I hope I didn't say anything that would make my daughter embarrassed.
No, I'm sure they know what it's like to have us as parents.
You're right. They do. Yeah.
Welcome to County Connection,
the official podcast of the Washington State Association of Counties,
where we dive into the legislative issues shaping the future of our communities
from budgets to public safety, infrastructure, to elections.
We'll break down what's happening in Olympia and how it impacts counties from
across the Evergreen State. Stay informed,
stay engaged and join us as we amplify the voice of Washington's 39 counties.
All right. Welcome back everybody to episode two of the County Connection.
I'm Paul Jewell,
the government relations director for the Washington State Association of
Counties. Glad that you're with us. Hopefully this,
isn't your first time with us, but if it is, welcome to the podcast.
Here today I've got with me Brad Banks.
Brad's a policy consultant with the Washington State Association of Counties.
He's working really closely with us during this legislative session and really
for the last several months,
he's taken over a lot of the portfolio from former employee Juliana Rowe.
Good to have you with us, Brad. This is your second time on the podcast.
Welcome back. Yeah. Thanks so much, Paul. Really appreciate it. Yeah.
Big shoes to fill with Juliana, but, but happy to do it and happy to be kind of,
out there keeping the, keep my eye on all the public safety, human services,
behavioral health issues on behalf of the association.
Well, that is a huge task. It's a pretty good book of business.
You mentioned behavioral health, human services, public safety. I mean,
that includes all kinds of different things that counties have their hands in
and responsibilities for. What's going on in that world right now? Yeah.
I mean, it's great. I mean, and I would, I would argue not only is it,
is it pretty heavy on the policy side, but there's a lot of fiscal implications,
right? To county budgets and,
and just sort of the broader community systems that counties have to be engaged
in. So it's huge. Yeah. So there's a lot going on in that space.
And they all seem to intersect as well. I mean, that's the other thing, right?
I mean, there's so much of a movement these days to,
to put more and more emphasis on the intersect between behavioral health and
public safety and our criminal justice system, right? And, and how we,
how we try to get people more upstream before they,
before potentially they have that,
that unfortunate interaction with our law and justice system, right?
Because it's far cheaper, right? And ultimately better for the individual,
which really should be the goal. Absolutely. Well,
getting into that a little bit,
you wanted to talk specifically about a particular bill that has been introduced
in the first part of the session. And I think that was House Bill 1218.
Is that right? That's right. That's right.
So House Bill 1218 is a bit of a trailer bill from a couple of sessions ago,
really focused, it's part of the Trueblood lawsuit that that's,
the state has been sort of engaged in for a number of years and has been trying
to get in compliance with.
This really has to do with when this started several years ago,
a backlog of individuals waiting for competency evaluations and restorations up
at Western state and in state hospitals. And that,
and that backlog really in some cases was pretty dramatic, right?
You had some folks waiting for an evaluation from the state, you know,
from DSHS or wherever, sometimes longer than if they had just been,
if their case had gone to trial, they'd been adjudicated,
if they'd have been found guilty and had served their sentence, right?
So it was really an unfortunate situation that the state found itself in.
Well, there was a big lawsuit about it, right?
It was, right. So this huge lawsuit came in place to sort of try to deal with
that, to motivate through fines,
some hefty fines to the state to sort of get them back in compliance.
And it's taken a number of years and really some significant investment at the
state level to really expand out the hospital bed capacity at the state level.
And for the first time, actually this year,
the state is in compliance as we stand now in terms of clearing out that backlog
and reducing the wait times for folks awaiting those competency evaluations and
restoration. So,
so let me get my, my arms wrapped around this a little bit.
So the problem was we had too many people basically in the system that needed to
be evaluated. That's right. These competency evaluations.
And what's a competency evaluation? Well, it's,
so when a person is arrested and brought in and then potentially charged for a
crime, and that could be anything from a misdemeanor up to a high level felony,
there's a process that can be initiated either through, by the prosecution,
although more likely it'll be probably initiated through the defense,
through the public defense or perhaps at the judicial level with the judge or
the court level rather with the judge really saying, um,
we're not clear if this individual, um,
is is is cognitively able to stand trial. Um, okay. Right.
And so are they,
are they competent and able to understand everything that's going on?
Maybe the defense is seeing some,
some indications that there's something to be worried about.
And so they'll petition the court to say, Hey, before, before we proceed,
it's our recommendation that my client receive a competency evaluation. Okay.
