Several will work over the weekend, and a very few might feel as if they’re reliving nightmarish all-nighters from college, as they put the final touches on a strategic plan Richardson wants on his desk by Thursday.

But even after all the work, the plan – viewed as a guide to help New Mexico get ready for the new federal health care law — will be short on specifics and tall on the hard slogging ahead.

“This is an initial identification of what are the key issues. What are the key impacts?” Human Services Secretary Katie Falls said Thursday of the plan due July 1, the first day of the new fiscal year. The executive leadership team Falls helped lead met Thursday for the final time before next week’s deadline.

A helpful way to think about it is that the executive leadership team was charged with asking big-picture questions — how many lanes should the road be – and not construction questions –what do we do with that hill in the road’s proposed path.

General concepts, and few details

As a result, the group’s discussion tended toward the general Thursday, and was bereft of any hot-button issues making headlines.

There was no debate on health insurance exchanges, a centerpiece of the new health care law. Or of how New Mexico should interpret the term ‘unreasonable.’ The new law gives states the power in 2014 to reject ‘unreasonable’ rate hike requests from health insurers. Some argue New Mexico already has that power.

Even so, a few ideas emerged as likely candidates for inclusion in the strategic plan.

One with better-than-even odds of making it in is the creation of an Office of Health Care Reform. As envisioned Thursday by the leadership team, the agency would coordinate the state’s efforts to change state law and regulations to prepare for 2014, when many provisions in the new law go into effect.

The agency wouldn’t have its own designated staff, but probably should borrow state workers from other agencies on a part-time basis, said Marilyn Hill, deputy cabinet secretary for the state’s Taxation and Revenue Department.

“I don’t think any of us is talking about creating an office and asking for money for it,” said Falls, who acknowledged the state’s precarious financial situation.

Another popular recommendation Thursday was to formalize the leadership team as a body that would oversee the proposed office. Quickly incorporated was a suggestion to add legislative representatives.

A similar working group created by the Legislature is currently meeting and plans to study issues in the months leading up to the 2011 legislative session.

“I would suggest you would have some of us on (the team) … to know why decisions were made,” state Rep. Danice Picraux, D-Albuquerque, told the group Thursday, referring to her fellow lawmakers. “So we’re knowledgeable when we have to defend it.”

Coming debates and decisions

Even if the strategic plan doesn’t deal in specifics, it points to the coming discussions and decisions that must be held and made.

There might not have been any recommendations on what kind of health insurance exchange the state should start constructing.

But that debate is coming. Massachusetts’ former Medicaid director told the executive leadership team earlier this month that the topic should be in the back of their minds.

Should it be a weak exchange — his words – that is merely a centralized area for insurance plans and consumers to come together? Or should it be a strong exchange — one that actively wields its potential bulk purchasing power to drive reform?

Then there are the thousands of details – big and small — to work out.

Already Falls’ agency is trying to predict how many New Mexicans will enter Medicaid, the government’s low-income health insurance program. Medicaid eligibility rules change in 2014, making anyone earning up to 133 percent over the federal poverty level eligible. Currently, adults with children who earn 85 percent of the federal poverty level qualify in New Mexico.

Another unknown is how many small employers might take advantage of tax credits that will help them purchase health insurance for their workers. The most recent estimate is that more than 25,000 New Mexico businesses are eligible.

Also elusive is a projected number of New Mexicans who will enter the private insurance market. New Mexico has one of the largest uninsured rates in the nation, second only to Texas.

And how prepared is New Mexico’s community of medical providers? That question was raised during last month’s executive team meeting.

In other words, the real work has only just begun.

Legislators have complained in the past that some Cabinet secretaries in the Richardson administration have been dishonest or, at least not forthcoming with information. Rick Homans was before the committee today to be confirmed as head of the Taxation and Revenue Department.

Homans has been running the department on an interim basis for months.

