Photo by Peter St. Cyr

Photo by Peter St. Cyr

A budget bill that would cut K-12 education by less than 1 percent, while trimming the budgets of most state agencies nearly 8 percent, cleared the House late Thursday.

Sponsored by Rep. Luciano “Lucky” Varela, D-Santa Fe, HB 17 passed the House on a 37 to 31 vote. It now heads to the Senate.

In protecting K-12 education and touching lightly on higher ed, the legislation makes shallow cuts to the programs that make up a majority of the state budget. It includes $60 million in cuts for K-12 education and higher ed , but makes deeper cuts to dozens of state agencies across state government, including public safety, children services and state prisons. Those agencies would have to come up with $100 million in savings.

In addition to the state agency cuts, the legislation also would require Gov. Bill Richardson to eliminate the positions for 80 political appointees, or so-called exempt positions. Sixty two of those exempt positions are vacant, meaning the governor would only have to trim 18 positions.

That provision follows a flurry of bills filed this week that would limit the governor’s ability to hire political appointees.

The governor’s office did not respond to the Independent’s requests Thursday for comments on the provision.

The legislation the House passed Thursday keeps K-12 education largely unharmed by paying a big annual expense for local school districts — property insurance premiums – out of a little-known state fund. If school districts don’t have to pay the insurance premiums, they could better handle the 2 percent in spending cuts laid out in the legislation.

It is one-time money, meaning next year school districts won’t see their premiums paid, but several local school officials said they approved anyway.

“You’ve had the children of New Mexico in your hands the last few days,” Mike Phipps, schools superintendent at Artesia Public Schools, told lawmakers. “We appreciate very much that you’ve done.”

The protection provided to K-12 education across the state was apparently enough to win the support of certain Democratic House lawmakers who had opposed an earlier version of the bill.

Their votes gave House Speaker Ben Lujan the votes he needed to to pass the legislation through the House.

But while the provision allayed fears among school officials and some state lawmakers, a legislative analysis left it unclear as to whether the transfer of money to pay for the insurance premiums would be legal.

Republican Rep. Dennis Roch of Tucumcari latched onto that during Thursday night’s debate on the House floor.

“If the bond counsel comes back and says it’s illegal, and then (the hit to schools) will right back up,” Roch told his colleagues on the House floor.

Medicaid, the government’s low-income health insurance program, is protected from cuts as well in the legislation, but only by the state using money from the state’s tobacco settlement fund.

The deep cuts to dozens of agencies required in the bill, meanwhile, caused concern from representatives of state workers, who said it would affect myriad services, from public safety to protecting children.

Rep. Al Park, D-Albuquerque, seemed to sum up the difficulty facing state lawmakers in addressing this year’s budget shortfall and future decisions that will be made in the regular session in January.

“We are debating the budget bill. This has been the toughest session in my nine year legislative career,” Park tweeted during Thursday night’s debate. “Our budget crisis is so severe, that there are no good answers. We have no choice but to cut government and raise revenues.”

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