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.
Two weeks ago New Mexico Human Services Secretary Pam Hyde delivered a sobering 27-page Power Point presentation to state lawmakers about a huge shortfall facing the state’s Medicaid program.
An Albuquerque company found security lapses at the problem-plagued Secretary of State’s computer system, reports the Albuquerque Journal.
The director of New Mexico’s Legislative Finance Committee, David Abbey, has won a national award for his work on budgetary issues.
Abbey was named the 2009 winner of the Legislative Staff Achievement Award by the National Association of Legislative…
Last month’s paralyzing shutdown of the Secretary of State’s computer systems and web site has state lawmakers asking how to make New Mexico’s constitutional offices subject to the same IT rules most other state agencies comply with. But the state’s IT chief, Marlin Mackey — who has authority over how most state agencies manage information technology — doesn’t have such control over the state’s constitutional offices, Mackey said.
The New Mexico Secretary of State’s Office doesn’t have the technical capability to manage information technology projects, according to a Legislative Finance Committee (LFC) evaluation.
Nor does it have a “viable disaster recovery” plan for its “mission critical” systems,…
Following the recent outrage expressed by some legislative leaders at the many scandals plaguing New Mexico, Common Cause is making a renewed push for ethics reform.
The Legislature’s high-powered budget committee recommended fixes Friday for this year’s nearly half-a-billion-dollar shortfall. And the panel’s lawmakers held out hope that the Legislature would pass the bugdetary fix in the first days of the 2009 session, which starts Tuesday.
The major…
The state’s budget situation is bad, real bad, much worse than how it is portrayed in the media.
That was the warning Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, used to open a three-day legislative hearing in Santa Fe on Wednesday.
The total amount of tax breaks on the books is larger than New Mexico’s general fund, a report says, but it’s hard to tell who’s benefiting and what to cut, thanks to a 2007 veto by Gov. Bill Richardson.
New Mexico has a lot of work –- and pain –- ahead. That’s this morning’s consensus from state government economists.
The economists say the state of New Mexico had a shortfall of nearly $400 million for this fiscal year,…
A potential showdown is emerging between state lawmakers and Gov. Bill Richardson over where to look for cost savings. State lawmakers, grappling with a projected half-a-billion-dollar budget shortfall, were told Tuesday they could limit the pain by retrieving nearly $200 million in unspent money on unfinished brick-and-mortar projects around the state.
The state of New Mexico’s current money shortage is the equivalent of a forced diet for lawmakers who have gotten used to divvying up huge surpluses with Gov. Bill Richardson. Now the fights will be over where to cut, how deep to cut, whether to raise taxes — in effect, how to make do with less. And the battles won’t be pretty.
