Community Voices

A hope that the next secretary of education will embrace real change

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Vince Lombardi, the legendary coach of the Green Bay Packers, is often quoted for saying “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” This has been used as motivation in all forms of contests to gain an edge on competitors. Most people do not realize, however, what Coach Lombardi actually meant. It was not about winning at all costs—ignoring the human spirit or looking at the scoreboard as the ultimate measure of success. In an interview late in life, Lombardi said about his winning quote that “I wished I’d never said the thing… I meant the effort.

Community Voices

No more cuts to our classrooms. Not one single cent.

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Public education in New Mexico is surely at a crossroads today. For the past eight years our state economy has been stuck in permanent recession mode, and that resulted in constant trimming and cuts to classroom budgets. Now, a combination of proposed deep federal cuts and indifference from Gov. Susana Martinez raises real questions about the quality of future learning. Luckily, there are champions for education in the Legislature who drew the line on any more cuts to schools in the recent special session. It may be the best ray of hope for our children’s future.

Howie Morales

Governor’s false fiscal crisis is hers alone

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Gov. Susana Martinez’s proposed threats that grabbed headlines across New Mexico are not a solution to the state’s financial difficulties. She recently claimed that “we are staring down the path of a government shutdown,” and vowed unpaid furloughs of state employees and other draconian measures to save money. None of this needs to happen. It is a reckless and unnecessary approach to our state’s and our communities’ very real challenges. All of this comes as the Governor prepares to veto a responsible, balanced $6.1 billion budget that a bipartisan Legislature passed.

2017 legislative session

House tax reform measure faces steep hurdles in Senate

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A wide-ranging tax bill that passed the House of Representatives in a unanimous vote ran into obstacles at a Senate hearing Wednesday and isn’t likely to advance in the 2017 Legislature. “Anything still has a chance of moving,” said Sen. Clemente Sanchez, D-Grants, chairman of the Senate Corporations and Transportation Committee, after a four-hour hearing on House Bill 412, sponsored by Rio Rancho Republican Rep. Jason Harper. But during the hearing, lawmakers were more skeptical as they heard concerns from lobbyists for doctors, hospitals, broadcasters, nonprofit organizations, schools, farmers, the dairy industry, hospice nurses and nursing homes about how the tax changes would affect their operations. Related: NM’s revenue still hasn’t recovered to pre-recession levels

Harper was not surprised. “We’ve jokingly called this bill the lobbyist full-employment act.

2017 legislative session

In late-night vote, House moves to close tax loopholes

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An effort to eliminate hundreds of tax breaks for dozens of businesses and service providers while lowering the overall tax rate on sales is moving forward in the Legislature and may become part of a solution to fix New Mexico’s budget deficit for years to come. The measure, sponsored by Rep. Jason Harper, R-Rio Rancho, passed the House of Representatives late Wednesday with no dissenting votes. The initiative had been broadly scaled back from what Harper first proposed with the introduction of House Bill 412, which now has a prime focus on reforming the state’s cumbersome gross receipts tax law. Initial measures to extend that tax to food, as well as changes to income tax rates and how property is valued, were removed from the bill in what House Speaker Brian Egolf called “the largest substitution in the history of the House floor.” Harper accepted the amendments from Rep. Carl Trujillo, D- Santa Fe, as the only realistic way his reforms would move forward.

Community Voices

Raise the cigarette tax now to help NM classrooms and health

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New Mexico has a unique opportunity today to accomplish two important goals for our state by simply raising taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products. First, we can substantially strengthen our children’s classrooms, which have been hit with cuts worth tens of millions of dollars since 2008. Second, we can make sure that more than 11,000 additional kids never even become smokers, and more than 10,000 current adult smokers will quit, significantly lowering overall health costs. We cannot afford not to do it. My legislation, SB 231, would increase the tax on cigarettes by $1.50 per pack, with an equivalent increase in other tobacco products including e-cigarettes and chewing tobacco.

News

Senate panel: Hike cigarette tax to help schools

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A key Senate committee on Tuesday night pushed ahead a proposal to nearly double New Mexico’s tax on cigarettes to raise money for public schools. Though health advocates say it would help curb smoking and some legislators warn of more cuts to education funding if they cannot raise revenue to bolster the state budget, the proposal is unlikely to make it past Gov. Susana Martinez. When asked about the measure on Tuesday morning, a spokesman for the Republican governor reiterated her stand against raising taxes. But the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Howie Morales, D-Silver City, countered that the governor has also pledged that she will not cut classroom spending. “That’s what she would do if she vetoes this bill,” Morales said after the Senate Finance Committee advanced his bill in a bipartisan 9-3 vote.

Environment

Gila spending bill clears committee

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A bill to increase spending oversight on a proposed diversion on the Gila River passed the Senate Conservation Committee this morning—and will head next to the Senate floor. Sens. Howie Morales, D-Silver City, and Sander Rue, R-Albuquerque, introduced Senate Bill 340, which would require the Interstate Stream Commission’s spending on the Gila River diversion to go through the normal legislative budget process. Before putting more money toward the project, officials would need to show the project is technically feasible, explain how much water is available from the river and who would use it, estimate the project’s price tag and determine how New Mexico will cover the difference between the federal subsidy and the project’s actual cost. The bill passed the committee, though four objected to the pass including Republican Sens.

NM Legislature

Supers’ plea to lawmakers: Save schools from further cuts

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At least 41 of New Mexico’s 89 school superintendents stood outside the state Capitol on a windy, bone-chilling Friday afternoon to deliver a message of desperation. The weather was rotten and they said their budgets are in the same condition. Six of the superintendents spoke publicly, and all of them said their districts have cut so much so fast to help resolve the state’s budget crisis that they are reeling. That puts at risk the goal of every kid getting a good education, they said. Veronica García, superintendent of the Santa Fe Public Schools, said Democrats who control both houses of the state Legislature and Republican Gov. Susana Martinez must come together in the spirit of compromise to save the schools and the children they serve.

Environment

After U.S. Senator’s request, ISC releases previously-withheld data

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Last month, NM Political Report wrote about how a one-sentence provision in state law emboldened an agency to keep one citizen from obtaining public information. In December, retired Interstate Stream Commission Director Norman Gaume asked his former agency for an unlocked copy of an Excel spreadsheet showing how much water is diverted from and used along the Gila River and its tributaries each year. The agency’s questionable actions against Gaume drew the attention of one of New Mexico’s U.S. Senator, and a state representative who introduced a bill to make a slight wording change to the state’s open records law. Over the past few years, Gaume has opposed the state’s plans to build a diversion along the Gila River in southwestern New Mexico. With an unlocked copy of the spreadsheet, he could examine the formulas and original data within the spreadsheet.