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…
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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.
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Hundreds of people turned a cavernous hearing room into cramped quarters Thursday to hear how more than 1,500 brick-and-mortar projects wound up on a 60-some-odd page list of projects targeted to lose state money.
The state plans to apply $150 million pulled from the targeted projects to its rainy-day fund to beef up its reserves at a time that the state is struggling financially.
The bill, in many ways, could become a linchpin to this year’s 30-day session, and threatens to go from sideshow to main attraction if enough state lawmakers don’t set aside their reservations and support the bill. State lawmakers often are very protective of brick-and-mortar projects they’ve gotten money for.
Legislative leaders tried to remind everyone attending Thursday’s meeting why the bill was important and what was at stake.
“People here need to know, we need to come up with $150 million to $180 million for our reserves,” Sen. President Pro Tem Tim Jennings, D-Roswell, told the room.
“The state doesn’t have enough money,” he continued. “Anybody who thinks that everybody is going to get what they want, that’s going to be pretty tough.”
Some have suggested if the money isn’t pulled out of the projects, the state may have to cut more from services and programs.
“We’re flat out of options,” added Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming.
But if the large crowd of real people and dogged questioning by state lawmakers were any indicators, the legislation that would pull money from more than 1,500 projects around the state isn’t winning any popularity contests.
“I question the process,” Rep. Donald Bratton, R-Hobbs, told his fellow lawmakers on the Senate Finance Committee. “There are some inequities involved.”
In addition to lawmakers like Bratton questioning how projects they support wound up on the list, a long-standing tension between state lawmakers and the governor also re-surfaced.
Legislators asked the staff members who compiled the list whether Gov. Bill Richardson’s favored projects made the cut and were on the list.
“Is there a contract on the equestrian center?” asked Sen. Mary Kay Papen, D-Las Cruces.
Richardson favors putting a multimillion-dollar equestrian facility at the Expo New Mexico state fairgrounds in Albuquerque.
Staff, who had exempted projects with contracts – proof that they weren’t stalled — told lawmakers that they had disagreed on whether a contract was in place for the equestrian center.
At that point in the hearing, Sen. Rod Adair, R-Roswell, asked that several projects be added to the bill.
According to a state document reviewed by The Independent, the amendment would sweep more than $12 million from several projects to beef up the state reserves. More than $6 million of that would come from the proposed Albuquerque equestrian facility, $200,000 for rodeo facilities statewide and money for a local fair/arena, the document showed.
While the big-ticket projects dominated early lawmakers’ discussion Thursday, the list of targeted projects is primarily made up of smaller projects less than $1 million in value: gyms, senior centers, town hall renovations, animal shelters, domestic shelters, water system improvements.
“We have all these projects that don’t seem like a lot but they are to these little communities,” said Sen. Sue Wilson Beffort, R-Sandia Park.
State lawmakers and local government officials showed up to try to get their projects removed from the list.
The small town of Tatum could lose $504,000 for renovations to its town hall, Sen. Gay Kernan, R-Hobbs, told lawmakers.
The town attempted repeatedly to contact the state Department of Finance and Administration to get an agreement in place, but there was no response, Kernan told her fellow lawmakers.
“Those agreements were held at DFA in anticipation of the situation we find ourselves in, which we believe is not a fair process, “ Kernan said, referring to the state’s current budgetary troubles.
Other lawmakers described projects mistakenly on the list, saying that construction had started or that the project had been completed and the bill needed to be paid.
Thursday’s hearing highlighted the haphazard way New Mexico doles out money for brick-and-mortar projects and the lack of a centralized tracking and auditing process.
Each year the state has doled out money for small and large projects around the state. In some years New Mexico handed out more than $1 billion to pay for such construction. By late last year about $1.4 billion was assessed as tied up in thousands of projects in various stages of progress.
Many of those brick-and-mortar projects have sat for years without contracts, and in some cases repeated requests to local governments for documentation of contracts – evidence that the project was moving – resulted in no response.
But representatives of local governments responded Thursday that a “no response” didn’t mean that they hadn’t kept lines of communications open with the state. They often dealt with multiple state analysts, they said, which added to the confusion.
Local officials showed up en masse to defend their projects; so many, in fact, that Sen. Carlos Cisneros, D-Questa, asked officials to hand over documentation proving contracts were in place to speed up the hearing, which threatened to extend into the evening.
It is unclear how many projects in coming days will be removed from the list of targeted projects due to Thursday’s hearing.
It’s also unclear how many legislators, who are unsuccessful in removing their projects, will clamor for a different bill or to dump the bill altogether.
The gyms, senior centers and bridges built with state money are often viewed as tangible evidence of what the lawmakers are doing for the districts.
If enough state lawmakers become upset over the bill, it could divert the Legislature from its No. 1 goal — reaching a state budget deal, numerous veteran legislative observers say.
