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.
59 percent of New Mexico voters say the federal budget deficit reduction should not involve cutting Medicaid, according to a new poll commissioned by advocacy groups in the state.
A new Gallup poll finds, on average, Americans believe 51 cents out of every dollar the federal government spends is wasted, a new high since the question was first asked in 1979.
This week, the Republican Governors Public Policy Committee released a report on Medicaid that outlines cost-saving measures decided upon by 31 Republican governors. Among the policy recommendations is a proposal to require the federal government to pay for the care of undocumented immigrants.
New Mexico will be able to pay its bills for about 22 days if the federal government fully or partially halts payments to the state, according to Finance and Administration Secretary Rick May.
The New Mexico Human Services Department announced Thursday morning that Alicia Smith & Associates of Washington, D.C., will be awarded the contract to overhaul Medicaid in the state.
Recently proposed federal and state family-planning spending cuts would disproportionately hinder low-income Latinas’ access to reproductive care, said several women’s reproductive care
A new poll from the Washington Post and ABC News reveals mixed messages from the American public over the country’s budget crisis.
Governor-elect Susana Martinez indicated that she may not keep key campaign promises to not cut education or Medicaid to balance the state’s budget. Martinez’s transition team told NMPolitics.net that cuts in the two areas are “certainly a possibility.”
Gov.-elect Susana Martinez promised not to cut education or Medicaid funding in her campaign, but given that New Mexico’s budget deficit has grown from $260 million in July to $450 million, she is changing her language.
Governor-elect Susana Martinez is altering how she talks about education and Medicaid, two programs she has repeatedly said would be protected from cuts, Heath Haussamen at NMPolitics.net reports.
Four local residents who contributed big to Martinez’s gubernatorial campaign were named to committees charged with identifying cabinet secretary candidates, according to the Farmington Daily-Times.
Also Martinez will make the final decision on whether the state of New Mexico proceeds with a land sale for a new “supercomplex” government office building south of Santa Fe, the New Mexican reports.
Alcohol is banned from the newly refurbished Pit and University of New Mexico’s stadium it appears, according to the Albuquerque Journal.
Despite having one of the worst childhood poverty rates in the U.S., only 81.1 percent of New Mexico children who qualify for the Medicaid State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) were enrolled in the program in 2009, according to a new report by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.
That’s below the national average of 81.9 percent enrollment—but most of New Mexico’s neighboring states have lower rates. Colorado, Utah, Arizona and Texas had all enrolled fewer than 79.2 percent of eligible children in SCHIP, according to the 2009 data. Oklahoma enrolled 81.4 percent of eligible children, roughly matching New Mexico’s enrollment.
SCHIP was established by Congress in 1997 to provide health insurance to children in families at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty line. More …
Funding for Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories helped New Mexico bring in more federal dollars per person than all but four other states, federal databases show for fiscal year 2009. Only Alaska, Hawaii, Maryland and Virgina received more money…
The liberal London daily Morning Star cited New Mexico’s cuts in Medicaid services as a cautionary tale Tuesday for proposed English health system cutbacks, arguing that New Mexico and other states are trying to balance state budgets by slashing medical services for the poor.
“New Mexico is expected to eliminate a number of Medicaid services that are not stipulated by federal law — including dental services, spectacles, emergency hospital services and inpatient psychiatric care,” The Star reported Tuesday. “In the US … the grim consequences are starting to emerge of the cutbacks driven by the recession which has left public-sector budgets drained even as it has made more low-paid and unemployed US citizens dependent on public support.”
New Mexico is not alone in cutting services for its most vulnerable populations, according to an August report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. More …
Democrat Diane Denish and Republican Susana Martinez promise not to cut spending on education at the same time they will not raise your taxes if elected governor. But the economic realities that will confront the winner of the governor’s race…
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 the state is in desperate need of a cash infusion. But State Rep. Keith Gardner, R-Roswell, said the move is a Band-Aid that only masks the need to make more cuts.
The state will receive $104 million in extra Medicaid dollars thanks to federal legislation projected to clear Congress in the next few days, New Mexico state officials said Wednesday.
The funding contained in the $26 billion federal legislation for…
Federal legislation that would help New Mexico cleared an important congressional hurdle Wednesday, the Washington Post is reporting.
The U.S. Senate voted 61 to 38 to avert a GOP filibuster of legislation that would send $16 billion in extra…
Yes it is, according to a weekend story in Politico.
Politico attributes a vote scheduled for tonight in the U.S. Senate on a $26.1 billion aid package for states, including extra Medicaid funding, to a late-breaking push by the White House.
A congressional debate on whether to extend extra federal dollars for Medicaid, the government’s low-income health insurance program, has captivate a majority of states. The legislation would push the deadline for states receiving extra Medicaid funding to June 30, 2011, six months beyond the current deadline of Dec. 31.
If the extra dollars don’t come, New Mexico will be stuck with a $160 million hole in the state budget that started July 1. More …
New Mexico built its current state budget on the assumption that Congress would extend stimulus funding for Medicaid through the end of the fiscal year, next June. Right now the extra funding ends Dec. 31, 2010.
Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, told The Independent he’s already preparing for the possibility that Congress, even if it acts, won’t cover the full $160 million the state budgeted in anticipation of the federal dollars.
But in Georgia, Gov. Sonny Perdue has already ordered leaner state agencies to cut another 4 percent in spending starting next month because the state’s new budget relies on federal stimulus dollars that might not come, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is reporting.
New Mexico is $160 million in the hole three weeks into the new fiscal year, state officials learned Wednesday.
And that hole could double in size if Congress fails to send extra stimulus dollars New Mexico’s way to help pay for Medicaid, the government’s low-income health insurance program.