So this doesn't happen with every,
every person that's arrested for a crime that might be charged.
But in the, in cases where maybe someone is showing some cognitive impairment or
maybe defense, the defense wants to make a, uh,
use that as a potential defense for whatever charges being levied that they
then go through this competency evaluation.
You're saying that we basically had too many people kind of in that system
waiting for those evaluations and not enough ability. Is it a matter of,
you said that the state has added beds.
Was it a matter of having room in, uh,
in mental health facilities, uh,
in state facilities in order to accommodate those people and actually get them
from the jail to those facilities or, or what was kind of a hang up there?
I think it was actually kind of a mix of things.
I think if you had gone back 10 or 15 years, you would say, you know, we,
we didn't see as many of these types of cases or, or orders, right,
coming from the justice system.
I think that was really because there was sort of, you know, for, for someone to,
sort of be deemed, you know, incompetent to stand trial or, or, um,
having competency issues was much rarer, right?
Was it just because there was less of it or was it less?
I think it was less awareness, less understanding, um,
less effort was being put in. I mean, whether, and I think, you know,
I was talking to the prosecutors association, um, this week about this. I mean,
I think there's just been a trend over the last decade or two in not only kind of
identifying and understanding why people might be intersecting with the,
with the criminal justice system and what may be the root cause of that.
It may not necessarily always be out of malicious intent, right?
It could be because they are experiencing a behavioral health crisis of some
variety. And so I think as we just, as a,
as a society have become more aware of that, I think the, the,
the role of our criminal justice system has shifted and the levers that are now
being pulled, uh,
we've seen that become a more common approach to dealing with these types of
individuals. And I do think it's both, right? I mean, I think if you're, if you're a,
if you're a public defender and you see that type of behavior with your client,
right? You certainly want to do that.
But there's also a strategy component there, you know, potentially as well.
And I actually don't mean that in a negative way. I mean,
if you're trying to aggressively defend your client, which is their job,
these are mechanisms to do that.
John Adams used to say providing for a vigorous public defense for those who
can't afford it. It's one of the cornerstones,
one of the foundational cornerstones of our, of our institutions, uh,
in the United States.
It's exactly right. And I think,
I think maybe where it started to get a little out of control was there became a
perception that if you put somebody on a competency evaluation or, or,
or ordered them for competency evaluation, that you were somehow, uh,
that somehow that equated to treatment, right?
And that you were moving them upstream into a treatment,
almost like a pseudo diversion, right? In some sort of way,
or like a pseudo jail diversion type of program when really that's not what it is
at all, right? They sort of go and they sit in a,
in a hospital and wait for, uh, you know,
a representative from the SHS to come and evaluate their situation and report
back to the court.
And so I think that that period of time is what caused the backlog, right?
And then there was more understanding sort of,
but they weren't actually going to hospitals in many cases, right?
So many of them were sitting in prisons waiting because there wasn't room.
Right. And you said that in some cases they were actually sitting in those
prisons and those jails. Yes. I assume in county jails and many cases.
Yeah, both. Yeah. Yeah.
Longer than they would have even had to serve a sentence.
Had they just served a maximum sentence? Yeah. Yeah.
So you can see how a lawsuit could develop from that sort of a situation.
Yeah. It was pretty bad and obviously horrible for these individuals. And so,
and extremely costly from the state perspective.
And so unjust. It seems like.
Exactly. Right. And so again,
I think what we're seeing is there's been an evolution in the way we think in
the way that our criminal justice system behaves,
how we've brought in the thinking of behavioral health and to try to,
to try to modernize our system,
to have a more 21st century type of criminal justice system.
But we're not there yet. Right. And there's still room to grow. Okay.
So this bill has something to do with that situation. It does. So,
as I mentioned just a moment ago,
so for the first time since the lawsuit was initially filed.
And did you mention the name of the lawsuit? What was it called? You know,
I don't remember the name off the top of my head. It, it's basic. It was,
something with Trueblood. And, and let's just call it Trueblood. Yeah.
And there's Trueblood class members, for example. And those were those,
individuals who were part of that initial lawsuit who were, had been waiting.
Okay. For extended periods. So just for our, our listeners,
if they were to Google like Trueblood lawsuit, would it, would it,
would Washington state Trueblood lawsuit, it would pop right up. Okay. Yep. Okay.
