Legislators Struggle Over Whether and How to Support Suicide Prevention

Jaclyn Zubrzycki

May 2, 2018
Behavioral Health
Legislation and Policy

More than 1,150 people in Colorado died by suicide in 2016. That made suicide the state’s seventh leading cause of death.

But Colorado’s legislature has struggled to figure how – and if – to fund suicide prevention this year.

Two bills supporting suicide prevention failed in the Senate this session and a third seems poised to do the same. And two budget amendments that would have allocated an additional $400,000 to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s Office of Suicide Prevention were both nixed in April.

But in the last weeks of the session, the House and Senate have introduced parallel bills in an effort to address youth suicides: Senate Bill 272 and House Bill 1416, both of which would fund crisis and suicide prevention training grant program for schools. The House Bill would be funded by money from the school safety resource center cash fund, while the Senate bill's funding source is a combination of appropriations from the legislature and outside funds. 

The new bills would create a program distributing up to $400,000 in grants to schools for crisis and suicide prevention training. Both have bipartisan support.

Since the two bills are so similar, it’s unlikely that both will be signed into law. HB 1416 has passed the full House, and the Senate bill has been referred to Appropriations after getting a thumbs up in the Senate Health Committee.

Focus on Youth

Preventing youth suicides was also the aim of the three other bills floated in the House and Senate this year. Dozens of concerned youth and adults showed up in Denver over the course of the session to testify about the grief that youth suicide causes and how prevention efforts can help save lives.

Even so, all three bills hit roadblocks in the Senate: 

  • House Bill 1177 would create a “youth friendly, culturally sensitive” website in Spanish and English that highlights mental health resources in the state, expand youth-specific services of the existing statewide crisis hotline, including text-based services, and provide training on suicide prevention for people who work with youth outside a school, such as camp counselors. It would also lower the age at which a minor could receive therapy without a parent knowing from 15 to 12. Bill sponsor Rep. Dafna Michaelson Jenet’s son attempted suicide as an elementary school student, and as a sponsor of this bill, she made an emotional plea to her fellow legislators to focus on preventing suicide among young people. The bill passed in the House last week on a 34-27 vote, but it was sent to the Senate’s State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee and failed on May 1.
  • SB 114 was similar to the two new bills on the table: It would have created a grant program for schools to support suicide prevention. It also encouraged schools to adopt suicide prevention programs. The bill failed in the State Affairs Committee, with opponents saying it cost too much and represented government interference into community problems.
  • SB 153 would have required the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) to study and address gaps in suicide prevention and to evaluate the state’s 2016 suicide prevention plan. The bill failed by one vote in the State Affairs Committee.

Another bill that targets youth suicide indirectly did find support earlier in the session. SB 151, which requires the state’s education department to research and create a bullying prevention policy for schools around the state, has already been signed into law. While the bill doesn’t mention suicide, testimony around SB 151 drew connections between bullying and suicide. The bill does not come with any additional funding for the education department. 

A Drop in the Bucket

Even if the two new bills pass, spending on suicide prevention is still on track to be just a drop in the state’s budgetary bucket.

The Office of Suicide Prevention’s three employees run a number of programs aimed at preventing suicide, such as a community suicide prevention grant program; a federal grant aimed at reducing youth suicide; the Colorado Gun Shop Project, which focuses on educating gun owners and gun shop owners about suicide and prevention; and Man Therapy, which connects men to behavioral health services. (In Colorado, more men than women and more adults than young people die by suicide each year.) 

But in its annual report, the office notes that there is a need for increased funding for a range of programs, including training for mental health and substance use providers, more community-driven prevention work, and funding for school grant programs.

The $539,000 in general fund money that the state’s Suicide Prevention office received in 2017-18 is dwarfed by spending on other issues, including other behavioral health priorities.

For instance, the state spent $32 million on substance use prevention in 2017-18, according to a CHI analysis. This year, even the additional $400,000 that might come through the new bills for schools is significantly less than the $6.5 million set aside in the state budget bill for new substance use prevention and treatment efforts and $12 million from the marijuana tax fund dedicated to research on substance use.

Substance use is a problem worth legislative focus and funds. And substance use prevention efforts may also help prevent some suicides. But the funding disparity is worth noting, especially given the fact that suicide claims more Colorado lives than overdoses each year.  

In recent years, Colorado has passed three significant laws focused on preventing suicides:

  • A 2012 bill directed the state to work with hospitals and health providers to improve awareness around risk factors and warning signs.
  • A 2014 bill created a state suicide prevention commission, which included funding for a commission coordinator, though not to implement the commission’s recommendations.
  • The Zero Suicide Plan in 2016 laid out a multi-step approach to reducing suicides. Although the bill did not include dedicated funding, the legislature increased the Office of Suicide Prevention's budget by $100,000 in 2016. 

As the session comes to a close, all eyes will be on the new bipartisan bills to see if the legislature opts to devote both funds and attention to this critical issue.

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Find Jackie Zubrzycki on Twitter: @jzubrzycki @cohealthinst

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