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.
One state employee is asking New Mexico’s top court to stop the state from taking out greater retirement deductions from her paycheck, according to a complaint filed with the state’s Supreme Court.
At issue appears to be a conflict between two state laws.
A state law passed this year required public employees, including state workers and public school teachers, to contribute 1.5 percent more into a state retirement fund for a two-year period while reducing the state’s contribution into the same fund by a corresponding 1.5 percent. The law, however, exempted workers making under $20,000 a year from the increased contribution to the Public Employees Retirement Association (PERA).
The state’s nearly $5.5 billion budget, however, used an obscure provision (on page 5, subsection K) to narrow the group of state workers exempted from the increased contribution law by defining a person earning less than $20,000 as earning less than $9.579 per hour, the complaint says.
Joan Chernock, the woman who is suing, works 20 hours a week as a clerk in the First District Court, earning $14.35 an hour and making just under $15,000 annually, the complaint says.
Beginning in July, the greater retirement deduction began to be taken out of Chernock’s pay even though she asked her employer, the Administrative Office of the Courts, to exempt her, citing the increased contributions law.
The Administrative Office of the Courts sought guidance from the state’s Department of Finance and Administration.
In an Aug. 12 memo, State Controller Anthony Armijo told a human resources administrator that the increased contributions law applied to Chernock because her salary was greater than $9.579 an hour. He cited the state budget to say that Chernock was subject to the increased contributions law.
Chernock’s lawsuit, filed by attorney Stephanie Zorie of Santa Fe, argues that the state constitution prohibits the state budget from nullifying general legislation; in this case, the increased contributions law:
As the Supreme Court held in New Mexico, ex rel. Coll v. Carruthers, 107 N.M. 439, 445 (1988), the “General Appropriation Act may not be used as a vehicle by which to nullify general legislation.” Such general policy is “better addressed by general legislation and is not suitable for inclusion in the general appropriation bill.
The lawsuit claims that there are 482 other state employees who earn less than $20,000 a year and are paying increased deductions, although it does not identify them.
The lawsuit is asking the Supreme Court to stop the state from taking out the increased deduction from all employees earning under $20,000 a year; to order the return of all retirement contributions improperly removed from their salaries, including interest at 12 percent; and award all costs and attorney’s fees to Chernock.
A call to Zorie was not immediately returned.
Chernock’s lawsuit is the latest attack on the increased contributions law. The law has drawn its share of ire from public employee unions and others.
Various public employee groups, including the American Federation of Teachers New Mexico, have protested the law as unfair. And unions representing 66,000 public employees earlier this summer sued the state to have the statute overturned. The law is expected to save the state more than $80 million because New Mexico is reducing its contributions into the employees’ pension funds by a corresponding 1.5 percent.
The teachers’ union and other advocates are exhorting state lawmakers to repeal state income tax cuts passed earlier this decade — and to pass other tax-side measures – rather than rely on cuts and the increased contributions law to address New Mexico’s budgetary shortfall. Recent projections show the state with a $441 million shortfall for the year that ends July 1, 2010.
