New York Senate Bill S06081 Latest Draft

   
  STATE OF NEW YORK ________________________________________________________________________ 6081 2025-2026 Regular Sessions  IN SENATE March 5, 2025 ___________ Introduced by Sen. PARKER -- read twice and ordered printed, and when printed to be committed to the Committee on Mental Health AN ACT to amend the mental hygiene law, in relation to establishing the child psychiatry access project; to amend the tax law, in relation to establishing a gift for the child psychiatry access project; and to amend the state finance law, in relation to establishing the child psychiatry access fund The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem- bly, do enact as follows: 1 Section 1. The mental hygiene law is amended by adding a new section 2 7.42 to read as follows: 3 § 7.42 Child psychiatry access project. 4 (a) The office shall, within amounts appropriated therefor, establish 5 or may contract for the establishment of regional child psychiatry 6 access projects across the state to provide primary care providers with 7 timely access to child psychiatry consultations in order to assist such 8 primary care providers in meeting the mental health needs of the chil- 9 dren and adolescents and their families. 10 (b) Regional teams shall consist of a child psychiatrist with appro- 11 priate support staff, and be established to provide child psychiatric 12 telephone consultations to primary care providers within the designated 13 region resulting in one of the following, depending upon the needs of 14 the child patient and/or family: 15 1. Responding to the primary care physician's patient specific ques- 16 tions about behavioral health; 17 2. Assisting the family in accessing routine, local behavioral health 18 services, with the understanding there may be a waiting period; 19 3. Providing transitional support to the child patient and family 20 until the family can access routine, local behavioral health services; 21 4. Making referral to a team child psychiatrist for an acute psycho- 22 pharmacologic or diagnostic consultation. EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets [ ] is old law to be omitted. LBD10658-01-5 
 S. 6081 2 1 (c) Regional teams may also provide mental health resource services, 2 educational services, mental health advocacy and other related services 3 to the provider and mental health community. 4 (d) Child psychiatry access services provided under this section shall 5 not discriminate against children and families, based upon their insur- 6 ance status, when such services are accessed through their primary care 7 provider practicing in the region. 8 § 2. The tax law is amended by adding a new section 628-a to read as 9 follows: 10 § 628-a. Gift for the child psychiatry access project. Effective for 11 any tax year commencing on or after January first, two thousand twenty- 12 five, an individual in any taxable year may elect to contribute to the 13 child psychiatry access fund. Such contribution shall be in any whole 14 dollar amount and shall not reduce the amount of state tax owed by such 15 individual. The commissioner shall include space on the personal income 16 tax return form to enable a taxpayer to make such contribution. 17 Notwithstanding any other provision of law, all revenues collected 18 pursuant to this section shall be paid to the child psychiatry access 19 fund established pursuant to and used only for those purposes enumerated 20 in section eighty-nine-l of the state finance law. 21 § 3. The state finance law is amended by adding a new section 89-l to 22 read as follows: 23 § 89-l. Child psychiatry access fund. 1. A special fund to be known 24 as the "child psychiatry access fund" is hereby established in the joint 25 custody of the state comptroller and the commissioner of taxation and 26 finance. 27 2. The fund shall consist of all moneys transferred to such fund 28 pursuant to law, all moneys required by any provision of law to be paid 29 into or credited to the fund, all moneys from gifts pursuant to section 30 six hundred twenty-eight-a of the tax law and any interest earnings 31 which may accrue from the investment of moneys in the fund. Nothing 32 contained in this section shall prevent the state from receiving grants, 33 gifts or bequests for the purposes of the fund as defined in this 34 section and depositing them into the fund according to law. 35 3. Moneys of the fund, when allocated, shall be made available to the 36 office of mental health solely for the purpose of establishing child 37 psychiatry projects pursuant to section 7.42 of the mental hygiene law. 38 4. Moneys shall be payable from the fund on the audit and warrant of 39 the comptroller on vouchers approved and certified by the commissioner 40 of mental health. 41 § 4. This act shall take effect on the ninetieth day after it shall 42 have become a law.