The Grayson County Commissioners Court voted to send a letter asking state officials to support two bills described on the meeting agenda as Senate Bill 469 and House Bill 1760.

The request came from Brenda Hayward, executive director of the Child and Family Guidance Center of Texoma, who said the measures would expand access to and funding for mental-health care in rural Texas. “This bill will help us sustain our licensed training academy by growing more therapists to serve the Medicaid population,” Hayward said.

Hayward told the court that federal designations show most Texas counties face a mental-health professional shortage and that Grayson, Fannin and Cook counties are affected. She said community providers have lost staff to for‑profit virtual platforms and that the center has lost 10 therapists in two years. She said the center currently has a waiting list of about 170 people, “most of them are children on Medicaid.”

Hayward described a barrier in current billing rules: provisionally licensed clinicians who are accruing supervised hours cannot bill insurance, limiting the center’s ability to use a training pipeline to expand services. She asked the court to “join us” in supporting the bills to address those workforce and billing limitations.

Commissioner Marsh moved to approve the request and Commissioner Wright seconded; the court voted in favor and the motion carried.

The record contains inconsistent bill numbers: the agenda item text used the phrasing “Senate Bill 469 and House Bill 1760,” while portions of the speaker’s remarks referenced a different House bill number. The court’s action was to approve a letter urging state support for the bills as they were described on the agenda and as explained by the speaker.