The chair of this year’s Interim Legislative Health and Human Services Committee says he wishes the panel could have more time to study some of the major issues facing New Mexico.
During the committee’s organizational meeting on Monday Sen. Gerald Ortiz y Pino said since the topics covered by the committee are so extensive, it should be holding meetings all year long, instead of only 24 days.
He says when you include Medicaid and other factors, the Health and Human Services Committee is responsible for overseeing a majority of state spending.
“When you add in Children, Youth and Families, you add in all the institutions, you add in everything else and all of a sudden we’re looking at well over, I would say more like 55% of all state spending are under departments that this committee deals with,” Ortiz y Pino said. “So we have a good case to make. If we are going to do a good job, if we can get the attention of our colleagues in the LFC (Legislative Finance Committee) we really need to begin pushing hard on these issues. These are not afterthoughts. These are not fringe ideas that the state is dealing with. These are the core issues.”
Ortiz y Pino says the committee has been given over 67-hundred different topics lawmakers and others have asked that it discuss.
The committee agreed to focus on three major issues during the first three sets of meetings in the coming months.
They will be the Children Youth and Families Department, particularly the abuse and neglect of foster children. The committee will also spend time looking at behavioral health, substance abuse disorder and homelessness and the healthcare workforce.