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.
Nearly $190 million is headed to New Mexico.
The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday passed a $26 billion bill that includes extra health care funding — a projected $126 million — and additional education money — $65 million — for New Mexico at a time when many say the state is in desperate need of a cash infusion.
All that’s left is for President Obama to sign the bill to make it law.
State Rep. Danice Picraux, D-Albuquerque, cheered the news Tuesday.
“We can keep paying our teachers, keep classrooms sizes low,” Picraux said of the extra dollars headed New Mexico’s way. “In health care, we need more money.”
State House Minority Whip, Rep. Keith Gardner, R-Roswell, took a dimmer view of the cash infusion.
“It’s just another Band-Aid on a gushing wound,” Gardner said. “We need surgery. Instead of making spending to equate what our revenue is, we prolong the inevitable, and that’s cutting. ”
The additional federal money comes to New Mexico at a time when the state’s revenues aren’t keeping pace with expenses. State officials already have projected a sizable budget gap for the fiscal year that started July 1.
The majority of the federal aid won’t help close that gap. The New Mexico Legislature approved a state budget that anticipated congressional approval of more than $160 million in additional funding for New Mexico’s Medicaid program, the government’s low-income health insurance program. funding. The amount of health care money headed New Mexico’s way in the bill that passed the U.S. House on Tuesday is less than what was anticipated by the state’s budget-writers.
At the same time the extra Medicaid funding — $126 million — runs out June 30, the end of the state budget year, leaving state lawmakers with a daunting challenge when they re-assemble in January and start the process of adopting a new budget for the year that starts July 1, 2011.
It’s unclear when the education money will run out. A spokeswoman for U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman said the education money goes to the state, which will use a formula to parcel out the money to local school districts.
The sudden drop off in federal Medicaid dollars will likely force state lawmakers to make some difficult decisions, officials said.
Picraux chose to see the bright side of the extra federal money in the $26 billion bill.
“It gives us a breather to make a plan to decide where to put our money,” she said.
Gardner, on the other hand, said the state faced a revenue cliff when the extra federal dollars run out June 30.
“We’ve done everything to kick the can down the road hoping that the problem would fix itself,” the Roswell lawmaker said. “I think we are at the moment of truth. It isn’t fixing itself.”
