Senate Finance committee adopts substitute for Senate Bill 3 to set regional behavioral health guardrails and oversight

The Senate Finance Committee voted to adopt its substitute for Senate Bill 3 on a recorded roll call, advancing legislation that sets regional behavioral health planning, creates an executive oversight committee, and requires quarterly reporting to the Legislature and executive and judicial branches.

Senate Finance moved not to pass the original Senate Bill 3 and to pass the committee's substitute. The motion to adopt the substitute passed on a recorded vote (11-1). The committee's substitute frames regional plans, identifies required stakeholders, and establishes an executive-level behavioral health committee to provide final oversight of regional plans while keeping the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) as a convener rather than the ultimate program operator.

The substitute creates two implementation features committee members repeatedly cited as essential: (1) a behavioral health executive committee composed of executive-branch leaders and cabinet secretaries to provide oversight, and (2) a project manager role intended to run day-to-day coordination for the regional planning process. Sponsors and agency witnesses said funding in the companion budget bill, Senate Bill 2, is intended to provide near-term resources to stand up those management functions.

Senator Wirth, who introduced the substitute, said the bill was the product of collaboration among the three branches of government and called it "the guardrails and accountability bill." He noted courts will play a continuing role in sequential intercept mapping and other coordination but that the substitute adds an executive-level oversight body to provide continuity across administrations. "The courts will still play an absolutely critical role," Wirth said, while the executive committee will serve as a final arbiter of regional plans.

Senator Scherer said the substitute's guardrails were the reason he supported the larger funding package. "Without this particular bill, I would not have signed on to this package at all," Scherer said, adding that the regional approach allows local plans to reflect different county needs.

Adrian Avila, who the sponsors identified as coordinating stakeholder input, told the committee that the health care authority expects to use an initial contractor to fill the project-manager role in the current fiscal year with the possibility of shifting some positions in-house later. Carrie Armijo, Cabinet Secretary of the Health Care Authority, said the agency stands in support of the bill and that the substitute addresses many of the authority's concerns.

Witnesses from stakeholder groups and providers testified in support. Meredith Machen of the League of Women Voters and the American Association of University Women called the collaboration "beautiful" and urged support. Gabrielle Dietrich, executive director of NAMI New Mexico, said the substitute would help "desilo" services by creating centralized accountability for funds. JD Bullington of the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce and Mike Richards of the UNM Health Sciences Center also testified in favor.

Committee members pressed for details on implementation, including how many positions the effort would require and who would oversee the project manager. AOC's representative said the courts are willing to be a convener and to partner in the role defined in the substitute, but that resources will be needed because the functions are not part of the courts' base budget.

The substitute specifies stakeholders to be invited to regional planning meetings (including local governments, providers, CYFD and school districts) and calls for regional reports to the judiciary, the executive and the Legislature that include implementation status, available data and lists of qualified providers. It also removes language permitting designees for members of the behavioral health executive committee, requiring primary officials to participate rather than their designees.

Supporters told the committee the substitute complements funding in Senate Bill 2 and longer-term investments under Senate Bill 1; opponents and some members cautioned the plan was rushed and urged clearer metrics and implementation details before moving forward. Senator Woods was the lone recorded no vote on the substitute motion.

The committee's adoption of the substitute moves the bill and its accountability provisions forward to the next steps in the legislative process where the companion appropriations bill will determine initial funding for implementation.