Behavioral health package headed to New Mexico Senate

The Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday morning voted to pass a trio of bills meant to rebuild New Mexico’s behavioral health system after former Gov. Susana Martinez dismantled it more than a decade ago.

All three bills already passed through the Senate Health and Public Affairs Committee on Feb. 5. The Democratic majority in the Senate expects them to go to a vote on the Senate floor by the end of the week, said spokesperson Chris Nordstrum.

The Finance Committee voted 10-1 in favor of an amended version of Senate Bill 3, which would require the Administrative Office of the Courts, with help from the state Health Care Authority, to host regional meetings with experts to set priorities in their local areas to determine which services to deploy.

“Administrations change, and that’s why we’re here today,” SB3 co-sponsor Minority Floor Leader William Sharer (R-Farmington) said. “Things happened because only the executive had any authority. We change. But AOC changes slower, and so we have some continuity in what’s going on, so we’re not going down a particular path and all of a sudden, taking a hard right or a hard left because we have a new governor.”

Senate Majority Floor Leader Peter Wirth (D-Santa Fe), also a co-sponsor of SB3, called it the “guardrails and accountability” bill and “the key to the whole package.”

“It is absolutely critical that as we talk about public safety and passing public safety bills that deal with those that have competency issues — the unhoused, those that are pulled into the criminal system — that as those bills pass, we have the behavioral health support network in place to be able to get those folks into treatment,” Wirth said. “We can pass all the bills in the world but, if we don’t have the system in place, it’s not going to work.”

Wirth said the new version includes a “behavioral health executive committee” that would oversee the regional planning, which committee members had asked for on Tuesday.

Behavioral health package shifts responsibility to the courts

The committee voted 11-0 in favor of Senate Bill 2, which would make a one-time $200 million appropriation for building out the infrastructure needed to use the state Medicaid program to pay for the behavioral health services to patients.

Sen. Benny Shendo (D-Jemez Pueblo) called the legislation a “down payment” on building out the behavioral health treatment infrastructure.

The committee voted 11-0 in favor of Senate Bill 1, which would create a $1 billion Behavioral Health Trust Fund that would pay out 5%, or $50 million, each year, in the form of grants to providers in each region.

Sen. Elizabeth “Liz” Stefanics (D-Cerrillos) said the trust fund is a “long-term investment in public health.”

“By setting aside a substantial amount of funding, the state ensures a sustainable funding foundation for essential behavioral health services for years to come,” she said. “The fund also is very instrumental in the implementation of regional behavioral health plans across the state.”

The fund would allow the state to match federal, local and private funding sources for behavioral health programs, including Medicaid, Stefanics said.

Supporters of the package in committee on Wednesday included the League of Women Voters New Mexico, the American Association of University Women, the Democratic Party of New Mexico’s Veterans and Military Families Caucus, the National Alliance on Mental Illness New Mexico and the Gallup-McKinley County Chamber of Commerce.

There were no opponents in the audience or online.