The bill amends and adds provisions in chapter 10.77 RCW and reenacts and amends RCW 43.84.092. It creates a court‑appointed, impartial forensic navigator role (employed or contracted by an unnamed “department”) to assist people referred for competency evaluation for class B and C felonies and all misdemeanors, with specified duties (information gathering, assessment, presenting options, coordinating diversion and outpatient restoration, tribal notification, and post‑transition check‑ins). Forensic navigators are treated as officers of the court for immunity purposes, may submit recommendations to the court, are authorized access to certain agency records by court order, and admissions to a navigator may not be used in the prosecution’s case‑in‑chief. The text does not specify the formal identity of “the department” or the “secretary.” The bill makes substantive procedural changes to competency restoration practice. It requires prosecutors who object to dismissal and who seek restoration to investigate and file a statement about a “compelling state interest” and to prove that interest by a preponderance of the evidence at a hearing; courts must enter written findings. It sets eligibility conditions for outpatient restoration (clinical appropriateness and willingness to adhere to medications and program rules), directs placement and notification duties for inpatient admissions, requires rules for outpatient program conditions (including medication management and possible urinalysis), creates procedures for terminating outpatient placements and obtaining inpatient beds within fixed timeframes, authorizes peace officer detention for transport to inpatient facilities under court order, and requires courts to order surrender of firearms and bar possession upon dismissal for incompetency until superior court restoration. The excerpts include multiple, inconsistent limits on competency restoration durations (different numeric limits appear for inpatient and outpatient periods across excerpts) and other referenced subsections are missing, so the precise duration limits and some procedural details are unclear from the provided text. The bill also establishes an incentive program and a behavioral health diversion fund to reward jurisdictions that reduce inpatient competency referrals. The department must compute local “incentive” and “baseline” referral levels using averages from specified fiscal years, provide quarterly referral notices beginning January 1, 2026, adopt implementing rules, and make technical assistance available for required local behavioral health diversion plans. The diversion fund is created in the state treasury and may be spent only after appropriation for services that prevent or divert people with behavioral health needs from the criminal justice system. Sectional timing includes a July 1, 2028 expiration for one section and an effective date for another section on July 1, 2028, and the act is null and void if specified funding is not provided in the omnibus appropriations act by June 30, 2025. The bill also reenacts and amends state treasury distribution rules in RCW 43.84.092; the provided extract on treasury distributions is incomplete.

If enacted, the bill is likely to push more defendants who are found incompetent toward diversion or outpatient competency restoration rather than automatic inpatient placement by creating court-appointed forensic navigators whose job is to identify diversion options, help set up community outpatient restoration, and advise courts and parties. Courts, prosecutors, defense attorneys, outpatient programs, and the unnamed department that will run the navigators will face new processes and timelines: prosecutors must justify when they object to dismissal and prove a “compelling state interest” to pursue restoration, courts must hold expedited hearings at several points, outpatient programs must meet rules (including medication management) and report noncompliance, and the department must certify navigator capacity before appointments, arrange rapid inpatient placements within seven days when outpatient fails, and adopt implementing rules. The practical effect for counties and cities is a financial incentive to reduce inpatient referrals: jurisdictions that cut inpatient competency referrals below locally set incentive levels or by large percentages can request money from a newly created behavioral health diversion fund to expand community services, but that fund only exists if the legislature actually appropriates money by June 30, 2025 and many details (including which specific state agency is “the department” and some text that was cut off) are missing from the extracted material.