Come Jan. 1, 2018, New Mexico will have a new governor.
New Mexicans will decide who that governor will be next week.
That new governor will need to do a number of things. He or she will have a little less than two months before inauguration to name members of the new cabinet and get ready for the upcoming legislative session that begins in mid-January.
Each new governor faces a unique set of circumstances. When Susana Martinez entered office, the U.S. was in the middle of the Great Recession and oil prices were plummeting in the global market. When the next governor comes into office, it will come with a budget surplus thanks to high oil prices in the global market.
We decided to look at some challenges that the next governor will need to address and we’ll write about them in the next week.
On Monday, we will look at what past and present legislative leaders think the governor needs to do to work together.
Other stories will include what the next governor needs to do with the budget surplus, how to rebuild hobbled state agencies, why transparent government matters and how to address climate and water issues.
These aren’t all the challenges the next governor will face—that could be a month’s worth of stories—but they are some of the most important and uncovered ones.
