Squier: Bad Accounting Under Richardson Led to Under-reporting and Over-billing in Medicaid Program

John Arthur Smith

The Albuquerque Journal is reporting that New Mexico's Human Services Department plans to ask the Legislature for perhaps as much as $100 million. Why that much? HSS Secretary Sidney Squier says she needs to to take care of an accounting problem she blames on bad management under former Gov. Bill Richardson. The Journal reports that the letter to top-ranking members of the Legislative Finance Committee, Squier said the problem stems from faulty record keeping in recent years that obscured both under-reporting and over-billing of Medicaid expenses.

The Journal says Finance Committee Chairman Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, said that lawmakers will likely will have little choice but to approve the request. $100 million would take a huge portion of recently reported state revenue increases above projections.