AN ACT to create a pilot program that will provide grants to local law enforcement agencies in order to enhance responses to mental or behavioral health crises.

The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:

SECTION 1.  The grants funded by this act shall be provided to municipal police departments and county sheriffs' offices for at least one of the following purposes:

(1)        To establish nonpolice units to address nonviolent, noncriminal 911 calls regarding mental health, homelessness, substance use, or other behavioral health crises.

(2)        To establish co‑responder response models in which law enforcement personnel and mental health specialists jointly respond to 911 calls regarding mental or behavioral health crises.

(3)        To establish a mental health division or to bolster existing mental health services within a police department or sheriff's office and to increase the amount of law enforcement personnel and 911 communications personnel that have received Crisis Intervention Training.

SECTION 2.  There is appropriated from the General Fund to the Department of Public Safety the sum of two million dollars ($2,000,000) in nonrecurring funds in the 2023‑2024 fiscal year to be distributed as grants to either municipal police departments or county sheriffs' offices as follows:

(1)        $800,000 to establish eight nonpolice response units with a grant of $100,000 each.

(2)        $700,000 to establish seven co‑responder response models with a grant of $100,000 each.

(3)        $500,000 to increase the amount of law enforcement officers and 911 communications personnel that have received Crisis Intervention Training. These funds shall be awarded as five separate grants of $100,000 each.

SECTION 3.  Grants awarded pursuant to Section 2 of this act shall be awarded to police departments and sheriffs' offices that have active response models for mental or behavioral health crises or that are developing response models that will be in use on or before January 1, 2024.

SECTION 4.  No later than February 1, 2025, the police departments and sheriffs' offices that receive grants pursuant to this act shall report the following information to the Department of Public Safety:

(1)        Itemized lists and explanations of how grant funds were utilized.

(2)        Demographic information regarding both participating mental health specialist personnel and individuals served as a result of the localities' dispatched services.

(3)        Dispatch case types in which nonpolice, co‑responder, or mental health division personnel responded.

(4)        The frequency of unit dispatch.

(5)        The frequency of police or ambulance backup or requests among nonpolice, co‑responder, or mental health division personnel.

(6)        County involuntary commitment rates before and during the pilot program.

(7)        Complaints filed against nonpolice, co‑responder, or mental health division personnel units.

(8)        Operating costs associated with each unit.

(9)        Emergency 911 response metrics analyzing how the pilot services impacted the localities' emergency response services.

(10)      Results of emergency 911 calls for services that utilized pilot program services.

SECTION 5.  No later than March 1, 2025, the Department of Public Safety, in consultation with the Department of Health and Human Services, shall report to the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Justice and Public Safety regarding the pilot programs funded by this act. The report shall include, at a minimum, the information provided to the Department of Public Safety pursuant to Section 4 of this act.

SECTION 6.  This act becomes effective July 1, 2023.