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.
Albuquerque Public Schools‘s share of extra education dollars Congress approved Tuesday is around $15 million according to latest estimates, a district spokesman said Wednesday.
Under a complicated scenario that assumes APS might be staring at a $19 million budget hole because of ongoing state budget woes, that $15 million won’t be enough to avoid district layoffs, APS spokesman John Miller told The Independent on Wednesday.
However Superintendent Winston Brooks believes attrition — not replacing individuals who leave APS jobs — could make up that $4 million difference, Miller said.
APS estimated last week that it would receive $22 million of the $65 million in education money the state of New Mexico is set to receive after Congress passed a $26 billion aid bill Tuesday that included $10 billion for public schools across the country.
The $15 million wouldn’t cover APS’s budget hole under a complicated scenario that assumes that the state’s largest school district would have to cut 3.2 percent from this year’s spending plan because of budget problems at the state level. State officials are asking state agencies to cut 3.2 percent from their budgets, including from the Public Education Department, because state revenues continue to lag far behind expenses.
That trimming will affect every school district in the state, state education spokesman said Wednesday.
A 3.2 percent cut in APS’ budget would amount to $19 million, $4 million more than the $15 million the district is expecting, Miller said.
Nuts and bolts are still unclear
Because Congress passed the legislation yesterday, state officials are still trying to discern the nuts and bolts of how the money will be distributed, meaning the latest $15 million estimate for APS could change again.
“Anything can happen,” Miller said. “As our superintendent said yesterday, we don’t have money in the bank.”
Steve Burrell, the interim deputy secretary of finance and operations at the New Mexico Public Education Department, said New Mexico is still awaiting federal guidelines on how the extra education money can and should be spent and how it is to be distributed to local school districts.
Whether all New Mexico school districts will receive a share of the extra dollars depends on the formula the state uses, Burrell explained. The state could funnel the money through the state’s equalization funding formula, which would send the extra federal dollars to every school district in New Mexico. Or it could funnel the additional dollars to school districts with a high number of students who qualify for free or reduced lunches, a program to help low-income students.
“My guess is that we will try to funnel it though the funding formula to offset the decreases in the state general fund,” Burrell said Wednesday.
But until the federal government provides guidelines on how the money should be spent, “we are in a holding pattern,” Burrell said.
