By ALAINA MENCINGER
The Santa Fe New Mexican
A massive investment in the state’s behavioral health care system swept through the New Mexico Senate on Friday — and, with five weeks to go in the legislative session, in record time.
Senate Majority Floor Leader Peter Wirth in January promised to turbo-charge the process and get a package of public safety-related legislation to the governor’s desk as soon as possible.
If the bill numbers were any indication, the plan’s working so far. With almost 400 bills filed in the Senate alone, the trio of bills — SB1, SB2 and SB3 — was first in line.
The bipartisan package would create a $1 billion behavioral health trust fund, dole out millions to expand housing services, provide grants to local and tribal entities, map how people move through the behavioral health and criminal justice systems and create a committee to review and evaluate regional plans and outcomes.
SB 3 sets the “framework” for the new system, which Wirth said involves all three branches of government and takes a regional approach to behavioral health. The committee formed by the bill would create behavioral health regions in the state, which would then track existing resources and gaps in services. Based on that accounting, the committee would make funding decisions to bolster resources in particular areas, including growing the state’s behavioral health workforce.
The trust fund established in SB 1 won’t pay out immediately, so SB 2 provides what Sen. Benny Shendo Jr., D-Jemez Pueblo, called a “down payment” for the programming.
“That is the beauty of this approach,” Wirth said. “… There is no way that what’s happening in Santa Fe is the same thing that’s happening in San Juan. … These districts will come in, and then basically, it’ll be up to them to come forward with an outline of a plan and five specific projects that they’re going to work on, and then this committee will have the oversight to go through that plan.”
Sen. Jay Block, R-Rio Rancho, said the bill he co-sponsored helps create a “framework” to solve the state’s behavioral health problems, which he said go back to a 2013 dismantling of behavioral health systems under the Susana Martinez administration that he said the state has never recovered from.
“We don’t know where we’re going, and certainly we’re not getting there,” Block said. “This puts the rudder on the ship. It doesn’t yet fix all of the problems. It gives us the framework to fix the problems.”
The three bills overwhelmingly passed the Senate Friday; the number of senators voting against each bill could be counted on one hand. Although the measures had bipartisan support, a news release sent after the vote by Senate Republicans said they plan to advance their own suite of crime bills.
“Make no mistake, this investment alone does NOT solve our state’s rampant crime crisis,” said Senate Minority Leader Bill Sharer, R-Farmington, in a statement. “Addressing behavioral health is one small piece of our otherwise broad and increasingly worse crime crisis; it is imperative that we also pass accompanying legislation that directly focuses on holding criminals accountable for their actions.”
Sen. Moe Maestas also had misgivings about keeping a massive sum — about a tenth of the state’s budget — in a trust fund. Maestas, D-Albuquerque, said New Mexicans might be better served by spending that $1 billion to grow the tax base and state economy.
“If we build an economy, we build a tax base, we will never have to cut state budgets ever again,” Maestas said. “And we will not have to put money in a mattress that we’re never, ever, ever going to spend.”
But Sen. George Muñoz, D-Gallup, a sponsor of the trust fund bill, disagreed.
“We’re building a future for New Mexico,” Muñoz said. “We’re building a future in the budget, because we have changed our budgeting system in the last two years, where we’re almost going to be able to get the same amount of oil and gas money by 2030 by investing in New Mexico — taking the money today and investing for the future.”