So as we look at, um,
where the state sort of currently is, as I mentioned, we've,
we've cleared out that backlog. It's been great work to get that done,
particularly at the state level, but with community partners and counties,
and in particular, prosecuting attorneys, defenders, cities, you know,
city attorneys, et cetera, the courts,
the problem is a big part of how that got taken care of was not only, you know,
effort in terms of, of addressing the needs of these, these individuals,
but also opening up additional beds.
So we were able to move people out of prisons who write or jails who are waiting
in those spaces and get them into state, into state hospital beds.
The problem is, or at least the perceived problem is that at the rate,
the historical rate in which these competency evaluation orders are,
are ordered, um, or restoration orders are coming through weeks,
the state is expecting that we'll have maxed out on our new capacity sometime by
20, 29, 20, uh, 20, 29, 20, 30. Okay. Um,
and so we'll be sort of back into our backlog.
So they solve the problem with these additional facilities. That's right.
They're getting people through this. I would say they, they treated the problem.
Okay. I'm not sure they solved it. Uh, and, and,
and really it's just a temporary solution. It is. Right.
So they're predicting that at the rate of, um, uh, referrals,
I guess,
orders for these competency evaluations, um, and probably with, you know,
projections related to a growing population, et cetera, that within,
would you say five or six years? Yeah, we'll be right kind of right back up,
right back, right back to where we were. And I think,
I think important to note that, you know, um,
part of that really is being driven by, um, misdemeanors,
right? There's a,
there's a huge drive in this space that these are resulting from misdemeanor
charges.
And so there's a lot of emphasis being sort of paid attention to at the moment
around how can we start reducing these misdemeanor type orders or orders that
are related to somebody brought in on a misdemeanor charge?
Right now. Why is that significant?
Well, I think it's significant because that's the most common charge, right?
That a person will be brought in on is some sort of misdemeanor, right?
And that happens at the, at the city level. It happens at the county level.
It's, it's just much more frequent and you're much more likely to have somebody
picked up, you know, whatever it is, disturbing the peace or whatever it might be.
Right. Trespassing, you know, uh, some, you know, having a, I mean,
and if someone's experiencing a behavioral health crisis, right,
that could manifest in a lot of ways that could manifest in a,
a way that's dangerous to them individually.
It could be manifest in their behavior being dangerous to others. Right.
And so however that might look, a lot of these folks that are brought in,
um, under these misdemeanor charges.
And then, you know, that's driving a lot of these, uh, referrals up in S and a
big part of the problem, I think, is instead of trying to divert those people
at the time of arrest, right. And get them into some sort of community system,
because those services really don't exist at the level that they ought to,
um, they're ending up in this full process and, and moving up the system.
What kind of a community system, uh,
would you use to divert these types of misdemeanors away from say these
competency evaluations and, and more criminal proceedings? Yeah. I mean,
you know what, you say they don't exist.
Well, it's not that they don't exist.
I just, they just don't exist at the levels that would be necessary to really
see an impact in terms of holding the, to sort of,
if you think of it as, as a faucet, right,
sort of turning the faucet down a bit.
So the flow of competency evaluations that really do need and require a state
response versus those that could just be, um, sort of,
for lack of a better term,
diverted off into community resources and outpatient services.
Okay. So when I think of diversions, uh,
from just regular corporate proceedings, right.
Systems that are in place right now, I think of things like family court,
drug court.
Exactly. Those are the traditional models.
Right. So there's, there,
there's another model that, that,
that is currently operational in some places you're saying not.
Sure. Because not all of these, not all of these, um,
behavioral health needs are substance abuse based, for example. Right.
So they're not all drugs. So we're talking mental health.
We're talking, uh, developmental disabilities, right?
There could be a number of reasons as to why an individual could be classified in
that space. And so the desire then to have a robust set of types of services,
where, of diversion services that folks could be placed in,
that folks could be placed into. And that would be,
and I do want to emphasize it has to be that outpatient level, right?
There's a lot of inpatient services available at the state hospitals and
things like that. Okay. Again, that doesn't really solve the problem, right?
Because they have to be accessed through somebody in a state bed,
which is way, way, way more expensive.
So what you're talking about is somebody who potentially committed a crime,
uh, in the midst of some sort of cognitive,
some sort of behavioral issue, right? Some sort of behavioral health issue,
they may not have even really realized what they were doing.
That's right. The, the, the, the term that comes to mind, you know,
not to be non-politically correct, they were out of their mind. Right. Right.
