Emily Kaltenbach, the secretary appointee for New Mexico’s Aging and Long-Term Services Department, at the Roundhouse on Jan. 22, 2025. (Danielle Prokop / Source NM)
“We know that the number of older adults is growing significantly, and that’s happening in many of our rural communities that do not have access to the same resources and support as other parts of the state,” New Mexico Aging and Long-Term Services Department Secretary- Designate Emily Kaltenbach told Source NM recently.
Kaltenbach’s own parents are in their 70s and 80s, she said, and so, like many fellow New Mexicans, she wants to ensure they have the right support systems in place to help them as their needs change.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham appointed Kaltenbach to lead the department last September after Jen Paul Schroer left the position, subject to confirmation. Kaltenbach worked in the Aging and Long-Term Services Department previously, but most recently spent a decade at the nonprofit Drug Policy Alliance, most recently as senior director of state campaigns. She holds a master’s degree in health care administration from the University of Washington.
Source New Mexico spoke with Kaltenbach recently about her plans for the department and how her professional experiences will inform her work. The following interview was edited for clarity and concision.
Source NM: What improvements to the Aging and Long-Term Services Department would better serve older New Mexicans and people with disabilities?
Emily Kaltenbach: When we think about that vision of what we need to do moving forward, one of those areas is around caregivers, both formal and informal. We know that there are not enough individuals in our workforce to meet the needs of our older adults – from home care services to specialty medicine. And so we need to make sure that we’re focusing on the pipeline of direct care workers and others that will touch that individual.
Too often individuals turn – and this is not a bad thing – to our friends and family to provide services and support. But we need to make sure that those informal caregivers also are being provided with support and training.
One of those programs is the New MexiCare program and [it’s for] individuals that don’t qualify for Medicaid, don’t have the financial means to have a full-time caregiver in their home and pay for that. New MexiCare is really addressing that gap for those individuals. We still have yet to roll it out in Bernalillo and Doña Ana counties because we’ve been testing that model, but seeing incredible results.
Aside from the department’s budget request, what bills will you be supporting?
So obviously our budget is critically important and that’s our priority, right? If we don’t have the budget to support our older adults in New Mexico, then we’re not going to be able to address the tsunami of older adults in our population.
We’re also partnering with the Developmental Disabilities Council’s Office of Guardianship to work on supported decision-making. That was a bill that was introduced in 2003 and an important complement to our guardianship program in New Mexico for individuals. Whether they’re developmentally disabled, if they have behavioral health issues, if they’re elders, having someone who’s legally represented as their supported decision-maker can really help an individual make those informed decisions in their life from housing to financial, to education.
You’ve worked with the Aging and Long-Term Services Department previously. Can you talk about why this specific department is important to you?
My passion has been in public health and community health forever. I grew up here. I saw how communities that were under-resourced and economically stressed really struggled, and so I knew that I wanted to work in the communities I grew up in. I grew up in a rural community, it was about 40 miles south of Santa Fe.
We got our health care at a health center that the University of New Mexico started. It was once a week on Thursdays and the whole community would gather. I saw that as a place of community gathering in addition to just health care. And I saw the power of how local community health programs are more than just the provision of health services. We know how important social interaction is to our health and well-being, especially in translating that to older adults.
My parents still live out in that community, it’s down a three-mile dirt road. My father’s 80, my mother’s in her late 70s and they’re the individuals that our agency’s serving, right? Rural, older adults who love the communities they live in, want to stay in the communities they live in for as long as possible. And I’m determined to support those individuals.
How did your work with the Drug Policy Alliance inform or shape your worldview on health care? How will you draw on that experience?
In my work with Drug Policy Alliance, it really was about public health. It was about figuring out person-centered care and approaches to behavioral health issues. And so I see some of those direct links into the aging and disability world. Many individuals are making choices about how they live, and our seniors who want to stay home as long as possible, and we’re honoring that. There were some of those same sorts of issues around self-determination that came up in my work at the Drug Policy Alliance.
The other group are older adults who are transitioning out of the criminal legal system, and we know there are so many. What are those reentry points and supports to be able to provide older adults or adults with disabilities who may be cycling in and out of the criminal legal system? So I definitely see overlap there.
But the thing I want to highlight is that in my policy making responsibilities at the Drug Policy Alliance, we made sure to be listening to the communities we were serving and developing policy with and for. I take that very seriously and so, in this position, I will be drawing on the lessons I learned as an advocate. Listening intently to the communities who are serving and making sure that policy is not devoid of their voices is something that I absolutely will be bringing with me as I move forward in this position.
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