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.
New Mexico Democratic legislators are crying foul over a line item veto by Gov. Susana Martinez that they say overstates her constitutional authority. A spokesman for Martinez says that her administration believes that it is legal.
Gov. Susana Martinez signed the $5.4 billion state budget today with a few line item vetoes, including $1.9 million in yearly funding and $2.6 million in one-time spending.
The House stayed past midnight at the Roundhouse early Thursday morning to concur with changes that the Senate made to the budget and the film incentive cap, but the body failed to concur on the changes the Senate made on the retirement “swaps” legislation. The House will ask the Senate to recede from their amendments, and if the Senate doesn’t, the two houses would have a conference committee to iron out their differences.
The Senate intends to hear the budget bill today but other controversial bills, including the film tax credit legislation, will have to be heard first, perhaps signaling a long night in the Senate as time runs out in the 60-day session.
Gov. Susana Martinez outlined some of her goals for the 2011 legislative session Tuesday in her first State of the State address at the state Legislature. Martinez also said that she would veto any tax increases that pass the legislature.
The state legislature and Gov. Susana Martinez will begin the 2011 session today with some big ticket items — including, most notably, a state budget deficit that’s estimated to be anywhere from $200 and $400 million. Martinez has vowed to fill the gap without raising taxes or making cuts to either classroom education or Medicaid.
Susana Martinez says her budget proposal, released Tuesday, will cut state spending by three percent and won’t raise taxes. The proposal is based on estimates from December 2010 that the state’s revenues will increase 4.4 percent from fiscal year 2011 to fiscal year 2012.
Governor-elect Susana Martinez and the outgoing administration Gov. Bill Richardson swapped accusatory statements Thursday over how bad New Mexico’s budget woes are.
Before it was all over Martinez was accusing the Richardson administration of playing “financial shell games”…
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 New Mexico Independent’s fifth weekly podcast includes a discussion of the state budget, New Mexico’s new plan to track childhood obesity rates and the latest news on the Arizona immigration law.
New Mexico Independent senior reporter Trip Jennings joined…
Using his line-item veto authority, Gov. Bill Richardson last week canceled a legislative demand that his administration trim 1,900 vacant positions from state government. Now lawmakers want to know why. “It was a good-faith effort on our part to show that we were trying to downsize government at every level,” said Rep. Luciano “Lucky” Varela, D-Santa Fe, who sounded piqued Monday by the governor’s action.
About $11 million that the state could collect from a proposed a 75-cent increase to the state’s cigarette tax would be partly used to fund early childhood development under a proposal a powerful state Senate committee approved Thursday morning. But…
It took a 30-day regular session and almost three days of a special session to hammer it out, but New Mexico finally has its budget for the 2011 fiscal year. After debating the measure for about two hours Wednesday night,…
Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, said Wednesday that the Senate omnibus tax bill, including a food tax, is so key to fixing the state’s budget that if fails to pass the House cleanly (without amendments), “Then it’s back to…
The numbers are big and the money bigger, but the bottom line is New Mexico could find $280 million to help fix its budget. Rep. Dennis Roch, R-Tucumcari will try to bring an amendment to the state budget bill that…
For the second time in less than a month the New Mexico House has stubbed out a cigarette tax. On Monday night the House Taxation and Revenue Committee voted not to pass along a bill that would have added 75…
By most estimates the cost of the 2010 special session is $50,000 a day. It a number that weighs heavy on the minds of law makers as they try to tackle the states budget crunch. “Everyday of the…
The New Mexico Independent has obtained a draft copy of the proclamation which will call lawmakers into a special session at 1 o’clock Monday afternoon. The copy obtained is headlined with large handwritten letters: ‘Draft: Work in Progress.’
The proclamation outlines the issues lawmakers will be tackling this special session, and according to the copy obtained by the Independent the special session will be limited to budget matters only and includes few surprise. One surprise, however, is the idea of a temporary tax amnesty program.
The House Democratic caucus began a behind-closed-doors meeting around 10 a.m. Monday, as lawmakers learned details from a budget deal legislative leaders struck late last week.
Senate Democrats had yet to begin meeting, although an announcement just went over the…
Legislative leaders were at the Roundhouse Thursday for a third day of “intense, behind-closed-doors talks and one key Senator said they were almost exactly in the same place they were when the session ended a week ago.
The New Mexico Independent’s fifth weekly podcast includes a discussion of the state budget, New Mexico’s new plan to track childhood obesity rates and the latest news on the Arizona immigration law.