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The Montana Legislature sent Gov. Steve Bullock a bill Thursday to move oversight of the private teen treatment industry to the state health department, ending 16 years of a system that essentially let an industry catering to troubled teens and desperate parents police itself.

Sen. Diane Sands, the Missoula Democrat who sponsored the change, said she was "thrilled" to see Senate Bill 267 pass its final vote in the Senate and expects Bullock to sign it.

"It's been almost two decades of trying to ensure that those facilities are regulated just as any other youth treatment program," Sands said. "Finally, finally they're going to get it."

SB 267 was nearly dead on arrival: It was tabled after it's first committee meeting in February after the Senate Public Health, Welfare and Safety Committee voted 5-5 on the proposal, which eliminates the Private Adolescent Alternative Residential or Outdoor Programs board under the Department of Labor and Industry, and moves regulatory authority over to the Department of Public Health and Human Services.

But the committee reconvened the next day, and passed the measure 7-3 to get the bill to the Senate floor.