Behavioral health funding in New Mexico took about a $4 million hit at the end of last week鈥檚 legislative session. But the may have asked for even less money than that.
Democrat of Deming is the chair of the Senate Finance Committee, which is tasked with hammering out state spending. He said, yes, they took millions from behavioral health services, but it wasn鈥檛 because New Mexico is so strapped for cash.
Instead, Smith explained, the head of the Human Services Department said they could do with about $6 million less for behavioral health. "The secretary said there was cost savings that he had," Smith said. "We cut because of cost savings. It wasn鈥檛 just because of the budget situation, the revenue situation."
The Human Services Department did not respond to requests for comment as of airtime.
during the session to call for no cuts at all to mental health and substance abuse treatment programs. "You know we have an awful lot of uncertainty," Smith said. "I can鈥檛 say that I feel good. We鈥檙e moving forward precariously."
Those services have been in turmoil after the shakeup a couple of years ago where the state froze Medicaid funding to 15 providers鈥攎ost of whom have now been cleared of fraud charges.
