Share:
Senate Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
Senate of Pennsylvania
Session of 2023 - 2024
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | April 20, 2023 05:05 PM |
|---|---|
| From: | Senator Jimmy Dillon and Sen. Christine M. Tartaglione, Sen. John I. Kane |
| To: | All Senate members |
| Subject: | Loan Forgiveness Program for Mental Health Intellectual Disability and Drug/Alcohol Treatment Professions |
| In the near future, Sen. Tartaglione, Sen. Kane and I plan to introduce legislation aimed at increasing the number of qualified Substance Use Disorder (SUD) counselors in the Pennsylvania workforce. This is in response to the escalating demands of the addiction epidemic and will provide essential relief to those currently serving on the front lines of this crisis. The proposed measure will be modeled on Senator Scavello’s SB94 from the previous session. It will allow qualified SUD counselors who have committed to at last 2 years of service and who achieve a minimum of 6 months tenure at a licensed treatment facility to receive student loan forgiveness capped at $6,250 per year and totaling no more than $25,000 per applicant. This same opportunity will be extended to Mental Health and Intellectual Disability personnel who commit to a term of at least 4 years of service in the Commonwealth. The combination of low wages and reported attrition rates of 25% or higher necessitate swift action at a time when the need for these workers has never been greater. Offering partial student loan forgiveness is a crucial step toward retaining our existing mental health, intellectual disability, and SUD counseling workforce while simultaneously encouraging more selfless individuals to step forward and answer the call to service in these fields. Thank you for supporting this worthwhile piece of legislation. |
Introduced as SB874