I mean, the criminally insane is still the term, right? They had,
they didn't realize what was happening. They weren't thinking clearly.
They were having some sort of mental emergency, some sort of mental break.
That's right. Um,
and instead of treating that person like a criminal and sending them through the
system, realizing they had this cognitive issue and then trying to get them, uh,
this, um, evaluation that you were talking about, you're saying, let's find, let's,
let's build up our programs or we should be building up programs to divert those
to other community resources that really are equipped to handle them anyway.
That's exactly right. And I really want to emphasize though,
the, that this is really important in this misdemeanor space, right?
Where we have significant major crimes happening, right? Felony level type crimes.
This is a different conversation. Someone's actually injured. Right. Exactly.
And that becomes a different dynamic. But for a lot of these,
like we were talking about just disturbing the peace or indecent exposure or
something along those lines, right?
Those are the type of, I think issues that, or,
or types of charges that we really want to, that could, I think,
benefit if that individual could be diverted off. Yeah.
We're not talking major property crimes. Exactly.
We're not talking violent crimes. No.
And that's where county prosecutors often find themselves in this space, right?
It's more for those types of crimes. I mean, they usually aren't bringing, I mean,
your local county prosecutors usually not bringing a low level misdemeanor up.
You know,
it's usually because it's a major crime that is that there's been damage to,
you know, the people, individuals, society, whatever it is.
And they're bringing that on behalf of the state. Right.
And so that's a little different level of, of, of,
sort of criminal activity that we're talking about versus what I think we're
trying to get to here, which is that low level misdemeanor type activity that
really the damages are pretty minimal, right?
Except we've got an individual that broke the law and we have to figure out how
to help them because they broke the law most likely because of some sort of
behavioral health condition. Okay. So I think we've,
it sounds like we've really identified what's happening on the ground.
Sure.
Problem is and what the state's trying to address with this bill.
I think it was house bill 1218. Yeah. So what does the bill actually do?
Yeah. The bill does a few things. I mean, like I mentioned,
it's a trailer bill to previous pieces of legislation in this space as the
states continue to try to, to solve this issue. I think where this bill,
really quickly when you say trailer bill, what do you mean by that?
Sorry. So a good call out there. I mean,
so there have been previous bills that have been introduced by the legislature
to deal with this true blood issue specifically.
This bill is what we would call a trailer in the sense that it comes after it
follows efforts that have already been made.
So it tries to build on efforts that have already been made in previous pieces
of legislation. So at the risk of sounding too clever,
we could call this a true blood trailer.
We could call it a true blood trailer.
That was a very nerdy political.
No, it's right there. Yeah. There's something a little Hollywood about that.
I don't know if we could go down that road.
Other policy staff all across Olympia will appreciate that. Yes, they will.
They will go ahead. So yeah. So I think as they are looking to, again,
I think this bill really is designed right now as we've really, like I said,
identified where the bulk of these referrals are coming from,
trying to get to the core of that and figure out why we're seeing this
continued rise. I mean, if you listen to the prime sponsor of this bill,
Representative Farvar, she's, you know, been very, very
blatant in her comments around seeing a 250% increase sort of statewide
in terms of these referral levels. Right. Wow. And that's really,
that's really, that's a shocking number, right? I mean, that's a lot.
And so is that a real number? It is a real number. And I think,
I think the trick though is figuring out where,
what the breakdown of that number is, where are these referrals coming to,
where are they coming from rather? I think that's really the key.
Are they coming from, are they city referrals, right?
Are these originating at cities? Are they originating at counties?
Are these referrals being requested by public defenders, by prosecutor,
by county prosecutors? I think we do, we do.
And I think we're in the process right now,
as we've been working through this bill of trying to work with Eastern and
Western state hospitals to get a sense better of what those numbers look like.
So we can have a sense of actually, where is this, to use that Fawcett analogy,
right? Where is the flow really high currently? Right.
And whereas it may be a little less. Okay. So we are,
that's where the process of getting those numbers a little,
in a little more detail.
But I think that will give us a real good sense of actually what parts of the
system need to be interacted with and perhaps adjusted to help
figure out how to turn the dial down a bit. If that makes sense.
Sure. Yeah. Okay. So if, so, so we've got this.
So, right. So we've got this bill, right.
