The LFC Members Should Demand Secretary Armijo and Medicaid Director Flannery Account for Failures at HCA – Especially Considering Their High Salaries

When New Mexico Senators and Representatives of the New Mexico Legislative Finance Committee (LFC) meet with the Governor’s Secretary of the Health Care Authority Department this morning they should demand some accountability for the people served by the agency she runs and the people who pay her handsomely to run the it.

They also need to ask the state’s Medicaid Director, Dana Flannery, to explain why her division has been so tardy applying legislatively approved funding increases for the thousands of clients and workers of the various programs for the most vulnerable New Mexicans.

Although Director Flannery is not listed on the LFC Agenda as an attendee, she should be present to answer questions by legislators.

Both Armijo and Flannery make considerably more than there predecessors were making in their leadership roles.

For instance, Armijo is making $111.41 an hour – that is a whopping $231,732 a year.

Her immediate predecessor, Dr. David Scrase, was paid about $75 an hour ($155,979), in 2020; and when Scrase left office in 2023, he was being paid $81.54 and hour ($169,603 a year).

Director Flannery was hired in February of 2024, and provided a salary that is more than $41 an hour above what the Governor paid the person she replaced.

That translates to the Governor paying Flannery $216,299 a year – $86,279 more a year than her immediate predecessor, Medicaid Director Nicole M. Comeaux (who was appointed to that position by Governor Lujan Grisham in 2019).

(Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham continues to provide significantly higher salaries to her cabinet secretaries, her personal staff, and agency division directors than her predecessor, Governor Susana Martinez, paid her leadership team. For example, Scrase’s predecessor as Secretary of Human Services was being paid $126,193 a year at the end of Martinez’s term of office in December of 2018.)

Yet after six years of the current administration’s running social service programs (such as Medicaid, the SNAP food assistance programs, and the various Medicaid Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) waiver programs such as the Developmental Disabilities Waiver Program, the Medically Fragile Waiver Program, and the Mi Via – ICF/IDD Waiver Program), the Governor’s leadership personnel have failed the clients and workforce that supports these programs.

For almost two years, The Candle has reported on a number of programs and failures by Lujan Grisham’s team of highly paid leadership personnel, some of which can be linked to by clicking on the following headlines:

Legislative Mandated Study Exposes Unfairness of DD Waiver Policies of Lujan Grisham Administration – Part One.

Lujan Grisham Administration, as Lawsuit Defendant, Refuses to Provide Necessary Nursing Care for Medically Fragile Children in New Mexico

NM Early Childhood Agency Budget Gaffe Places Family, Infants, and Toddler Services in Jeopardy

Handsomely Paid NM Health and Labor Secretaries Turn Blind Eye and Enable Financial Abuse of Direct Care Workers

A year After Mary Melero Suffered a Horrific Death, and The DD Waiver Community Continues to be Abandoned by Many State Officials

HSD Proposed Rates: Likely Decrease For Most Vulnerable on DD Waiver – Despite Legislators Approving Budget Increases

Continued Underpayment for Care of Developmentally Disabled Leads to 33.9% Increase in Abuse and Neglect

Misled and Abandoned by State, More Than 2,000 Direct Caregivers Likely to Sue for Millions in Lost Overtime Pay

Why Didn’t DOH’s Allen and Acosta Come Clean to Legislators About Lawsuit Seeking Pay for Direct Service Providers?

State Lawmakers and the Governor Value Film Workers More Than Workers Who Care For the Disabled New Mexicans

Governor Raises Pay of Medicaid Director by $79,976, Who Plans Real Cuts of Funds for 1,200 of Most Vulnerable on DD Waiver

Legislators need to do a deep dive on questioning the HCA Secretary and her leadership staff on why so many New Mexicans are being under-served, especially when legislators see the Governor cross out their oversight language in the annual appropriations acts.

In fact Legislators need to question the administration on its failures, and then queue up the current appropriation act (passed earlier this calendar year) and take up the Governor’s line-itemed vetoes of their oversight language.

Study Exposes Poor Pay for Direct Service Workers

According to a recently released study (mandated by a new state law), there are more than 8,500 Direct Support Professional (DSP’s) workers who provide human to human, necessary, and life-affirming personal care to fellow New Mexicans with disabilities.

More than 75% of Direct Service Workers Earn Less than New Mexico’s Living Wage.

These workers are barely surviving on their state authorized pay, and many have no benefits, and no workers compensation protections.

Many of these workers have been illegally misclassified as “independent contractors” instead of employees, so that the employer does not have to pay them overtime rates for hours worked over 40 hours in a week, nor provide employer contributions for other requirements under federal law.

The Candle reported last year, about this misclassification practice and a related federal lawsuit in New Mexico seeking repayment for workers of money the state stood by and watched being withheld illegally.

That lawsuit was recently settled, with workers being awarded about $1.5 million in overtime pay.

Secretaries and senior administrators of the Health Care Authority, the Department of Workforce Solutions and the Department of Health are clearly aware of the misclassification of workers – yet have done nothing to date.

Here is a breakdown of the pay for HCA related leadership – some of their annual raises alone rise two times the annual salaries of direct care professionals who are the real boots on the ground.

Secretary of Health Care Authority Salary Comparison – Martinez v Lujan Grisham Administration

Medicaid Director Salary Comparison – Martinez v Lujan Grisham Administration