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.
Photo by Damon D'Amato.
New Mexico would eliminate more than 900 jobs and reduce state workers’ salaries by 2 percent to balance the state’s out-of-whack budget, if it followed a proposal released Monday by the Legislature’s budget committee.
New Mexico is staring at a large budgetary shortfall for the fiscal year that starts July 1, and the proposal released Monday by the Legislative Finance Committee (LFC) is just an opening salvo in what is expected to be a tense, budget fight that commences Jan. 19, the first day of the 2010 legislative session.
Gov. Bill Richardson is expected to release his budget proposal Tuesday.
But the elimination of jobs seems to constitute a new level of budget cutting and provoked a strong reaction from representatives of state workers.
“Classified state employment is as lean as it has been in 20 years and this is a time when citizens are expecting services to continue,” said Carter Bundy, political director for Council 18 of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which represents thousands of state workers. “The idea that we can continue to provide those services by cutting jobs, that just won’t work. We need to have a balanced proposal, closing corporate loopholes.”
Richardson has already ordered 17,000 state workers to take five unpaid days off work and said he would eliminate up to 1,000 vacant jobs.
It was unclear how many state workers would actually lose their jobs under the LFC proposal, or how many vacant jobs would be eliminated. The plan called for letting go “non-essential personnel” as well as eliminating long-vacant jobs.
But the LFC chairman, Rep. Luciano “Lucky” Varela, D-Santa Fe, said Monday that most of the positions eliminated are vacant.
“We have 4,000 vacant jobs across state government,” Varela said.
But public information officers who serve at the governor’s pleasure and work across state government at several state agencies should beware. They are on the lawmakers’ radar as some of the “non-essential” workers who could lose their jobs.
“We feel those jobs are non-essential,” Varela said.
In addition to trimming the state workforce, the proposal also called for nearly $200 million made up through a mix of additional federal Medicaid money that may or may not materialize, possible revenue enhancements, a term that encompasses both tax and fee increases, and possible additional cuts.
How much, and where, to raise taxes has provoked a wide-ranging debate. While advocates and some state lawmakers both have pointed out that the Legislature can’t solve the state’s budgetary crisis merely by cutting expenses, no clear agreement has emerged on what taxes to raise.
“We’re sort of at a standstill,” said Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, and vice chairman of the Legislative Finance Committee. “We have not agreed on whether it is reviving an old tax or eliminating some of the exemptions and loopholes” in the tax code.
Some state lawmakers have publicly advocated a return to taxing the sale of food, something the state stopped doing a few years back. Others have vigorously argued for raising the state income tax on the highest earners and reducing or eliminating tax credits or exemptions extended to businesses.
Still, other lawmakers oppose any tax increases, period.
“The legislature needs to seriously consider the ramifications of raising taxes on working families that are already struggling to make ends meet,” said Sen. Sue Wilson Beffort, R-Sandia Park. “They are already losing their jobs, they are fighting to keep their homes, they are struggling to put food on the table. How can the state ask them to give more in taxes when they do not have it?”
The LFC’s $5.3 billion proposal assumes $5.1 billion in revenues, and $200 million in revenue enhancements.
