Proposal is a “scaled down” version of one that died at end of 2024 session
By Shaun Chornobroff
SCDailyGazette.com
COLUMBIA — A bill merging a trio of agencies in South Carolina’s notoriously fractured public health system advanced Thursday, Feb. 20, to the Senate floor, less than a month after Gov. Henry McMaster publicly asked legislators to “fix this.”
The bill creates the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities, which combines separate agencies that oversee services for people with disabilities, mental health issues, and addictions to drugs or alcohol.
People who need assistance often need services from a combination of those agencies, said Sen. Tom Davis, one of the bill’s co-sponsors.
“Those with substance abuse problems sometimes have mental disorders. Some with mental disorders also have disabilities,” the Beaufort Republican told the S.C. Daily Gazette. “This is a way to better deliver those services to those populations.”
He called it a “scaled down” version of last year’s effort to merge six public health agencies, which the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus killed with a procedural maneuver as the clock ran out on the session.
Last month, Forbes Advisor ranked South Carolina eighth-worst nationwide in mental health care. According to the report, the Palmetto State has the nation’s highest percentage of youth with depression not receiving services, and the seventh-highest percentage of adults not receiving mental health care because they can’t afford it.
The state’s own consultant painted an even grimmer picture in a report that concluded “South Carolina is the most fragmented structure for health and human services delivery in the country.”
That’s why McMaster again used the governor’s bully pulpit last month to call for “immediate changes” at the Department of Mental Health and the Department of Disabilities and Special Needs. Both are governed by a board of commissioners “who are accountable to no one,” he said during his Jan. 29 State of the State address.
The state’s fragmented system “causes unnecessary suffering,” he said.
“Our people with physical disabilities, special needs and mental health issues seeking assistance must navigate through a confusing landscape of offices, agencies, and officials as they seek help for a loved one or dependent,” McMaster said.
“They fall through the cracks of a system that does not coordinate, communicate or collaborate,” he continued. “We must fix this.”
The bill, as he requested, would put his office in charge.
The Department of Behavioral Health would become a Cabinet agency. Its director would be appointed by the governor, with Senate approval, and answer directly to the governor.
Beyond the agencies overseeing mental health services and disabilities, the third agency the bill would combine is the Department of Alcohol and Other Abuse Services, which is already a Cabinet agency.
“We’re giving the governor, the chief executive, control over the execution of the laws in regard to mental health and disabilities and special needs that he has not had,” Davis said.
In December, the U.S. Department of Justice sued the state over the treatment of people with serious mental illnesses. The lawsuit accused the state of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act by warehousing people in institutions rather than providing enough services to enable them to live in the community.
The legislation requires the agency’s director to craft and carry out a plan that ensures South Carolinians with disabilities are “to the greatest extent possible” provided those services.
The bill, which was pre-filed in December, has some powerful backing.
Beyond Davis, chairman of the Senate Labor Commerce and Industry Committee, its chief sponsors are Senate Finance Chairman Harvey Peeler and Senate President Thomas Alexander. Giving it bipartisan support is co-sponsor Sen. Tameika Isaac Devine, D-Columbia.
“The need for these services and the combination of these three agencies will be in the best interest of our citizens,” Alexander, R-Walhalla, told the Senate Medical Affairs Committee ahead of the vote.
The Senate will likely take up the bill on the chamber floor next week.
Shaun Chornobroff covers the state legislature for the S.C. Daily Gazette, part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
