Two Years After Horrific Abuse of Mary Melero, NM Division of Health Improvement Can’t Get Annual Abuse and Neglect Report Done on Time
Improvement Director
State Agency that claims it “is committed to ensuring the health, safety, and well-being of individuals receiving services under various waiver programs,” fails to file annual report on Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation.
It is almost two years since Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham was informed that a young developmentally disabled woman in the care of the state lay in critical condition in El Paso having suffered “horrific abuse.”
The state budget that is developed, debated, and voted upon every year by the Legislature between January and February (or March), includes funding for the protection and care of thousands of vulnerable New Mexicans.
Despite two years of promises to fix the system that is supposed to provide care and protection to over 8,000 vulnerable New Mexicans, the Governor and her team did not complete and release to the public the FY 2024 annual report of the Incident Management Bureau (IMB) regarding abuse, neglect, and exploitation of developmentally disabled persons.
The availability of information contained in the annual report before the legislative session begins each year is critical making adjustments to laws and in crafting the state budget.
The IMB is one of the state agencies that failed its mission to ensure “the health, safety, and well-being” of Mary Melero, the 36 year old developmentally disabled woman who suffered horrific abuse and died while under the care of the state.
Prior to 2019, the IMB annual reports for a fiscal year ending in June were usually available to the public and Legislators in November or December (within three or four months of the fiscal year’s end) which gave the public and their elected representatives at least a month to review before budget crafting began in the House and Senate.
It wasn’t until after the death of Mary Melero that the Lujan Grisham administration filed those annual reports in time for review before the legislative session.
The FY 2022 report was nearly a year late. However, it seemed that the trend would be corrected when IMB released the FY 2023 Annual report in November of 2023.
The annual IMB report provides data and other information that can help inform the best decision-making and the proper funding for the programs that protect people like Mary Melero, who are served by the Medicaid Developmental Disabilities (DD) Waiver, Mi Via Self-Directed Waiver, the Medically Fragile Waiver, and the Supports Waiver.
The House of Representatives will likely be debating and voting on the state’s budget later this week – but the FY 2024 IMB report has not been released to the public.
It is not clear if it was submitted to House House Appropriations and Finance Committee (HAFC) or their staff.
But even if IMB provided that document to the HAFC, not making it public for the last two or three months has prevented the public, including the developmentally disabled New Mexicans and their advocates, from assessing if the budgets being worked on are sufficient.
The House Appropriations and Finance Committee (HAFC) has been meeting for more than three weeks in preparing its recommendations for the full House to act on – which could include amendments offered by individual House members.
The IMB website posts previous years’ annual IMB reports – the FY 2023 report was issued in November of 2023. But as of this weekend, the FY 2024 Annual IMB report is still not available.
Scrolling down the IMB website reveals the following regarding the 2024 Annual IMB report:
“NOTE: The report for this year is not yet available, and will be posted when it becomes available.“
The same website states, “We maintain extensive databases to track patterns of incidents within community based providers. Annual trend reports are produced for the DDW providers. The trend reports are distributed to providers, other state agencies and the public.” [Emphasis added.]
New Mexico State Government Continues to Fail in Its Mission to Protect
Studies have shown for years that many people with developmental disabilities are more susceptible to abuse, neglect, and exploitation due to limited communication abilities and potential lack of understanding of their rights.
Despite this knowledge, and given its mission to protect these vulnerable people, the authors of the FY 2023 IMB Annual report, revealed the agency’s failure when they wrote:
“It is important to note that overall ANE awareness increased during the last four months of FY23 due to a tragic ANE event.”
The ANE event referred to in that sentence was the abuse and death of Mary Melero, which forced the IMB and other related agencies to conduct thousands of visits and interviews they had not previously done.
If state agencies were doing their job, why did it take a tragic event to increase its awareness of the abuse of this population?
The FY 2023 IMB annual report goes further in exposing how abuse went unaddressed for years, with the authors writing,
“Notably, between FY22 and FY23, there was a 11.1% increase in the number of investigations, a substantial 25.9% rise in allegations substantiated, and an even more striking 33.9% surge in the number of individuals determined to have been victims of abuse, neglect, or exploitation.
“These statistics emphasize the growing importance of addressing and preventing such issues and demonstrate the increased vigilance in safeguarding vulnerable individuals.”
During the past two years The Candle interviewed dozens of advocates who confirmed that for years the state failed in its job when it came to investigating ANE reports, so it was no surprise to them that the FY 2023 annual report showed a “surge” in identified cases of abuse.
“There was no surge in abuse cases. It’s been there all along. They just kind of dismissed a lot of the complaints over the years, without serious consideration. It was common knowledge that ANE reports wouldn’t really be investigated,” one advocate retorted after reading the report.
“They didn’t really care. They didn’t want to know how bad it was. When reports of ANE were made, they almost always came back unsubstantiated – until the abuse of Mary Melero made the Governor and the state look bad,” stated a caregiver.
And yet, even after the acknowledgement in the FY 2023 annual IMB report of the significant amount of abuse, neglect and exploitation of developmentally disabled New Mexicans, the IMB has yet to make available its report for FY 2024.
Twice in early February, The Candle sent emails to the director that oversees the IMB, Daniel Lanari, asking if the report was done and if it would be posted on his agency’s website.
We also asked if the report was provided to legislators.
And sent a copy of the email to Lanari’s boss, Health Care Authority (HCA) Secretary Kari Armijo, who met during the last two weeks with legislative budget personnel on the funding and staffing needs of the agencies that are supposed to protect people like Mary Melero.
Neither have responded.
Apparently the Governor, the HCA Secretary, and Mr. Lanari don’t feel it is important for the public, advocates, and other stakeholders to have access to the data relative to the abuse, neglect, and exploitation of vulnerable New Mexicans.
Later this week, as the New Mexico House members get into full swing on budget considerations, The Candle will report on how insufficient funding of programs add to the potential of abuse, neglect and exploitation of New Mexico’s most vulnerable residents.
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