NM lawmakers set aside $3 million for public health councils

Groups in New Mexico devoted to public health in local communities got a temporary windfall from state lawmakers this year after they say they’ve operated for more than a decade without enough money to achieve their mission.

Anticipating a major cut in federal funds because the government declared the public health emergency for COVID-19 over, state officials agreed to set aside $3 million in the next fiscal year for health councils, local groups who are trusted community health hubs across New Mexico.

But the state money is set to go away once again in 2026, and advocates will have to return to the Roundhouse to try to make the money a permanent part of the state budget each year, called “recurring” spending.

While the official public health emergency for COVID has been declared over, public health challenges at the local level remain, said New Mexico Alliance of Health Councils Executive Director Valeria Alarcón.

“Those disparities, those barriers have not dissolved,” Alarcón said. “For New Mexico, especially in rural communities, we really do remain at an emergency response phase.”

Who are the health councils?

There are 33 health councils operating in every county in New Mexico, and another nine based in tribal nations around the state. They work on public health issues their communities identify as local priorities, which can include COVID vaccination and testing, harm reduction, training, transportation, climate change, or primary care.

“The health councils work at the grassroots level, so they know what their people need,” said Rep. Anthony Allison (D-Fruitland), who has been trying to get the groups funded every session since he was elected in 2019.

The Partnership for a Healthy Torrance Community is the health council for parts of three counties in central New Mexico. The two people running the group say the money will allow them to continue their work around substance use disorder, gun violence, and COVID-19 testing and vaccination.

Based in the office at the New Mexico National DWI Victims’ Memorial of Perpetual Tears in Moriarty, the group serves all of Torrance, eastern Bernalillo County and southern Santa Fe County.

State law requires every health council in New Mexico to write a community health improvement plan they submit to the state Department of Health.

The Torrance health council’s main focus is mental health and substance use disorder. Their latest plan calls for mental health counselors to work in schools, along with classes about tobacco’s harms meant for K-12 students.

They distribute gun locks and the opioid overdose reversing drug naloxone — commonly known by its brand name Narcan — throughout Torrance County. They also train people how to use Narcan to save a life.

Debbie Ortiz directs the health council and is an advocate for substance use disorder prevention.

“There’s a lot of things that the money would help with if we could dream about having it on a regular basis, and not have to worry about — every year going to Santa Fe, going to the Legislature, begging for the money — when we’re already doing the work,” she said.

Return to ‘normal’ means CDC funding going away 

At the COVID-19 pandemic’s onset, the Torrance County health council was “the main hub” where people called about COVID vaccines and tests, Ortiz said. She said the group became familiar faces as they helped people — many of whom are disabled — register for vaccines and quickly get in and out of vaccination clinics.

“So we became more and more trusted,” she said.

A $2.25 billion grant from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention allowed health councils across the country to mitigate the effects of the SARS-Cov-2 virus and COVID-19, the disease it causes. 

But the grant will run out in May.

New Mexico to kick COVID vaccines, treatments to the private market

Before the grant, the health council in Torrance had a “very shoestring budget,” of $15,000 per year, Ortiz said.

The CDC money allowed the health council to hire two community health workers, she said. Without it, one community health worker will soon leave, said Adrian Ortiz, no relation, the health council’s coordinator.

Four years into the pandemic, people still reach out to the Torrance health council with questions and concerns, or if they just need a COVID test, Debbie Ortiz said.

“Even now, if they feel like maybe they have COVID, they remember that they could get COVID tests through us, and we’ll take them and deliver them to their homes or meet them someplace so they can pick those tests up,” she said.

$3M for one year set aside

Last fall, the New Mexico Department of Health left health councils out of its proposed budget submitted to the Legislature.

However, Alarcón lobbied the agency and the lawmakers who control the state’s budget. In the last week of January, the department of health added $3 million to its agency request. In her campaign to get the money into the budget, Alarcón said she also got support from Rep. Gail Armstrong (R-Magdalena) and Rep. Tara Lujan (D-Santa Fe).

The House Appropriations and Finance Committee, headed by Rep. Nathan Small (D-Las Cruces), approved the $3 million, and it was included in the state budget passed by both chambers. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed the budget into law March 6.

But it was not the full amount of money that health councils and their allies in the Roundhouse wanted.

Allison (Diné) carried House Bill 67, which would have set aside $6.6 million every year for health councils, more than double approved in the state budget. That bill passed one committee before it ran out of time and died in House Appropriations and Finance without a hearing.

Allison said he hoped the Senate would pitch in the remaining $3.6 million but since HB 67 didn’t get out of the House, it could not be considered in the Senate.

“This could have been the last time we get record revenues from oil and gas, so it was an opportune time,” Allison said. “I guess that’s why, you could say, it upsets me that people kept me in the dark all along.”

About a week before the session ended, Allison said he asked Small again to put HB 67 on the committee’s agenda, something Small can schedule as part of his responsibilities as chair. Small responded that lawmakers had already set aside $3 million in the state budget so it was unnecessary to hear it in committee.

In the 2023 session, the same committee tabled another bill from Allison that sought funding for public health councils. Small said it was only a “temporary table,” and that the funding could still end up in the state budget, but it never did.

Next legislative session ‘make or break’ for N.M. health councils

This session, Allison said Small’s committee “dropped it from getting it heard in the Senate,” where he believes it could have gained more support.

“We never heard it before (the House Appropriations and Finance Committee), so that’s why I was very upset with him and doing that to me for the second year in a row,” Allison said.

Small responded with a written statement sent to Source New Mexico by a spokesperson for House Democrats.

“We included $3 million for tribal and community health councils in HB 2 this year, marking the first time health councils were funded in our state budget since the great recession,” Small said. “When funding-focused measures such as this are rolled into the budget, there isn’t a need for a separate bill to also make its way through the full legislative process individually.”

The $3 million is a step in the right direction, Alarcón said, and will allow health councils to hold on to their staff, usually one or two part-time workers, and focus on one or two priorities in their community health improvement plans.

“While we’re disappointed that we didn’t get the full $6.6 million, we’re happy with the $3 million anyway,” Allison said.

In a separate bill, lawmakers also approved $160,000 in one-time money over two years for health councils serving Harding, Quay, Union and Colfax counties. Rep. Jack Chatfield (R-Mosquero) included the money for health councils in his legislative district, Alarcón said.

It’s not clear if money from that bill will be in addition to or replace those health councils’ share of the $3 million.

State law makes the department of health responsible for distributing funding health council funding.

Allison is not seeking reelection and will not be in the Roundhouse to fight for funding next year.

He said Armstrong has shown an interest in making the money recurring. He wishes she will “run with it.”

“My parting words when I left the Legislature was that we all need to look out for our fellow five-fingered beings,” he said. “I told them I’d like to make a suggestion to both parties: Continue working together, and don’t act like the animal that represents your party.”