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Central Health, Community Care and Sendero Health Plans leaders talk to members of the community about the upcoming budget and community needs. Central Health held a budget information event Monday at the Austin Community College Highland campus.<\/p>\n
Nicole Villalpando\/American-Statesman<\/p>\n
Central Health, the Austin and Travis County hospital district,\u00a0is considering up to an 8% increase in property taxes for its 2027 fiscal year. That increase represents a $44 annual increase in property taxes for a median home value of $372,638.<\/p>\n
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The highest the tax rate could be is 13.5195 cents per $100 home value. The current rate is 11.8023 with an annual bill of $460 for a home with the median value.<\/p>\n
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If an 8% increase is approved by the hospital\u00a0district’s board of managers on Sept. 9 and then by the Travis County commissioners on Sept. 15, Central Health’s budget will hit the $1 billion mark for the first time.\u00a0In the 2026 fiscal year, the budget was $875 million.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n Central Health’s fiscal year runs from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30.\u00a0<\/p>\n Who does Central Health serve?<\/p>\n Central Health is tasked with caring for people making less than 200% of the federal poverty level. That 200% is $31,920 for a single person and $66,000 for a family of four. Central Health mainly does this through its Medical Access Program, which is similar to an insurance program for people who do not qualify for or can’t afford another kind of insurance.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Each year, the hospital district has been offering more direct care through its\u00a0specialty care clinics<\/a>, which began in 2022; a medical respite center that opened in 2025 and its CommUnityCare federally qualified health centers, which grew out of the city and county clinics. The hospital district also has Sendero Health Plans, which offers Affordable Care Act plans on the Marketplace. Central Health also pays premiums for Sendero insurance for some of its patients who need care that the MAP program doesn’t provide.<\/p>\n On Monday, Central Health held a community conversation for public input on how to address access problems in health insurance coverage and primary care, specialty care and mental health care. Then it looked at how this budget is tied to those things. Central Health is hosting a budget comment forum for the public at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday at its administration offices, Central Health Administrative Offices, 1111 E. Cesar Chavez St. A virtual option\u00a0is available at centralhealth.net.<\/a><\/p>\n What’s in the budget?<\/p>\n The budget increases mental health services\u00a0and expands specialty care at its clinics, including neurology and oral surgery, expands behavioral health care and puts a doctor at the Travis County Jail. The budget also provides more cyber security and use of artificial intelligence for some automated processes. It also includes staff raises and retention programs. The budget allows for systems funding to cut wait times for patient visits to two weeks or less<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n This year. CommUnityCare,\u00a0Central Health’s federally qualified health center, was able to cut pediatric\u00a0and\u00a0hospital follow-up visit wait times to within two weeks and cut wait times for new patients by 37%, said CommUnityCare CEO Dr. Nicholas Yagoda.\u00a0<\/p>\n The budget includes the opening of the new specialty clinic at\u00a0Hancock Center <\/a>and a new clinic at Colony Park<\/a>. It expands the respite center <\/a>for people recovering from a hospitalization from 30 beds to 50 beds.\u00a0<\/p>\n Central Health will start receiving funding from sources other than Travis County taxpayers.\u00a0It recently qualified to be a Medicaid provider at its specialty clinics. Medicaid is thought of as a federal health plan for children in low-income families, but it also helps low-income adults and people with disabilities. Central Health also plans to start a foundation and look for more community and outside philanthropic and grant funding sources.\u00a0<\/p>\n Central Health’s board of managers has\u00a0asked staff for options. It could consider a 6% increase, which would raise the rate to 13.2863 cents per $100 valuation or an increase of $36\u00a0annually for the median home value. Staff also has put together a no-new-revenue budget, which is required by law. That rate of 12.5867 cents per $100 of value increases taxes by $10 for the median home value. The median home value decreased from $390,086 last year, which is why the rates go up in the no-new-revenue proposal.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n If Central Health went with a no-new-revenue-rate budget, it would have to cut $4.4 million in staff raises; $23.7 million in patient services, including reducing funds for federally qualified health centers like CommUnityCare, reducing premium assistance for Sendero Health Plans and reducing assistance in health plan and federal benefits enrollment; and $11.8 million by delaying expanding services, including more care teams for justice-involved and unhoused patients,\u00a0a new rapid access clinic for people leaving a hospital,\u00a0technology updates and support teams.