Olney, Young County take Austin
AUSTIN - Leaders from the City of Olney descended on the state capital last week along with Young and Jack County officials to bring the attention of state lawmakers to issues of concern for both rural communities. Olney Mayor Pro Tem Tom Parker, Olney Police Chief Dan Birbeck, Olney Chamber of Commerce Director Deidre Brown, Olney Hamilton Hospital Board Chairman Dale Lovett, and licensed clinical social worker Mona Bernhardt spent time knocking on doors at the Austin Capitol building to talk to lawmakers and their staffs about the city’s water, mental health, education, housing, and infrastructure needs. The group met with Rep. David Spiller, (R-Olney) and Sen. Drew Springer (R-Olney), as well as Rep. James Frank (R-Archer City), the chairman of the House Human Services Committee, and Rep. Glenn Rogers (R-Graford), Vice Chairman of the House Land & Resource Management Commit tee and Sen. Charles Perry (R-Lubbock), the chairman of the Water, Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee and Vice Chairman of the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services. They also met with legislative aides for several other lawmakers.
Chief Birbeck and Ms. Bernhardt focused on promoting a Young-Jack County plan to alleviate the region’s problems accessing state-funded mental health services. The counties have been blocked from referring patients to North Texas State Hospital because of staff shortages for nearly two years. They want to create rural crisis response teams to respond to mental health emergencies and provide home-based mental health support, and use the Jack County Jail to house and provide treatment for mentally ill inmates, among other initiatives.
“I think the message of the crisis in mental health in rural communities was delivered to key lawmakers and was well received,” Chief Birbeck said.
Lawmakers advised the Young-Jack team to request the funding via a “rider” on the appropriations bill.
“The trip felt very successful,” Ms. Bernhardt said. “We met with eight legislators or their aides who not only listened and encouraged our solutions but also shared news about bills that line up with what we’re looking to do. It was great to hear that several legislators were already aware of our issues.”
Mr. Parker focused on water projects, and learned from Sen. Perry and his aides that although “there is a tremendous amount of money that is being earmarked for water development and infrastructure west of I-35,” the City of Olney may have to jump through a few hoops to get funding. Mr. Parker was looking for about $60 million to refurbish the City’s aging water infrastructure.
“I went looking for money for water infrastructure - valves, pipes, water towers … however, there are people who are bigger than us and there are people who have less than us,” he said. “[City Administrator] Arpegea [Pagsuberon] and I will be working on submitting funding documents that are due March 9-10.”
If the City does not qualify for funding for those items, funding is available for engineering studies, he said. “We’ve got a better than 90 percent chance of getting that [engineering] money,” he said. “Being part of the program, you have better odds [of getting infrastructure funding] because you’re there [in the program].”
Mr. Parker considered the visit a success. “What this showed is we need to be down there in front of them every six to eight weeks, year round,” he said. “As I’m listening to them describe how they earmark money, these conversations have been taking place for an extended period of time. There is a system in place and you have to work the system and we have not been diligent at that.”
Mr. Lovett, a retired teacher, met with Rep. Spiller and Sen. Springer about the impact that school vouchers would have on rural education. “I was one of 240 people there on behalf of Texas public education,” Mr. Lovett said. “We were pointing out the need for continuing attention to rural education because, as they call it ‘west of [Interstate]-35,’ has a greater population of students and a greater population but it’s just spread out. We were … encouraging them to support rural education, especially against vouchers. [Rural families] already have school choice. A student in Olney can go to Newcastle, Graham, Throckmorton, Seymour, Wichita Falls - they can go anywhere they want and the tax money follows them through the average daily attendance.”
Although Gov. Greg Abbott has listed the passage of school vouchers as an “emergency” item this legislative session. Sen. Springer told the educators that “he is scrutinizing the way the funds are distributed,” Mr. Lovett said. “So if there is not accountability … then he is not in favor of it.”
Ms. Brown made her capitol visit with Young County You Lead, led by Penny Berend of Texas A & M AgriLife Extension Service and Cathy Partridge of the Graham Chamber of Commerce and Convention and Visitors Bureau. The group, whose mission is to train community leaders, talked to lawmakers about mental health, staffing shortages, infrastructure funding, housing shortages, the fentanyl crisis and border and power grid issues, she said.