© 2024 NEW MEXICO NEWS SERVICES 8-19-24
Election time for the PERA board
By Merilee Dannemann
Triple Spaced Again
If you are a retiree from New Mexico state or local government, you probably recently received a letter from PERA telling you about your pension increase starting in July. PERA is the Public Employees Retirement Association, which administers your pension.
You probably also received a packet from PERA inviting you to vote in the PERA board election, which is taking place now by mail. That packet contains a mail-in ballot, which must be received by Sept. 13 to count. You must sign the outer envelope.
Municipal and state employees will also be electing representatives this year and should have received their mail-in ballots.
Please take the time to vote for a representative on the PERA board. Information about the candidates is on the PERA website under “Board Elections.” It is important to show you are paying attention. You almost lost the right to choose a board representative a couple of years ago, in a legislative attempt to reconstruct the board with mostly appointed instead of elected members.
Don’t get excited about the pension increase. The amount is puny. For most retirees, it’s one-half of one percent – not enough to keep up with inflation. Some years ago, my accountant advised me I could afford to retire from state government. He cheerfully explained that my pension would include a 3% cost of living adjustment or COLA every year, and what a great deal that was.
That’s long gone. It’s not likely coming back any time soon. The analysts realized that with the COLA, the fund would run out – the phenomenon known as unfunded liability.
The PERA trust fund comes from two sources: deductions from the paychecks of active employees and their government employers, and the investment earnings of the fund. The number of retirees has been growing – 45,000-plus at the last report – and the number of active employees has been declining – recently 47,000-plus, affecting the ratio of money out compared to money in.
To recall the history: after 20 years with a 3% COLA, and a couple of years of strident arguments, the COLA was cut to 2% in 2013. Retiree organizations supported that change because it might save the fund – but it wasn’t enough. In 2020 a more drastic change was enacted. The COLA was reduced to 0.5% for most retirees, with a possible future profit-sharing increase if the fund performs well, and adding a so-called “13thcheck” – an extra benefit check that, critically, does not compound – for three years. The three years are over.
The 13th check required an infusion of cash from the state general fund. If you want to wish for something that’s possible, wish for another year of that.
The 0.5% increase is not keeping up with inflation, and some legislators are talking about whether they can help retirees in 2025. But restoring the COLA is unlikely.
On the back of the letter announcing your pension increase, you might see a little chart, indicating that your July pension would have a $30 deduction for your membership contribution to RPENM, the Retired Public Employees, a private nonprofit organization whose purpose is to represent retirees. If you had the deduction, you joined the organization and authorized the deduction. There’s a similar line for AFSCME retiree members. Both organizations have made endorsements in the upcoming election.
The PERA board had a great deal of disruption a couple of years ago, but it’s calmed down (thank goodness) and now its politics receive very little press coverage. So it’s up to you to decide whether to follow any of these endorsements or do your own analysis before voting. Just please vote.Contact Merilee Dannemann through www.triplespacedagain.com.
© 2024 NEW MEXICO NEWS SERVICES 8-5-24
Domenici needs to show she’s from here
By Merilee Dannemann
Triple Spaced Again
Let’s not talk about race. It might upset the children.That’s the rule in Florida, at least, or so we interpret from the way it’s been reported. It means they don’t want to upset the white children. It’s not clear whether they consider the black children.
This was Florida’s response to something called critical race theory.
But if someone were to say we want to stop the teaching of critical race theory in New Mexico, how would that even make sense? Nella Domenici, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate from New Mexico, said it. The statement was in a fundraising letter that the general public probably won’t see. Critical race theory started out as an academic concept that was only taught in colleges or law schools. It has been described as a legal framework for observing how systemic racism persists in spite of laws that attempt to overcome it.
The term was redefined a few years ago. A conservative pundit named Chris Rufo claims credit for this. It is now used by conservatives to mean whatever they want it to mean related to the discussion of race. The implication is that public schools are teaching that white people are oppressors and black people are victims, making white students feel guilty, and this should stop. Domenici’s letter says: “I want the federal government to stop telling states and local government how to run our schools. … And I want the left-wing Teachers’ unions to … stop pushing Critical Race Theory curricula that are divisive and anti-American.”
In the same paragraph she says the federal government should not tell New Mexico how to run its schools and then she says how the schools should be run. Which is it?
The letter is on Nella Domenici letterhead and signed by her. I have no doubt it is authentic
. But I did not get an answer when I asked her staff for a comment. I think it’s reasonable for New Mexicans to know what she means.
