New Mexico agency seeks input on services for aging population

Yahoo

30-04-2025

The New Mexico Aging and Long-Term Services Department wants to hear from seniors and their caregivers.
The department is accepting comments through May 15 on a draft of the State Plan on Aging for Oct. 1, 2025, through Sept. 30, 2029, a proposal aligned with the federal government's fiscal year that bills itself as a "comprehensive roadmap to improve older New Mexicans' health and well-being."
The plan comes at an important moment for aging in New Mexico, which by 2030 is projected to have the fourth highest percentage of people over 65 in the nation. By 2040, nearly a quarter of the state's population will be over 65, according to 2024 projections by the University of New Mexico's Department of Geospatial and Population Studies.
The state is seeing a serious dearth of caregivers for older adults — both paid professionals who can handle tasks like medication management, and volunteer caregivers, who are often family members.
The demographic shift will mean a lot more work for senior services providers — and the next three years will be a key time to prepare for and respond to the needs of a growing number of elderly residents, said Denise King, Aging Network operations division director at the Aging and Long-Term Services Department.
"We want input from not only older adults but direct service providers that are contracted to provide many of these services," King said Monday in an interview. "We want their input on this plan so that we can be prepared — because our population is growing as we see across the country."
One of the main priorities in the draft version of the department's State Plan on Aging: administering core programs to enable older New Mexicans to age in place — something most seniors want to do — through home- and community-based services.
Many of these core programs, which the draft plan describes as the foundation of the Aging and Long-Term Services Department's work, help make aging in place a possibility, providing meals, transportation, in-home services, caregiver support, health promotion and disease prevention care that seniors need to live independently in their community.
These programs are also funded largely through the federal Older Americans Act, legislation originally passed in 1965 to deliver social and nutrition services to people over 60.
Though federal funding cuts under the Trump administration appear poised to jeopardize other services to seniors — including nutrition assistance programs like Meals on Wheels and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — lawmakers haven't taken aim at the Older Americans Act's core services yet, King said.
"We know that the climate right now is concerning, and we also know that it seems to be changing every week. … We have yet to see anything that impacts largely the Older Americans Act services," she said.
For now, then, those services can continue with business as usual — and are set to improve with the implementation of the statewide plan.
The draft version of the plan includes a long list of changes to improve home- and community-based care, such as expanding local referral services, expanding food pantries and food distribution options, and developing opportunities for tribal providers to fund and administer core senior services.
The plan also proposes training and support to caregivers and the workforce through its Office of Alzheimer's and Dementia Care — a change that could be particularly relevant to the many New Mexicans struggling to find quality and affordable memory care. Accomplishing that goal would require new partnerships with Alzheimer's and dementia support organizations, implementation of new training programs for family caregivers and establishment of a statewide data collection system, specific enough to identify county-level data on Alzheimer's diagnosis, mortality and stage at diagnosis.
Finally, the plan recommends enhancements to mitigate abuse, neglect and exploitation of older adults, including creating a "Mobile Behavioral Health and Nurse Response Team" to assist seniors who cannot care for themselves.
The change, which comes less than a year after four long-term care facilities failed surprise visits, would include an increase in funding for Adult Protective Services to monitor in-home care, like meal delivery, personal care and chore services, plus a 10% expansion in caseworker staffing, the plan states.
"It's really looking at working with our stakeholders and our community members to really address the different needs," King said. "... Really, this is a broad plan to address those kinds of needs."