That's trying to call attention to the fact that we've got this huge sort of
pattern that still exists, right. In terms of referrals and competency orders,
the bill is looking at a way to sort of,
using sort of a classic carrot and stick model to
get the parties that would be involved in, in, in, in ordering those,
those evaluations to sort of tone it down for lack of a better term, right?
To really try to, you know, pump the brakes a little bit. And particularly,
like, again, like I say,
in that misdemeanor space where I think the bulk of this is being driven,
right. So to get to that,
one of the things this bill does is really try to penalize counties
as, as counties are sort of seen, right,
as the regional or the local justice systems in their areas, right,
is to penalize counties who aren't able to dial this,
dial this back down, right?
I think the challenge that we've had with the association in interacting with
the sponsors on this is there's a lot of actors in this space and the counties
have control. And when you say county, that's sort of a loaded term.
What do you mean by that? Right? Do you mean that in a geographic sense?
Do you mean that in a, in a proper sense that it's the county commissioners,
council, executive, you know, what do you mean when you say county?
So we have had those conversations, but I think ultimately,
what we would say is, you know, you've at the association, listen,
we've got city attorneys, we've got prosecutors, we've got public defenders,
we've got courts, all of them are playing a role in this.
All of them have the ability to order, recommend,
ask for a competency evaluation. Right?
And so until we get a better sense of what that looks like,
it feels a little premature to me that we would start penalizing counties
monetarily,
if they're not able to meet standards that the state is trying to set up.
And I think we have some questions about sort of where,
where these standards even are coming from in terms of numbers.
Okay. So let me try to wrap my head around this.
The state's looking at a system that was in crisis that they seem to figure
out a way to stabilize, but based on projections, I mean,
you said a 250% increase, it looks like it might be in crisis again,
within a few short years. That's right.
So they've got a bill here to try to deal with that.
And they're using what you call the classic carrot and stick model,
essentially the carrot being the reward. If you do good things,
you get the carrot. If you do bad things, you get the stick.
Right. And I don't think it's financial punishment. Yeah. Yeah.
And in this case, the stick is, is penalties. That's right.
And the penalties are designed to try to get counties essentially,
to tamp down the number of referrals in this kind of misdemeanor or
misdemeanant arena. That's right. I can understand, you know,
from a, from a purely dollars and cents kind of point of view,
I can understand why say penalties would be an attractive tool here to use,
but it seems to me that, that it's a more complex problem,
that it's not just a matter of, you know,
dollars necessarily. I mean,
what if you just have a population that you're dealing with in your
county that needs these services? You know, what, what if that's just the bottom line?
I think that is exactly right.
And that's really been the crux of our,
our concern with this bill is not the premise, right? The premise we agree with,
we agree with the problem. We agree with, I mean, the numbers are what they are.
We're not debating that. What we,
what we as at the county association are concerned about is the fact that the
bill doesn't provide the solution in our view to the problem that we,
that we all agree is there. Right. And it's really, I think to your,
to what you were just trying to get at is that we need to better identify where,
where are these, where are the,
the contributing factors coming from who in this space is,
is causing this large increase in referrals.
And then what can we do collectively as a system to get everybody to try to row
in the same direction and try to, to, to use your words, sort of tamp this down.
And I think the reality is just penalizing counties financially.
Not only will that probably not be effective because counties again, don't,
county in terms of county proper, right? Does,
don't have the ability to, to impact these, these independent entities.
Right. It's not, it's not like a board of county commissioners can tell the
judge what to do. It's not like the judge or defense attorney. Yeah. Right.
You know, and, and so there's that. And then secondarily, the, the,
maybe more cynical, you know,
effect is it reduces resources at the local level that maybe that could be used
to better build out these programs and services that we've been talking around.
Yeah. There's some library there. Right. And so, so again,
we just feel like this is not the right approach and we do have some ideas and
some thoughts about what, what we could do. And we, we've been, we're, you know,
looking forward to continuing to work with representative Farvar and the
legislature and the governor's office on some of those ideas. Um, but,
but I think this bill as it sits now is one that we continue to struggle with.
Wow. I mean, I get, again, I get what they're trying to do.
I know the state has a problem. They've got to try to fix it, but you know,
I would hate to be someone who had a family member, right?
Who was having a cognitive issue that really needed some sort of serious
evaluation, you know, and they get diverted just because of costs. That's right.
Right. And in the longterm, you know,
that might be a short-term fix for the county financially or for the state
system, but in the longterm, that's not the best solution. That's right.
