When legislators meet on Jan. 11, they will be facing a budget shortfall between $13 billion and $20 billion, based on various estimates. Mental health officials worried the ax could be coming to their programs, and that could cost the city, the county and the University Medical Center more money in the long run.

An El Paso County sheriff's officials said 30 to 35 percent of their inmates have a mental illness.

"Since January of this year, we've had 8,000 inmates that have had a mental illness," said Lt. Michaela Hebeker, with the El Paso County Jail inmate mental health program.

All of the inmates with mental health issues have to be treated one way or another, and that costs money.

"Legislatively, the movement for treating mentally ill people is going from the state and it's going to local governments," Hebeker told KFOX 14.

Funding of mental health programs could turn into a monumental shift come January and the 82nd Texas Legislative session.

"We know that cuts are inevitable, but we want to make sure the cuts aren't made just for the sake of cuts that end up cost-shifting huge amounts to local communities, local tax payers," said Gary Larcenaire, CEO of El Paso Mental Health Mental Retardation.

Larcenaire said he's putting together a strong case for state legislators to keep the mental health funding that he said is so critical to El Paso.

He said if funding is cut for the local state hospital, for MHMR or other local entities, then mental health inmates will stay in the jail longer, and more mental health patients will end up in the UMC emergency room.

"You may not see directly the impact, but you will see indirectly in county budgets that dockets are growing, that the jail census is growing, and that people are asking for incremental increases to deal with these things," said Larcenaire.

Some local state representative have pledged to carefully look at the funding for all mental health programs.

"It's important that we look at issues, and not just do an across the board cut," said state Rep. Chente Quintanilla.

An example of one program that could be cut is MHMR's $1.1 million grant from the state to be at the jail and screen and coordinate care with the most severe mental health inmates. Larcenaire said it cuts down on those people ending up back in jail, or in the UMC emergency room.

Ultimately, Larcenaire said, if the program continues, it would save tax payers money.