A month ago, Bernalillo County officials hoped for feedback from city and county residents on the proposed creation of a Behavioral Health Authority and how it should operate in their communities.
At its meeting Tuesday, the Board of County Commissioners said the volume of public comments it received exceeded expectations, and due to the wide range of issues the authority seeks to address, it unanimously decided to allow more time for comments by deferring a vote on the proposed ordinance until June 25.
“In April, we said we wanted to make sure we got public comment, and you’ll see that we listened and made some changes [to the ordinance],” said Commissioner Adriann Barboa, cosponsor of the ordinance with Commissioner Eric Olivas. “I’m grateful for everyone that has given their time to influence this ordinance over the 30-day-plus comment period.”
Barboa said the county received feedback from close to 200 people through oral and written comments. In addition, she said the ordinance made the rounds among the county’s Behavioral Health Initiative steering committee, city of Albuquerque departments like Albuquerque Community Safety, the city-county Homeless Coordinating Council and Albuquerque Public Schools, among others.
“I feel super confident about this policy now that so many folks have been able to give input,” Barboa said, adding that the deferred vote was also needed to ensure additional changes were incorporated. “I’m really excited to pass this, but I also want to make sure we get it right.”
Officials said an authority was needed to help unify the county’s behavioral health efforts that are currently spread across multiple departments. The proposed agency would place services together and assist in better coordination between the state, city of Albuquerque, nonprofits and providers, and educational institutions like APS and the University of New Mexico, among others.
Commissioners recently hired Wayne Lindstrom to serve as the deputy county manager of the authority — overseeing the funding of critically needed behavioral health services under the county’s Behavioral Health Initiative (BHI). The BHI funds programs and services for those experiencing severe mental illness, substance abuse and addiction, housing insecurity and homelessness. It was created a decade ago through a one-eighth percent gross receipts tax to raise millions of dollars to improve access to mental and behavioral health care services.
Olivas said that while he knew the public would weigh-in on the ordinance, he was a bit surprised by the high interest.
“I’ve never actually really seen that happen before. It’s a very rare thing. It’s a genuine thing,” he said at Tuesday’s meeting. “It was just incredible to see the community come out, and I think it’s also illustrative of how important this issue is to the community, because the community shows up when something drives it to show up.”
During the meeting’s public comments, a woman who identified herself as a nurse with 20 years of experience said she supported the goals of the ordinance.
“Ensuring that the county has exceptional services for mental and behavioral health and substance abuse treatment would drastically reduce the long term societal and monetary impact on local communities and governments,” she said. “The proposed ordinance will surely improve the quality of life issues for our unhoused and housed. Long term comprehensive services are vital to improve outcomes in case management, employment support and in some cases permanent supportive housing.”
I went to one of the public listening-tour meetings about this. It was well attended and people made extremely intelligent comments and asked cogent questions. Well done, commissioners.