, the 2021 fiscal note was based on the legislature’s expressed support of our bill — conditioned on a greatly pared down fiscal note from that submitted in 2019. All of this to say, this session’s fiscal note sabotaged our bill, and years of effort to establish much-needed Co-Navigator services.
We want to thank our lobbyists, Aaron Gregg and Ikenna Okoro from Balch & Bingham; and Kate Goodrich from Jackson Walker. They tried their very best and are as shocked as we are about this unfortunate turn of events. We also want to thank the Texas Association for the Deaf and Austin DeafBlind Service Center for again providing the invaluable support of these very seasoned and skilled lobbyists. And we thank Jeff Harper for his wonderful technical support of our website and eBlasts.
And long-standing, tireless advocates personally reached out last month to members of the Senate HHS committee, especially Senator Kolkhorst, to strongly advocate for a public hearing. The list includes: David Myers (former Director of HHSC/Deaf & Hard of Hearing Services), Cyral Miller (Chair of the Alliance of and for Visually Impaired Texans and former Director of DeafBlind Outreach Program at TSBVI), Mark Seeger, Nancy Riley, Nancy Thomas and Jacque Orr. We’re certain that we’ve overlooked some people. Please know that we appreciate everybody’s quick response to our urgent May 9 Call-to-Action eBlast.
After taking a long break from this arduous journey, we will regroup and look at our efforts going forward. Feel free to contact us if you have any helpful ideas or comments.
PT Hugs!
Hayley Broadway
Kris Cue’
Texas DeafBlind Coalition