I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Two bills that would have merged departments and eliminated redundancies were tabled on Thursday by the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee.
Both bills, HB 94 (Merge Aging and Human Services Departments) and HB 95 (Merge Homeland Security and Public Safety Department), were introduced by Rep. Al Park, D-Bernalillo. Gov. Bill Richardson supported the measures, which had been recommended his Committee on Government Efficiency as ways to save money and help balance the state budget.
Richardson also supported several similar measures, including merging the Public Education Department with the Higher Education Department and merging the Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department with the Environment Department and the Office of the Natural Resources Trustee.
“It’s an ugly challenge to solve the crisis,” Park said during testimony of HB 95, “but we have to continue to work to minimize government.”
The House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee heard testimony from several New Mexico emergency personnel — including fire fighters and Luna county sheriff’s officers — who opposed the bill on the grounds that police and others had not had a chance to really discuss what the bill would mean for their already stretched budgets.
No one came in support of the bill, which was killed immediately following discussion, which would have “establish[ed] a single, unified department to consolidate state law enforcement and safety and homeland security and emergency management functions in order to provide better management, real coordination and more efficient use of state resources and manpower in responding to New Mexico’s public safety and homeland security and emergency management needs and problems.”
Park’s other proposed merger was a bit more controversial, though only a representative of the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce stood for the bill.
HB 94 would have folded the states Aging and Long-Term Services Department, which focuses on the well-being of the elderly, into the Human Services Department, which has a broader focus and includes children, low-income households and Medicaid recipients.
“I never thought this bill would pass into law,” Park said, explaining that he brought it forward because he says he “feel[s] passionate that we should try to make government more efficient while providing the highest level of services.”
It was those levels of service, however, that caused the bill to ultimately fail. New Mexico Association for Home and Hospice Care Executive Director Joie Glenn said past efforts to combine the two departments ultimately had adverse effects for those who needed the help most. “There are ways of doing this without taking really good people out of one department and putting them into another where they could get lost,” she said.
Former secretary of Aging and Long-Term Services Debbie Armstrong also spoke out against the bill saying that she “supports efficiencies in government but I don’t think we’ll achieve it with this,” pointing out that even the basic costs of merging the departments — training and Internet technologies — would be costly, therefore negating much of the savings proposed.
Rep. Tom Anderson, R-Albuquerque, also touched on the service issue, saying “I wonder how, by merging them, we can improve these agencies. I don’t think we can.”
While only Park, co-sponsor Rep. Bill O’Neill, D-Albuquerque, and Consumer and Public Affairs Committee vice chair Moe Maestas, D-Albuquerque, voted for HB 94, committee members said they thankful for the discussion it brought to the table.
Rep. Karen Giannini, D-Albuquerque, advised that it would have “better served as a memorial to further the conversation,” rather than a bill that would have to be pushed through the 30-day session, acknowledging Park’s felling that the “incredibly complex issue is just one microcosm of the issues” facing lawmakers this session.
