Licensing: The Bloated, Festering Solution Without a Problem
The other day, I spent a little time researching numbers on mental health professionals. There are 93,410 currently active Texas BHEC licensees. Do you now how many complaints were filed by the general public last year? The number will shock you.
I mentioned in an earlier post that it is unconstitutional for the state to make your secured right something for which you must get a license and pay a fee in order to exercise.
I wrote also about the administrative law trap and how the state fabricated a layer of law which mental health professionals of every kind volunteer themselves into, whether or not they realize that's what they're doing.
The purpose of this administrative law framework runs deep though, and serves multiple purposes:
- The state is bankrupt, largely because of unfunded liabilities such as pensions that it promised to pay employees for 20-30 years of service.
- Administrative law framework creates imaginary crimes so they can generate revenue when the fabricated laws are violated.
- The natural bloat of bureaucracies by men and women who have developed little honest value to offer, and thus become bureaucrats.
The other day, I spent a little time on the website for the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR) which seems like a badly-translated synopsis for Made in China blogger instructions, "Too Didn't Long Read".
Right there on the front page, they boast 3/4s of a million licensed professionals of many kinds working in the State of Texas. Many kinds, because in my search of their most recent financial and non-financial reports, I couldn't find anything about LPCs, LCSWs, LMFTs, or Licensed Psychologists. Maybe it's there, but it didn't turn up in the Ctrl+f search.
According to the most recent reports (2023), it seems that the TDLR generated $56 Million in revenue in 2022, and $64.8 Million in revenue in 2023 from license fees and enforcement.
I'm not arguing in favor or against some of the various licenses for professions outside of the speech-only mental health professions, because that discussion is beyond the scope of this website.
The expenses for the TDLR, which is found in the non-financial report?
$9.5 Million in 2023.
That's a profit of $55.3 Million in revenue in generated in 2023 alone on license fees and enforcement.
But that doesn't include mental health professionals. You'll have to check Texas BHEC's operating budget for that information. Most recent is 2024.
According to the budget report, Texas BHEC has three goals (projects):
- Protect Public through Quality Program of Licensure
- Protect the Public through Enforcement of Laws and Rules
- Indirect Administration
Through license tax and enforcement of administrative laws, Texas BHEC budgeted to generate $5.311 Million in 2024. Interestingly enough, it also expected the same in expenditures, to the cent. Texas BHEC has 68 full-time professionals working for it.
They're spending everything they're generating, and continuing to grow the bureaucracy.
When I applied for my LPC-Intern license in 2017, I was told by TSBEPC that they had 1 person processing licenses. (Side note: after 3 months of still not receiving my license, I called my state representative. My license was then approved and issued within the week.)
The following year, TSBEPC had 10 employees processing license applications. I don't know what it's up to now, but they were running 68 full-time equivalent employees last year, up from 58 from the year prior.
The machine is multiplying.
What do all those employees do? They protect the public. From what do they protect the public?
There are 93,410 currently active Texas BHEC licensees.
Do you now how many complaints were filed by the general public last year?
600. Out of 93,000+ licensees.
Out of 600 complaints, 200 were processed.
Of those 200 that were processed, only 10% resulted in disciplinary action.
That's 20. Out of 93,000 licensees, only 20 complaints last year were found to be actionable complaints.
That's 0.021% of the Texas BHEC licensee universe. In alcohol terms, that's 1/4 of the legal BAC, or half a Shiner Bock.
Remember what I said earlier about Justice Thomas's comment in Nifla v. Becerra that requirements of the state "must remedy a harm that is “potentially real not purely hypothetical?”
68 full-time employees with a budget of $5 Million find a whopping 20 mental health professionals who violate Texas BHEC rules and regulations.
That can be something as minute as being a weekend late in reporting other administrative action to the board, all the way to inappropriate sexual advances.
Twenty. Twenty! TWENTY!!!
$5.3 Million to find 20 professionals who actually did anything wrong, but isn't even necessarily a crime (like filing paperwork late, or having a dual relationship).
Texas BHEC is a solution without a problem.