The history of New Mexico, as readers know, is not a simple story of racial domination of African Americans by Whites, or, as we say here, Anglos. Our history contains centuries of complex interactions of multiple ethnic groups, and that complexity factors deeply in our culture to this day. The differences among us are not only cultural but in some cases are enshrined in law, like the rights of the indigenous people whose ancestors were here first. To avoid talking about race when teaching history in New Mexico is not only insulting to this state, it’s impossible.
(Before I go further in oversimplifying racial history, this is not to imply that racial issues are simple anywhere else either.)
It must be tempting for someone named Domenici to take advantage of her famous family name. Her father, Sen. Pete Domenici, was admired and respected here for decades. But what is her real commitment to the job she’s running for?
Someone who knows New Mexico would not have written that incredibly insensitive comment. I’m guessing it was written by a staff member who knows generic partisan buzzwords but not New Mexico. But I have to wonder: since it was sent in her name, did Domenici even read it? Does she stand by these comments or not? Will she demonstrate that she takes responsibility for her own campaign?
It’s hard to imagine that someone named Domenici would be a carpetbagger in New Mexico, but it was her choice to seek to represent this state in the Senate, so it’s up to her to prove she isn’t. Contact Merilee Dannemann through www.triplespacedagain.com.
© 2024 NEW MEXICO NEWS SERVICES 7/22/24
Monitoring the invasion of private equity into healthcare
By Merilee Dannemann
Triple Spaced Again
Healthcare companies should never have profit as their primary mission, don’t you think?
There’s a genuine conflict between the profit motive and what healthcare is supposed to accomplish: providing a service that heals people’s illnesses or helps them stay healthy. For a healthcare institution to be successful, profit has to be tempered with giving priority to the wellbeing of patients.
America has been struggling with this conflict for decades, because so much of our healthcare is provided by for-profit entities. New Mexico regulators are making a new attempt to intervene, based on Senate Bill 15, enacted this year.
In recent years, businesses called private equity companies have entered the healthcare field, and it appears nothing good is resulting from this except for their investors.
Private equity firms’ business is simply to make money for their investors, whatever that takes. If it requires cutting costs by firing employees or selling off assets, that’s what they reportedly do.
As described in a Los Angeles Times opinion article, “Private equity is a 40-year-old Wall Street creation that thrives on cost-cutting, wealth extraction, short time horizons, and financial engineering. It bought, sold, and liquidated its way through the American retail sector years ago…”
Private equity has been implicated in the bankruptcies of well-known and popular companies such as Toys ‘R’ Us, J. Crew and many other former retailers whose names are still familiar.
SB15 gives the state Office of the Superintendent of Insurance (OSI) regulatory authority over proposed takeovers of hospitals in New Mexico. The carefully worded press release described the authority as “oversight over certain hospital transactions that result in a change of control.”
The bill that passed was a substitute. The original version would have given OSI the same authority over more types of healthcare entities.
At a recent public meeting, Superintendent Alice Kane cited statistics about the negative effects of private equity ownership of healthcare facilities, including factors like cutting back the number of nurses, eliminating services that were not profitable, replacing in-person medical visits with telemedicine, and producing higher costs and worse outcomes for patients.
Private equity firms, she said, own 38% of New Mexico rural hospitals. These facilities were vulnerable to takeover because they were starving for cash
. A new report from the Private Equity Stakeholder Project says 17 out of 80 healthcare bankruptcies in 2023 were backed by private equity firms, plus 12 bankruptcies by companies with venture capital backing. Another wave of bankruptcies is expected in 2024, the report says.
SB15, called the Healthcare Consolidation Oversight Act, starts creating a regulatory structure that will authorize OSI to review and approve or disapprove major management changes such as mergers and acquisitions. It was sponsored by Sen. Katy Duhigg, D- Albuquerque, and Rep. Reena Szczepanski, D- Santa Fe.
The new Healthcare Authority is to be involved in these decisions, the bill says. The Healthcare Authority is just now coming into existence, replacing the Human Services Department and adding bureaus moved from several other agencies.
The bill has a limited life. It contains its own repeal, effective July 1, 2025, and presumably is intended to lead to more comprehensive follow-up legislation next year.
A series of meetings around the state is underway to hear comments and receive recommendations on the next phase of legislation. The meeting schedule is posted on the OSI website under “health-care-consolidation.”
We’ve been hearing about the crisis of small rural hospitals for so long we can’t call it a crisis anymore; it’s just the way things are because we refuse to fix it. Maybe this new law can help slow down the inevitable decline.
Contact Merilee Dannemann through www.triplespacedagain.com.