Jennings spoke at length about what he described as lack of honesty by some Cabinet secretaries, and specifically mentioned the secretary of the Human Services Department. He said that makes it difficult to know when any are being honest, so he would ask during each confirmation hearing whether he can expect that secretary to be truthful.

If a secretary who pledged to be honest were caught lying, Jennings said he would do all he could to make sure that secretary would be forced from his or her job.

At times, Jennings appeared to be directly threatening or addressing Homans, in part because he used the word “you” while addressing the secretary instead of speaking generally about those he might catch lying.

But the leader of the Senate qualified his comments by telling Homans that he had never had a problem with him personally. That wasn’t enough to cool things off after Jennings’ strong words.

“This has gotten personal rather quickly,” Homans said when it was his turn to speak. “… I do take some offense.”

Homans did pledge to provide truthful information to lawmakers at all times.

“You have my truest commitment and pledge to deal with you in an utmost and forthright manner,” he said.

After Homans spoke, Jennings again qualified his prior statements by saying he didn’t intend for his comments to be taken personally.

“I don’t mean to put you on the spot, but I’m going to ask that of every Cabinet secretary from now on,” he said. “… I think you did a pretty good job at your last Cabinet position (at the Economic Development Department).”

Sen. Dede Feldman, D-Albuquerque, didn’t appear to be impressed by Jennings’ qualification of his statements.

“We have not always agreed, but I believe you to be a person of the highest integrity, and I just wanted you to know that,” Feldman, a member of the committee, told Homans. “… We have to disagree without being disagreeable and leave our personal grudges against one department there and not take it to other officials.”

The non-binding memorial, HJM 34, which is being carried by Rep. Thomas C. Taylor, R-Farmington, says that the tax and revenue department is “severely hampered” when it comes to developing tax policy because of time constraints and a lack of information and analysis.

For these reasons, the memorial says, the purpose of the committee is to identify “needed changes in New Mexico tax statutes and regulations” and to provide “feedback on the department’s performance.”

Taylor, the House minority floor leader, said such a committee is necessary because each year the tax laws become more complex, and there’s a disconnect between the people who work in the tax department and the impacts of their decisions on the ground. This committee would help bridge that gap, he said.

For example, last year the department decided to enforce the quarterly filing of income tax for a certain class of seniors without notice, he said, and the effect on seniors was detrimental.

“While it was in the law, they hadn’t been enforcing it,” he said. “Then they just all of a sudden did it, causing some seniors harm. And it wasn’t fair. A committee like this would be able to check that kind of thing.”

Taylor said the intention of the memorial is that the committee will be composed of businesses. When asked why the business community should have its own committee inside the tax and revenue department, while other organizations — like the AARP, which represents senior citizens — are excluded, Taylor replied that businesses have a special stake in the taxation process.

“All taxes originate from business,” he said. “It’s focused on the business community — because they collect all the taxes.”

When asked how the personal income tax derived from individuals fits into that, Taylor reiterated that ultimately all of that taxable income comes from businesses.

Bill Jordan of the Albuquerque-based nonprofit New Mexico Voices for Children, though, said the idea that the state’s tax code isn’t responsive to the business community is “ludicrous.”

“It’s ludicrous that the business community is dissatisfied with this administration’s tax policy,” Jordan said. “Taxes have been cut by $1 billion in the past 6 years and 80 to 90 percent of that was done at the behest of the business community… Now they want a business-only, no-one-else-at-the-table advisory committee on tax policy?”

Dr. Beverlee McClure, president of the Association of Commerce & Industry, agrees with Taylor that the committee is necessary.

The Tax and Revenue Department “by their own admission, isn’t collecting the [tax] data and publishing it like they once did,” she said. “This is data needed by decision-makers to make sound policy decisions.”

As an example, McClure said, the state can’t currently tell if it’s receiving a return on investment for tax credits, “which is a huge conversation in this economy.”

But McClure agreed that inclusion of other groups would be beneficial, saying, “it’s a good point about being inclusive, and an amendment would solve this.”

The memorial has passed the House and is now waiting to be heard in the Senate.