For that family member or that loved one or that friend.
And it could actually turn into a much worse outcome for them because of that.
That's right. Yeah, that's right. It's a tough issue. It's a tough issue.
And it's one, I think everybody's trying to work, work from an earnest way.
I don't think anybody's trying to, you know, um, uh, you know,
kind of cut anybody else off at the knees. But I think the reality is,
everybody recognizes their problem.
No one is sort of collectively figured out how to,
how to bring all the stakeholders together to try to solve this.
And I think that we're working on it. We're trying.
Why do you think the state or at least a representative far of our,
who's proposed this bill has landed on this as the solution?
You know, it's interesting. We talked to her about this, honestly,
and she's been a great good faith partner in this. I want to stress that.
And, and in our, in our conversations with her, it's funny,
we made this argument that, you know, we don't have control.
I think we just talked about, right? We don't have control about what these
independent, you know, prosecutors or, or public defenders or judges may be
doing in this space. And she said, well,
the state could make the same arm be given, right?
We're being penalized through this lawsuit, hundreds of millions of dollars.
And we also don't have control over the decisions that are being made at the
local level. And so I think there in some ways in the same boat,
we are in terms of trying to figure this out.
I think where she is hoping to get to this is to continue to sort of raise
awareness that we have to dig in more and we all need to realize that we've got
we've got a stake in this and that if we don't try to address this as a system,
and that is a system,
including from the state right down to the,
to the local level and everything that comes in between that,
then we're probably not going to get where we want on this. But,
but I do think it's going to take a lot more work to get there.
Why aren't communities investing in those diversion programs in those
community supports that are needed to support those diversion programs at the
level that's really needed to drive this problem to the level that we need to
drive this problem?
Well, I was going to say drive the problem down,
but I guess that's not the right word, but certainly, you know,
decrease the trajectory of, of, geez increase.
Yeah. I mean, I think there's, I think, you know,
that's a complicated question, I think. And I think there's,
there's some, maybe some top level answers that I would give that would say,
you know, first of all, it takes a lot of funding, right? These are expensive,
they're expensive programs. They're not as expensive as, as state hospitals,
right? And investing in state hospital beds and state facilities,
has really put its focus there. And so we've been challenged by the fact that the
state has made a priority of building those facilities and building those beds
because they needed to get out from underneath that backlog, right?
But that's really been to the detriment of investments in the community system
in this space, right?
And so we would like to see some new priority from the legislature and from the
state in investing in these local diversion programs, which really do,
I think are going to be the answer if we want to solve this ultimately.
And it's not that the state hasn't tried to do that. I think it has,
it's just been stuck between having to prioritize.
And I think the backlog was the priority. So we went down that road.
And in the meantime, our community system has continued to struggle to keep up.
So I think that's one part of it.
I think the other part of it is these are complicated individuals to serve.
And so you have to have the right type of services with the right type of
providers. And depending on where you live and what county you're in,
it can be difficult to have that, the right amount of providers.
Some counties struggle with none and just because of the nature of the geography.
So well, these providers need a certain amount of clientele in order to survive.
And if you're in a rural area and there's less population there,
you're less likely to have.
That's exactly right. So yeah, so the, I mean, there's a workforce challenge.
There's, there's a funding challenge. And there's just a, I think,
just an overall increase in the need for these types of services that it's,
the system has just not been able to keep up with.
Well, fascinating problem, Brad,
thanks for taking a deep dive on that bill and on that issue.
I'm sure there's lots of other things going on in your policy areas.
Hopefully we can have you back.
We'd love to, I would love to, you know,
I'm sure we'll have more times to give updates as this bill, you know,
kind of moves through the process and where we go with our negotiations.
But also, yeah, there's a lot more going on in the public safety space.
So not only that, we have a behavioral health priority this year.
We do, which is very exciting.
You know,
and I look forward to talking about that with you in future podcasts.
In fact, we've got some exciting news. We look,
we hope to see our bill drop next week.
I don't know how that works with the time of these podcasts dropping, but yeah,
it would be, it would be next week.
And I think actually there'll be a really interesting intersect between what
we're trying to do with our Wasack behavioral health priority and the,
and the work that we've just talked about in building up the community level
services in this type of space. Yeah, that sounds great. Thanks, Brad.
We look forward to chatting about that then real soon with you.
Thanks a lot, Paul. Appreciate it. All right. Take care.
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