Sandoval County Commission establishes legislative priorities for 2024 session

While the 2024 legislative session starts on Jan. 16, the Sandoval County Commission established the legislative priorities of Sandoval County for the upcoming session back in November.

At the Nov. 8 meeting, the commission voted unanimously on 16 priorities and issues to communicate with the New Mexico Legislature.

Though the 16 priorities were listed in no particular order, four of the top five issues deal with mental or behavioral health.

“Mental health is extremely important and we’re supporting that here. Behavioral health and substance abuse, these are hard hitting, impactful items that people need help with,” District 2 Commissioner Jay Block said.

The top three priorities were legislation to provide funding and statutory support for mental health resources and crisis intervention teams, legislation and funding to increase the availability of services for behavioral health and substance abuse and legislation and funding efforts to provide an increased level of training for government employees to deal with individuals in behavioral health crises.

No. 5 was legislation that provides additional training and funding for public safety personnel in the areas of crisis intervention, dealing with individuals suffering from mental illness or substance abuse issues, and dealing with individuals in behavioral health crises.

No. 4 was legislation that changes the makeup and powers of the Law Enforcement Academy to increase authority and to enhance the ability of the LEA to track, discipline and make determinations regarding the continued certification of law enforcement offices with a history of disciplinary issues.

Other legislative priorities for Sandoval County include:

• Legislation that creates a matching fund to help counties pay for construction and renovation of the state district courthouses.
• Legislation that provides a fix for inconsistencies between the decoupled GRT increments passed in the 2019 legislative session, and NMSA 1978 70-20E-90(D) which requires Class A counties without a county hospital operated pursuant to a lease with a state educational institution, to dedicate the entire amount of revenue produced by the imposition of the second one-eight increment to the support of indigent patients who are residents of the county.
• Legislation that creates funding for emergency communications annual licensing fees required for radio communications as a part of the state’s 700MHz interoperable communications system.
• Legislation that allows all Class A counties access to industrial revenue bonds as a tool for economic development within its boundaries whether incorporated or unincorporated.
• Legislation that improves IPRA to exclude certain law enforcement records so as to not interfere with ongoing investigations; to provide that commercial and bulk requesters pay for their own research costs instead of placing them on the taxpayer; to discourage abusive and serial requests; to prevent attorneys from using IPRA as a substitute for discovery; to extend the timelines for responding to requests; and to allow fees to be charged for the cost of labor in responding to broad and burdensome requests.
• Legislation to give counties the same exemption from the requirements of NMSA 13-6-4 already possessed by municipalities so that counties will not need state approve to dispose of junk personal property.
• Legislation to amend NMSA 7-2-14.3 to eliminate the requirement that the county commission every two years conduct both a public hearing and a vote on the low-income tax credit.
• Legislation to give the New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department additional staff and resources to value centrally assessed property and to provide transparency to county treasurers and county auditors of how centrally assessed property is valued.
• Per Board of County Commissioners Resolution 6.22.22.10, legislation that calls for improvements in voter processes including: photo ID, efficient removal of inactive voters, prohibiting the use of unsupervised ballot drop boxes, absentee ballot chain of custody, and post-election audits.
• Legislation supporting the removal of outdated, burdensome and conflicting statutory requirements for counties and call for a commission or other review of all statutes related to county government, many of which have never been updated since the 19th century.
• Legislation to end the unfunded mandate that counties provide facilities to state agencies such as the district courts (required by NMSA 34-6-24), the district attorneys (required by 20 NMSA 36-1-8.1), and the health department (required by NMSA 24-4-2).

“These are some hard-hitting issues our lobbyist will be working on,” Block said.

The 2024 legislative session ends Feb. 15.