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.
Workers at New Mexico courts could face furloughs if a state budget agreement calls for 5 percent cuts, the Associated Press reports today.
Gov. Bill Richardson and state lawmakers are negotiating how to close a budget shortfall of more than $400 million for the year that ends June 30.
And part of the discussions include agency spending cuts — Richardson has proposed trimming expenses by 3 percent but a prominent state lawmaker has said the cuts likely will have to be 5 percent to 6 percent.
At that higher level, “every employee in the judiciary is likely to get furloughed,” Artie Pepin, director of the Administrative Office of the Courts, tells Barry Massey of the Associated Press.
Furloughs are in essence an unpaid day off for a government worker, amounting to a pay cut. And they’re a new tool for state governments nationwide as they struggle against a deep recession that has reduced the revenues they collect from taxes and other sources.
Here’s an excerpt from today’s AP story:
“Obviously, we don’t want to furlough anybody and our priority is to avoid furloughs, but if they take another 5 percent from us, we don’t have anything else we can do,” Pepin said.
There are roughly 1,800 employees in appellate, district, metropolitan and magistrate courts across the state.
Richardson and legislative leaders say they will try to avoid furloughs or layoffs in cutting the state’s $5.5 billion budget and taking other steps to solve the deficit.
“We have a consensus with the governor that furloughs and layoffs are last on the plate,” Sen. John Arthur Smith, a Deming Democrat and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said after lawmakers met with the governor last week.
According to the AP, state courts account for $149 million of the state’s operating budget, which is more than $5 billion.
At least one state court is planning for possible furloughs even before the governor and state lawmakers agree to a budget deal.
Again from today’s AP story:
The district court in Albuquerque – the largest in the state – says it will furlough more than 300 employees for four hours each two-week pay period starting in October unless it receives an emergency allocation of money from the state Board of Finance.
Statewide, court budgets have been reduced by 3.5 percent last year and so far this fiscal year. The cuts came as average court caseloads grew 7 percent.
Among the cost-cutting so far: about 9 percent of authorized court worker positions have been left vacant, maintenance contracts have been eliminated, phone and fax expenses have been lowered and a few courts are closed to the public for several hours each day to permit staff to catch up on case filings and paperwork, according to Pepin.
