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| "Perske Pencil Portraits 1971-1990" |
Submitted by: Representative Vicki Truitt
House District 98
“The 82nd Texas Legislature will face budgetary challenges that can and probably will negatively affect services provided to children with disabilities. Every day, I and my staff look for ways to minimize those negative impacts by ensuring that state agencies and state laws don't interfere with our local communities and school districts efforts to provide needed services to people with disabilities. Many people don't realize that in Texas state funding for people with disabilities is augmented by county, municipal and philanthropic funding that is taken in and distributed by 39 community mental health/mental retardation (MHMR) centers. When state funding decreases or doesn't keep up with the growth in the demand for these services, it is our local MHMR centers, working within their communities, who must lead the fight to fill the gaps in services. I am personally dedicated to helping our MHMR centers do their jobs.
I also think we have an opportunity to use more respectful language in the way we refer to people with disabilities in our agencies and statutes and I intend to work with my peers to enact legislation this session that will make that happen.”
