By Kevin Hendricks, The Paper. — Everyone booked into the Metropolitan Detention Center gets a health screening. That was more than 26,000 people last fiscal year, and many of them arrived in withdrawal or mental health crisis. On Tuesday, Bernalillo County commissioners will decide who provides that care once UNM Hospital’s contract ends June 30, 2027.
Commissioners will pick one of four health care models. They will also vote on whether County Manager Cindy Chavez can ask the state for permission to spend $30 million from the county’s three-month operating reserve on transition costs, according to the Oct. 27 agenda. The same motion asks the state Department of Finance and Administration to lower the county’s required reserve to two months of operating expenses.
County staff recommend Option 3. Under that plan, the county would hire and run the core medical staff, and contractors would handle specialties like pharmacy, addiction treatment and radiology. It is also the cheapest option at $35.7 million a year for its first two years, according to consultant J. Allen & Associates. Hiring a single outside company to run everything would cost $44.1 million a year. The consultant’s report said that route risks “repeating the same dependence” that is driving the current switch.
The county’s advisory boards on addiction treatment, behavioral health and the jail also ranked Option 3 first, according to a community engagement summary in the agenda packet.
Option 3 has its own warning label. Accountability “can become blurred” unless the county clearly defines who does what, the consultant’s report said, and the model adds a new expense for two to three years.
Startup costs for new exam rooms, a pharmacy, an electronic health records system and early hiring are now about $991,000 higher than the $36.1 million estimate staff presented Oct. 14, according to updated figures. Staff also listed $92 million in projects the budget can’t cover, including a $22 million reentry campus. The county plans to ask state lawmakers for help with those.
Separately, commissioners will consider spending about $2 million from the county’s health care gross receipts tax fund on UNMH’s final invoices for fiscal year 2026 and a budget increase for fiscal year 2027. UNMH CEO Kate Becker is also scheduled to present the hospital’s quarterly report.
BY THE NUMBERS
- 26,160: MDC bookings in fiscal year 2026
- 137: People treated daily at MDC’s addiction clinic in 2025
- 45%: Share of the MDC population in psychiatric services
- $34 million: What the county now spends a year on jail health care
GET INVOLVED
Bernalillo County Commission administrative meeting
When: 5 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 27
Where: Ken Sanchez Commission Chambers, Alvarado Square, 415 Silver Ave. SW, Albuquerque
Watch: GOVTV, bernco.gov/live or youtube.com/user/BernalilloCounty
Speak or submit written comment: bernco.gov/boards-commissions/speak-at-a-meeting (sign up required; two minutes per speaker)
Background: abq.news/2026/10/mdc/
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