The cabinet secretary for the New Mexico Human Services Department (HSD) is taking issue with the Senate president’s assertion that she hasn’t been honest with lawmakers.
Sen. Tim Jennings’ Monday accusation was “totally inappropriate” and “a personal attack that should not be tolerated,” Pamela Hyde wrote in a letter she sent to members of the Senate Rules Committee late Tuesday.
“I am disappointed in his comments and even more disappointed that he would make such comments without having ever asked to talk with me specifically about his concerns,” she wrote in the letter.
It was during a Rules Committee hearing on the confirmation of Taxation and Revenue Secretary Rick Homans that Jennings asserted that the HSD secretary had not been honest with the Legislature. He said, in response to Hyde’s dishonesty, he would begin asking every secretary who came up for confirmation, starting with Homans, for a promise to be honest even if it would cost them their jobs.
Those who lied, Jennings said, would trigger a “personal” battle in which he said he would do everything in his power to ensure they lost their jobs.
Hyde wrote in her letter that Jennings was referring to a legal disagreement between HSD and the Legislative Finance Committee (LFC) over LFC’s “interpretation of how to maintain the confidentiality of certain information used to negotiate Medicaid managed care contracts for the state.” She wrote that it was unfortunate that HSD’s “unwillingness to provide LFC staff with disputed information,” which she called “a dispute about the legal best interests of the state,” has degraded into a personal attack.
She said the issue is not whether HSD is willing to provide the information to the LFC — which the agency is — but whether LFC can keep the information confidential once it obtains it. HSD wants the information to remain confidential.
There are two other types of information HSD has refused to provide to lawmakers, Hyde wrote in the letter, but she also gave explanations for those instances. Hyde wrote that the agency has provided “tons” of information to lawmakers and the public, and said she’s not aware of any HSD staffer ever lying to lawmakers.
She wrote to members of the Rules Committee that she is “happy to meet with any of you individually or appear before any legislative committee to answer questions about these matters.”