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Harris County paused its Holistic Assistance Response Teams on Wednesday after Commissioners Court failed to reach an agreement on whether to pay the vendor operating the program.
At issue is a $270,000 payment to Disaster Emergency Medical Assistance Consulting and Management, which initially was founded in California before expanding to Texas, for administering the program for the last two months. Without that payment, county officials said, DEMA would be unable to make payroll related to the program.
The county launched HART in March 2022 to help direct some non-emergency 911 phone calls to personnel trained in behavioral health. The idea is to reduce unnecessary law enforcement or hospital interventions and help residents who may be experiencing behavioral health issues, social welfare concerns or homelessness. Harris County has two teams that are based out of the Cypress Station area, seven days a week, from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Wednesday’s discussion about whether to pay the bill arose from a Commissioners Court directive to the county auditor’s office at the end of April to open an investigation into DEMA.
The call for an investigation followed an audit by Sonoma County, Calif., that found officials could not account for 40 percent of DEMA’s billing. The auditors also said they struggled to properly assess DEMA because the company had not tracked the work of its salaried employees.
That audit was sparked by a July 2023 investigation by the Santa Rosa Press Democrat that revealed DEMA was awarded $26 million in no-bid emergency contracts in a little over two years and raised questions about billing for the company’s position of director of nursing.
A review of invoices for that position, the news organization wrote, showed $800,000 in billing that did not align with what current and former health care workers said they witnessed.
An online search for DEMA Management and Consulting lists an address in Pasadena, but the listed phone number connects to a rural hospital district in North Texas and its website is no longer is active.
Local audit to be completed in several weeks
Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo and Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis voted in favor of the $270,000 payment, while Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey voted against. Precinct 2 and Precinct 4 Commissioners Adrian Garcia and Lesley Briones abstained.
Commissioners Court rules require a majority vote of those present to pass agenda items.
Officials from Harris County Public Health, which oversees the HART program, declined comment on Wednesday’s vote.
Leslie Wilks Garcia, first assistant county auditor with Harris County, said DEMA is cooperating with the audit. So far, she said, the audit has produced nothing to show the $270,000 was improperly billed.
However, the audit is not complete and Wilks Garcia said it will take several more weeks before it is finished.
If the payment had been approved and the audit revealed DEMA had improperly charged Harris County, the county attorney’s office said the cost could legally be recouped.
“There are serious open questions about the practices of this company,” Briones said. “I love HART…it would break my heart but in good faith as fiduciaries to the taxpayers, (but). without these questions answered, I cannot vote.”
Hidalgo and Ellis voiced their support for approving the payments so HART could continue operating.
Program expansion urged
“This is how tragedies happen,” Hidalgo said. “I believe if we're going to vote on something, we have a duty to be direct about what the issue is. And I think all the concerns that are being brought up are inconsistent and illogical, given what we're hearing, which happens way too often.”
Earlier this year, Harris County criminal justice leaders approved a draft strategic plan that prioritized the assessment and expansion of HART. Ellis, chair of the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, and the sheriff’s office had urged the council to deprioritize other programs in favor of HART, extolling its success.
The Harris County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday.
Garcia on Wednesday suggested the Harris Center for Mental Health and Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, which presently runs the Houston Police Department’s version of the program, would be able to take over the program in place of DEMA. However, government meeting rules precluded the commissioners from discussing the option further.
Because the item on the agenda related strictly to payments, any conversations beyond that would need to be a separate agenda item at a future court, First Assistant County Attorney Jay Aiyer told the court.
Garcia said he planned to add an item for discussion at the next court meeting on June 4.
“From a managerial standpoint, I’m just concerned that it is a vendor keeping this program alive,” Garcia said. “It should have been employees.”
The ACLU of Texas declined to comment on DEMA specifically, but stressed the importance of programs like HART in Harris County and beyond.
“Police cannot be the answer to every kind of societal issue. They are not mental health experts, or addiction specialists, or housing coordinators. They do a poor job addressing these needs and can cause more harm than good,” said Nikki Luellen, a policy and advocacy strategist at the ACLU of Texas.
“If we want to deal with these challenges, we need programs like HART. Alternative first responders save taxpayer money. They reduce dangerous encounters. They ensure the right people show up when there is an emergency.”
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