© 2024 NEW MEXICO NEWS SERVICES 7-1-24
Let’s get bold about fixing education
By Merilee Dannemann
Triple Spaced Again
The most overused word in the recent primary was “bold.” Candidates were claiming they had bold solutions for New Mexico’s myriad problems and failings.
Then we got the Kids Count report, reminding us that New Mexico is again 50 out of 50 in children’s wellbeing.
The bare statistics in that report show that New Mexico children’s literacy rate is much worse than the poverty rate. We have 23% of New Mexico children in poverty, almost 50% higher than the national average of 16%. But the rate of fourth graders who cannot read proficiently is 79%, 11 points above the national average – or, expressed another way, two out of three children who can’t read are not in poverty, so poverty is not their issue.
At the same time, we have a reported $3 billion or so in extra state revenue floating around.
I have been collecting bold ideas for improving New Mexico education, and the extra $3 billion makes me feel somewhat bolder. If New Mexico really wants to implement bold solutions for education, here are a few.
- Demonstrate to students that New Mexico values their education by sending them to school in good buildings. Rebuild or remodel every outdated school in the state so that school buildings are not only safe, healthful and comfortable but also handsome and well maintained. Include single-stall gender-neutral restrooms for students with special needs so we stop wasting energy on restroom arguments.
- Do whatever it takes to teach every possible student to read. This might require significant changes in school transportation systems so students can stay for extended hours and have a ride home. Teach their parents if that proves to be necessary. Treat this like a crisis, because it is.
- Similarly, do whatever it takes to get absentee students back to school. Maybe that means a new truancy police or new solutions for homeless students. Students who skip school are likely the same students who didn’t learn to read. The latest report from the Legislative Education Study Committee says 40% of students miss 10% or more of school days. Why would you go to school if you can’t understand what’s being taught because you can’t read?
- New Mexico has made a start on financial literacy. It’s not enough in this world of complex technology and myriad hazards. Teach life skills beginning in fourth grade, with age-appropriate topics such as balancing a bank account, avoiding online predators, understanding social media, and especially basic parenting skills to prevent the next generation of CYFD tragedies.
- Make the teaching of civics mandatory beginning in fourth grade.
- Ban smart phones, period. The studies are conclusive that smart phones are making a generation of children lonely and miserable. This must be done on a whole school or whole district basis. School districts can decide whether to ban phones entirely or permit phones that only call and text. Ensure every school has a process for emergency contact by parents.
- Let students practice cooperation by offering a wide choice of team activities, including sports, debate, music groups, science projects and so on.
- Teach responsibility: Starting in first grade, devote five minutes of every school day to cleaning up. Time and level of responsibility increase in high school.
- Restructure the relationships between the schools and other government agencies to overcome bureaucratic boundaries and ensure seamless cooperation.
· All of the above requires full staffing by qualified professionals, and how to achieve that requires a separate discussion.
If I were in the Legislature I would advocate for every one of these proposals. I hope they will all serve as discussion points.
Contact Merilee Dannemann through www.triplespacedagain.com.
2024 NEW MEXICO NEWS SERVICES 6-3-24
Do your research before you vote
By Merilee Dannemann
Triple Spaced Again
“We need bold solutions, drastic overhauls and serious reforms,” writes a candidate for the Legislature in an op-ed article.
Bold, huh? Boy, that’s new and exciting. Oh, wait. It isn’t. It’s a standard cliché for everybody who runs for office.
This particular candidate wrote an entire op-ed filled with platitudes and generalizations. Not a single specific policy position was stated. I’m not giving this candidate’s name because it’s not my intent to embarrass the candidate, but rather to remind voters to look further. Lots of candidates do what this candidate did. It’s political fuzzy language. It’s Republicans saying all Democrats are radical, and Democrats saying all Republicans are extremists.
The early voting polls are open, and the primary election is in full swing. It’s up to us voters to do a bit of homework to find out about the candidates before we fill in the little black circles on our ballots.
In a primary, we may find that candidates of the same party have similar political views, so what matters may be their prior professional experience, their competencies and their likely ability to deliver. Especially in the Legislature, professional backgrounds matter because legislators bring their knowledge to their understanding of legislation.
Your criteria in a primary might be quite different from your concerns in the general election. It might be to pick the candidate who has the best chance of winning in November.
To oversimplify, in some Democratic primary contests the distinction is moderate versus progressive. The moderate argument is that, in a mixed district, by nominating a progressive in the primary, you may be handing the district to the Republican nominee in November.
In some Republican primaries, the distinction might be today’s Republican orthodoxy versus the old moderate Republican approach or any other variation.
