I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
SANTA FE — Shoppers and shop owners could pay more in the future to do business in Bernalillo County to help pay to operate the Metropolitan Detention Center.
Officials from New Mexico’s largest county lobbied state lawmakers this week in the hopes of expanding the county’s taxing authority to help raise millions of dollars. The jail houses 2,700 inmates, 400 of whom are state prisoners, Bernalillo County Manager Thaddeus Lucero told NMI.
Lucero, Bernalillo County Commission Chairman Alan Armijo and other county officials appeared before the Legislature’s Courts, Corrections and Justice committee this week. They advocated expanding the county’s authority to raise the county correctional facility gross receipts tax from 1/8 of a percent to a quarter per cent –- or 25 cents on a $100 transaction.
Under the proposal, the Bernalillo County Commission could create such an ordinance, but Bernalillo County voters would have to approve the higher tax rate, officials said. If passed, the increase would raise roughly $20 million a year, Lucero estimated.
“We may not need to do this for another two to three years,” Armijo said of the tax increase.
The officials’ efforts highlight a perennial struggle at the Legislature that pits counties against the state in funding operations of local jails. Funding local jails is made all the more expensive because the local detention centers often warehouse state prisoners, county advocates say. Estimates have put the costs to counties at $26 million to warehouse state prisoners. Last year a bill that would have given counties across the state the ability to expand taxing authority to pay for jail operations failed.
Meanwhile, the costs of providing mental health care to inmates also is driving up costs of operating detention centers.
In Doña Ana County last week, county commissioners approved a 1/16 of 1 percent increase in the gross receipts tax to increase funding for jail operations. At least some of the money will be spent on improving mental health care at the facility.
Commissioners said they had no choice but to raise the tax, which takes effect on July 1, 2009. Several complained about the unfunded mandate from the state of housing people charged with state crimes, who aren’t moved into the state prison system unless or until they are convicted.
Counties have complained for years about having to eat the cost of housing convicted state prisoners in local jails. Typically, they include felons incarcerated for less than a year — some get 364-day sentences — and probation and parole violators.
The state Department of Corrections says only inmates sentenced to the state penitentiary are the state’s responsibility.
At the same time, state prisons have experienced an inexplicable drop in population -– the first time in more than two decades.
Earlier this year, Bernalillo County officials said they hoped to see the budget for operating the detention center drop due to lower amount paid out to worker compensation claims.
NMI’s Heath Haussamen contributed to this story.