It’s not exactly the kind of political climate gubernatorial candidates would prefer.
“The next governor is going to have her hands full,” Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said Wednesday, confirming the challenges ahead for the next occupant of the governor’s mansion.
The two women running to become New Mexico’s next chief executive responded Wednesday to news of the worsening financial news with plans on how to address the problem that varied in degrees of specificity. But not before taking swipes at each other.
“While my opponent has put forward thin one-liners and platitudes, my plan tells New Mexicans exactly how I propose to cover the budget gap,” Democratic Lt. Gov. Diane Denish said in a statement.
Republican District Attorney Susana Martinez shot back: “Diane Denish’s scheme is just more of the same Enron accounting that created this budget mess.”
Both candidates pledge to cut political appointees
Three and a half months before Election Day, Denish’s and Martinez’s plans to address the state’s budget woes reflected a mixture of gritty realism and pie-in-the-sky election-year promise-making at a time when New Mexico finds itself foundering financially.
Martinez, whose campaign sent out a 364-word statement, promised to implement zero-growth budgets at most state agencies and rid state government of waste and fraud. She said she could find 5 percent to cut, but didn’t go into too much detail about how to accomplish that goal.
Denish, whose campaign sent out a six-page report issued earlier this year, touted a voluntary one-time buy-out she would offer to state government workers and a thorough review of tax credits to make sure they create jobs. If they don’t, Denish would push to have them eliminated. What she didn’t mention is that such a review likely would take months, and wouldn’t save money this year.
Reducing the state’s vehicle fleet by 10 percent and merging several state agencies, thereby eliminating several cabinet-level positions and salaries, were other ideas Denish offered while Martinez talked of shrinking the state’s payroll through attrition.
While the two candidates played up their differences, there were similarities. Both promised to eliminate the hundreds of jobs across state government held by political appointees – a measure expected to save $8.8 million a year.
Both in the past also have mentioned reforming how the state doles out money for brick-and-mortar projects, also known as pork, an often-touted goal that somehow never found enough support among state lawmakers to become a reality during the past 7 1/2 years.
Everything is on the table—including education
Both gubernatorial candidates made clear Wednesday that while they were ready to cut expenses while eschewing major tax increases, they were prepared to protect the most basic services, including education.
It’s a scenario some lawmakers have questioned: keeping K-12 education untouched in future budget cutting. Education has suffered cuts in the past, but K-12 education is a big target, representing roughly half of the state budget.
“We can’t hit agencies” like the state transportation department any more, Sen. Steven Neville, R-Aztec, said Wednesday. “We might have to talk about wholesale elimination of functions. We may have to say we can’t provide XYZ anymore. Or the big taboo – education. We are going to have to re-look at education – at administration and overhead.”
Agreed Smith: “Everything on the spending side is on the table, including education.”
Sen. Dede Feldman, D-Albuquerque, however, said she was hard-pressed Wednesday to name where the state could cut in education.
“All I can tell you is I just finished talking to a … school nurse,” Feldman said. “People (at Albuquerque Public Schools) are really worried about what will happen this school year. We have a school principal covering two schools. School nurses who are covering more and more kids.”
Feldman also wondered if the state’s health system could take any more hits.
Funding for 33 county and community health councils and five Tribal Health Councils around the state already has been slashed this year because of the state’s budget troubles. The councils coordinate different agencies, organizations, in a community or county, that are addressing health needs at the local level, advocates have said.
“Doing away with these planning councils … it’s like your plane is about to crash and you are ripping out your control system,” Feldman said. “If we are looking to make a safe landing … we cannot afford to keep cutting those vital programs.”
No first-year governor will want to sign tax increases
“We have to look at what the situation is during the regular session,” Feldman said.
Smith ruled out a major tax increase as impractical, saying a first-year governor wouldn’t want to sign off on a tax increase to start off her tenure, he said. Smith acknowledged, however, that lawmakers would discuss – and likely would be open to– closing certain tax credits, deductions or exemptions.
Wednesday’s news wasn’t a surprise to him, Smith said. He and other senators had predicted that the Richardson administration’s projection that revenues would grow by 6 percent was overly optimistic. In the end revenues have grown by about 3 percent.
He also said the news could get worse.
New Mexico is one of 21 states without a contingency plan if Congress doesn’t pass legislation approving extra Medicaid dollars to shore up state spending plans.
Congress is currently debating whether to extend extra federal dollars for the government’s low-income health insurance program through June 30, 2011, six months beyond the current deadline of Dec. 31. If the extra dollars don’t come, however, New Mexico will be stuck with a $160 million hole in the state budget, meaning the current $160 million hole could double in size. That’s because this year’s state budget assumed the extra Medicaid dollars from the federal government.
Governor has authority to cut now
Martinez and Denish might have one saving grace. This year’s state budget gives Gov. Bill Richardson the ability to cut monthly allotments to agencies across state government, meaning some of the hard work of balancing this year’s budget actually might occur before the next governor takes office.
“Agencies have been preparing for a potential shortfall and, as a precautionary measure, were instructed to reduce spending by as much as 5 percent at the start of this fiscal year,” said Nicole Gillepsie, spokeswoman for the Department of Finance and Administration, the governor’s budget arm. “Agencies are hard at work finding ways to achieve maximum efficiency with the aim of avoiding reductions to services or additional cuts focused on state employees.”
Gillepsie also said the governor is “working to develop a plan for reducing agency budgets, and will present the plan for Legislative Finance Committee review and Board of Finance approval.”
Smith said he doesn’t hold out much hope that much cutting will occur before the next governor takes over.
“I don’t think this governor is going to move quickly enough,” Smith said.
The governor’s office did not respond to an e-mail from The Independent asking for a response to today’s news of the state’s worsening financial situation.
