Temple – State Representative Dianne White Delisi announced that a measure of welcome relief is in hand regarding the funding of family planning services at the Bell County Public Health District.


"I have just been informed by Texas Health and Human Services Executive Commissioner Albert Hawkins that the Department of State Health Services evaluated the sound arguments made by my office for additional funding for the Bell County Public Health District to perform their family planning mission and agreed with the logic," Delisi stated. "According to Commissioner Hawkins, the amount of funding made available for Bell County will be increased by $75,000 over the next six months above what had been announced previously."


While more work remains to be done, Delisi sees this as an important first step towards a more complete resolution.


During the contract period the performance of all family planning contractors in the state will be evaluated against their service delivery targets. Decisions will be made during the contract cycle on whether funding should be reallocated around the state based upon each group's respective performance. This means that additional resources could become available for Bell County.


"This is welcome news for the residents of Bell County who have relied upon this local service provider for two generations now," Delisi said. "It was unacceptable to me that residents of Bell County faced the likelihood of having to travel to another county to obtain services previously available in their own communities. We have twice as many women that needed the service as the county where a large measure of our funding went."


Delisi has been actively working to obtain relief for Bell County from the date the initial funding decisions which transferred money to serve Bell County residents to a contractor in another county were released. This advocacy included personally briefing Executive Commissioner Hawkins and Dr. Eduardo Sanchez, the Commissioner for the Department of State Health Services, on Bell County's unique funding situation.


Delisi urged both to work on a solution that would preserve the public health infrastructure now in place in Bell County and prevent a chaotic disruption of services to county residents. The additional funding now proposed for Bell County will assist with both of those policy goals.


"While this is a clear victory for Bell County's needs, we still need to keep making our case," Delisi continued. "We will have to work together to prevent this from happening again in the future. I will also keep trying to find ways to fill any remaining funding gap."


Delisi praised the team effort that local elected officials such as State Senator Troy Fraser, Bell County Judge Jon Burrows and the members of the commissioners court, the mayors of both Temple and Killeen and their respective city councils, and many others put into helping to make Bell County's case for the additional resources.


"Bell County spoke decisively with one voice and that voice was heard in Austin," Delisi concluded. "We will all have still more to do, but again, this is a good first step."