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.
The fund paying unemployment benefits to tens of thousands of New Mexicans will likely be run out of money in one year unless lawmakers in Santa Fe approve some fiscal gymnastics. That’s what Department of Workforce Solutions Secretary Ken Ortiz told the Senate Finance Committee Wednesday afternoon.
Secretary Ortiz told senators the number of New Mexicans collecting benefits has skyrocketed from about 12,000 people in June 2008 to about 60,000 by the end of November 2009. Those numbers reflect the amount the state is paying out; Senators were told the fund has paid $700 million dollars out in just one year’s time.
The doomsday scenario painted by Secretary Ortiz plays out like this:
If law makers do nothing the state unemployment fund will become insolvent by January 2011. Since law requires New Mexico to pay for benefits the state would have to get a loan from the US Department of Labor. That loan would have to be repaid with interest from the general fund. On top of that the amount employers pay to the state would explode. Right now employers pay an average of $156 a year per employee. If the state has to borrow from Washington that amount would go up to $529.
To stop all of this Ortiz is asking law makers to do several things including drain about $100 million out of a trust fund the state set up. And also to increase the amount employers pay per employee by about $40 a year. If those measures are put in Ortiz says New Mexico should have about $65 million in the fund this time next year and would be one of about 10 states who don’t need federal help.
Senator Sue Wilson Beffort called the numbers “alarming” and said she wants to look at more options to help the fund. But perhaps the most difficult question of the day still has no answer; what happens if the thousands of New Mexicans who don’t have a job now still don’t have one by the next regular session.