\u00a0<\/p>\n MiLinda Zabramba, Central Health associate chief medical officer, talks to Munji Nfor of Integral Care about expanding access to care.<\/p>\n Nicole Villalpando\/American-Statesman<\/p>\n What’s the biggest\u00a0difference in the budgets?<\/p>\n The 8% budget includes $7.3 million in seed money for a new mental health reserve, and the 6% budget does not. The board of managers has asked staff to explore scenarios with other things to cut.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n That reserve would be held in part to begin what’s been called a “No Wrong Door” mental health crisis center. That center would include a psychiatric emergency room for 40 adults and six youths; observation rooms for 16 adults; inpatient rooms for 48 adults and 12 youths; outpatient programming; a sobering and detox area with 40 recliners, 20 detox beds and 16 respite rooms; intensive outpatient programs, along with primary care and dental services; and housing, benefits and legal resources. It is modeled on a similar center in Salt Lake City.\u00a0<\/p>\n That reserve is intended to build up funds for what has been estimated to be a $150 million to $220 million project that will include Integral Care, the city of Austin, Travis County and the University of Texas Dell Medical Center as partners. About $96 million in funding has been secured.\u00a0<\/p>\n Such a center would cost about $74 million a year to run, but it could potentially save money. The city released a report from the\u00a0Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute <\/a>on Aug. 4 that found at least 950 people in Travis County are \u201chigh utilizers\u201d of the criminal justice, homelessness and health care systems. That cost is $144,000 per person, or $137 million a year.<\/p>\n “There is not a place to take someone suffering with a mental health need,” said Dr. Patrick Lee, the CEO of Central Health. Such a center will treat people before they become part of the justice system. “For the health of our community, there is great value,” Lee said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n That fundraising, design and construction will take years to come to fruition. In the meantime, Central Health’s staff wants to use $20 million for more immediate mental health service expansion. Central Health recently received an eminent domain settlement of $18.5 million for the purchase of a portion of Central Health’s property at Hancock Center near Airport Boulevard and Interstate 35. Staff wants to use that funding to expand emergency and inpatient psychiatric beds at Dell Seton Medical Center.\u00a0<\/p>\n It would add 22 inpatient psychiatric beds to that hospital and up to 10 psychiatric emergency beds and pay for them. That’s an $8 million annual cost to operate those beds. Dell Seton, which is run by Ascension Texas, would then be able to replace some of what was lost when Ascension Texas closed Shoal Creek Hospital in 2024 and partnered with Cross Creek Hospital <\/a>to run a mental health hospital. While the hospital expanded, it did not replace all the beds that closed in Central Texas in the previous five years.\u00a0<\/p>\n In Central Health’s analysis, Travis County currently has seven crisis and psychiatric emergency department beds and needs 25 for its population size. It has 310 inpatient psychiatric beds and needs 423; it has 268 sobering or detox beds and needs 464; and it has seven observational beds and needs 16.\u00a0<\/p>\n Making up for federal funds<\/p>\n This budget is being developed at a time when\u00a0changing federal funding<\/a> is having an effect on Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements as well as increasing the number of people without insurance. Texas overall has about a 19% uninsured rate,\u00a0the highest in the country. Travis County has an uninsured rate of 14.6%.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The reduction in January in income-based subsidies for buying insurance on the Affordable Care Act Marketplace has meant that Sendero has seen a slight reduction in the number of people it insures, as well as some of its healthier members dropping insurance coverage this year. Texas saw a 4% drop this year in Marketplace enrollment.<\/p>\n When healthy patients don’t choose insurance, the risk pool is filled with a higher percentage of unhealthy patients who cost more and don’t have the healthy patients’ premiums to offset the cost of insurance. Central Health has set aside $30 million for a risk pool contingency in the 2027 budget. That risk pool contingency was $8 million for 2026.<\/p>\n Central Health also has needed to increase its funding to Integral Care, the Travis County mental health authority. It is proposing $31.3 million for Integral Care this year. That funding has increased each year from the initial $9 million given in 2023. Changes in some federal funding as well as increased need has driven that budget increase.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Central Health, Community Care and Sendero Health Plans leaders talk to members of the community about the upcoming…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":["post-423919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n