In another recent op-ed, legislative candidate Nicole Chavez identified herself as the endorsed chosen successor of legislator Bill Rehm, who is not seeking reelection. She said she will follow in his footsteps.
Rehm has been an anti-crime champion. So we know what Chavez is going to prioritize. We also might note that Rehm sponsored many good bills that didn’t get anywhere, so a voter in her district might ask her how she plans to improve on his track record.
The candidates in this district have made it easy for voters to figure out who’s who. Chavez is competing with two Republicans and one Democrat. Republican Sara Jane Allen, a local founder of the conservative group Moms for Liberty, a national organization that has been active in school board races. You can look up that group and find out its priorities. The third is Patrick Huested, who doesn’t appear to have a website (at least, I couldn’t find one) but who has supplied answers on vote411.org. The Democrat is Vicky Estrada-Bustillo.
In every race you’re voting for Democrat against Democrat or Republican against Republican. You could vote if you are a registered Libertarian, but I doubt there are any contests with two Libertarians running against each other.And if you are an independent or “declined-too-state” registered voter, you can vote in this primary by changing your registration literally at the last minute to Republican or Democrat, then changing it back again after this election. It’s a clumsy process but it’s New Mexico’s reluctant first step toward open primaries.
Unlike the general election, the primary ballot is short. It is not cluttered with bond issues or proposed amendments to the state constitution. It shouldn’t take you too long to figure out your choices.
And your vote will help determine how your local community is governed.
Contact Merilee Dannemann through www.triplespacedagain.com.
© 2024 NEW MEXICO NEWS SERVICES 5-13-24
Lawmakers should weigh burdens to smallest businesses
By Merilee Dannemann
Triple Spaced Again
The man was said to be the only electrician in Mora, and my agency forced him out of business.
This was around 20 years ago. I learned about it in a staff meeting. The assistant general counsel who told us about it had tears in her eyes and a quiver in her voice, but she did it anyway.
My concern wasn’t just about the electrician. It was about all the people in an economically distressed county who might have needed his services and now would not have them.
The assistant general counsel said the electrician was semiretired but wanted to keep his license to do occasional odd jobs. But we – the Workers' Compensation Administration – required him to buy a minimum premium workers' compensation insurance policy, and he would not make enough money to justify the cost. So he was forced out of business.
The requirement is in paragraph 52-1-6 of the New Mexico statute, and if I try to explain it here I won’t get to my main point. I will simply say that in my opinion this was regulatory overreach based on the interpretation of one word. Nobody in the agency agreed with me, but I was not surprised that this happened. There were probably many similar stories that we never knew about.
That’s what happens when people who write a law neglect the little guy.
The little guys, very small business owners, are never at the table when laws are being drafted. They don’t participate, maybe because they don’t know how, maybe because they are too busy.
Very small businesses are one group that concerns me in relation to the current push to enact a paid family and medical leave law in New Mexico. This year’s bill was voted down, but we know it’s coming back.
Another vulnerable group is social-service nonprofits, including those that provide services like adoption, foster care and personal service to elderly clients or those with disabilities. Many of these nonprofits work under contract to state government. Here’s an unpleasant little secret: When the state enacts laws that directly increase the costs of paying employees, those laws apply to nonprofits as well as for-profit businesses, but the state does not necessarily increase what it pays to those nonprofits.
I watched this for years with a friend who ran a nonprofit agency. Every few years she would tell me the state had made a change that cut her funding, which forced her to eliminate something. The myth was that there were always inefficiencies that could be cut. But that was possible only for the first couple of cuts. After that the cuts were to real services affecting real people – the clients.
Rep. Marian Matthews has raised this issue. Matthews, D-Albuquerque, introduced a moderate and less costly alternative to the family and medical leave bill. Matthews’ bill was tabled in its first committee. She had been talking specifically about the severe costs to families when caregiver services are cut.
Our Legislature has been generous to employees in the last few years. We’ve increased the minimum wage from $7.50 an hour in 2018 to $12 an hour in 2023. Our paid sick leave law, enacted in 2022, requires employers to pay for up to 64 hours per year of sick leave. The employer also faces the cost of finding and paying for a replacement worker or going without whatever service the worker was providing.
Both the minimum wage and the sick leave program are meritorious, but legislators should be asking, before enacting another new employer responsibility, whether the administrative requirements of the sick leave program are reasonable or excessively burdensome.
And we should be making sure that employers at all levels, including the little guys, are being heard.
Contact Merilee Dannemann through www.triplespacedagain.com.