State leaders won’t commit to specifics about how much they might invest in children’s mental health

Students arrive at a middle school in El Paso on Aug. 19, 2021. In the past year, Texas Health and Human Services has spent about $3.6 billion on behavioral health services for children and adults, but Texas still ranks 51st among states and Washington, D.C., when it comes to per capita mental health spending. (Credit: Ivan Pierre Aguirre for The Texas Tribune)

Jelynne LeBlanc Jamison makes the same impossible choice every month, when hundreds of children she can’t afford to treat show up at her publicly funded San Antonio mental health agency, desperate for help, in severe mental and behavioral distress.

Turning them away would leave her money for a more robust staff at The Center for Health Care Services, where she is director at one of 39 local mental health authorities in the state — and the only one in Bexar County.