Medicaid Trust Fund Gets Close to $1 Billion Windfall. It’s Time for a Plan to Boost DDSD and Elder Caregiver Salaries

According to the director and an economist of the New Mexico Legislative Finance Committee, New Mexico will be receiving close to $2 Billion from the sale of oil and gas leases by the United States Bureau of Land Management.

Two trust funds will be the landing place for that money – the Early Childhood Education and Care Fund and the Medicaid Trust Fund, both created by the legislature to provide a safety net of sorts

Those trust funds will also receive a significant boost at the close of FY 2026 (June 30, 2026) from the windfall of increased oil and gas revenues which were recently projected by the Legislative Finance Committee to be $500 million more than originally expected last February, when the Legislature created the state budget that is in force as of today, July 1, 2026.

During February’s debate on the budget that goes into effect today, legislative leaders argued that state employees would have to live with a measly 1% pay raise, as they, and Governor Lujan Grisham, also refused to adequately fund requested increases for rates that would provide long overdue sufficient pay increases for Direct Service Professionals (DSPs) who care for the thousands of New Mexicans who are intellectually or developmentally disabled.

Care givers for the elderly were also shortchanged fair compensation.

Most of those who care for the developmentally disabled and the elderly are paid wages that fall far below the calculation of a Living Wage for New Mexico.

There are also more than 2,000 state employees who are paid less than a living wage.

New Mexico state revenues have increased substantially since 2019.

Billions of federal dollars and billions of increased revenue from oil and gas leases and royalties have been used to reward those at the higher end of New Mexico’s income strata.

There is no place more evident of that than in among the leadership of the executive branch where, for the past seven years, cabinet and senior management level employees have sucked up enormous increases in pay as those at the bottom of the pay scale have been provided crumbs.

As an example of the disparity, in 2019, at the beginning of the administration of Governor Lujan Grisham, cabinet secretaries were paid approximately $128,000 a year, and the Governor’s co-chiefs of staff were paid about $130,000 a year.

Currently, these cabinet and chief of staff positions pay as much as $241,000 a year, and $234,000, respectively.

Even today, more than 20,000 state, educational assistants, and direct care and home care workers – paid for directly or through provider rates from state funding – make less than a living wage.

The state has also invested hundreds of millions of dollars in handouts to private businesses that have yet to prove they will actually create the number of jobs the New Mexico Economic Development Department claimed over the last seven years.

As the current elected and appointed state government leaders end their tenure in the next six months, it falls on whoever is elected as the new governor, and the next group of legislators, to do more than talk about fairness and affordability – they need develop and execute a plan that addresses the inequities in compensation which have continued over the past seven and a half years.

Later this month, The Candle will be exposing the inequities of pay increases and preferential treatment provided to senior administration officials at the expense of the tens of thousands of public and private sector employees who continue to be left behind.

Included in the reporting will be: the overuse of so-called emergency and sole source contracting by state agencies; overuse of statewide purchase agreements to side-step requests for proposals and have help camouflage insider favoritism for former senior state officials.

And starting July 15, 2026, The Candle will be unveiling a series of achievable measures that would help provide balance the investment of state and federal dollars for the benefit of the entire population – not just those at the top.

Those measures have been developed from research conducted by The Candle over the last fifteen months.