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.
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…
A bill to boost the state’s cigarette tax by 75 cents cleared an important legislative committee Tuesday afternoon, after a bit of arm-twisting and some last-minute horse trading by two Democratic lawmakers. The sheer effort to push the bill out of the House Taxation and Revenue Committee gives one a sense of how difficult the New Mexico Legislature is finding it to pass out a state budget.
Legislative leaders have struck a budget deal, and just in time. Details are few, but Gov. Bill Richardson saw it Friday and pronounced it good. Here are the general outlines of the deal. The recently struck deal involves raising $233 million in revenue. That revenue would come from increasing the state’s gross receipts, cigarette and compensating taxes. Certain foods also would be taxed for the first time in years, although it’s unclear what food items would fall under the state’s gross receipts tax. The proposed budget agreement also relies on spending decreases. State agencies are expected to shave spending. Public education, meanwhile, would be reduced by about 1 percent.
Public school teachers and state workers would pay more toward their retirement while several, but not all, state agencies would get fewer dollars next year under a state budget plan approved by a powerful Senate committee on Thursday.
Also roughly 250 more state jobs across state government would disappear than in a House-approved state budget plan that served as the starting point for the Senate proposal. Many of those targeted state government positions are already vacant, legislative officials said.
The solutions the Legislature is now considering to close this year’s budgetary shortfall rely heavily on a pot of money that once emptied cannot be refilled.
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.
