The NM Political Report (https://nmpoliticalreport.com/tag/new-mexico-restaurant-association/)
How high will the statewide minimum wage go? Or will it go at all? For many business owners, that is a key looming question during the 60-day legislative session. The minimum wage in New Mexico, unchanged since 2009, could see an upward adjustment from $7.50 an hour. Rep. Patricia Roybal Caballero, D-Albuquerque, wants to double that to $15 an hour Jan.
A proposal to raise the hourly minimum wage in New Mexico to $9 won the backing Monday of a Senate committee as well as business and labor groups. But with several bills floating around the Capitol this year to give at least a slight boost to the earnings of New Mexico’s lowest-paid workers, agreement still seems elusive on how high the state’s minimum wage should go and what strings should be attached. In a 5-3 vote, the Senate Corporations and Transportation Committee approved Senate Bill 386, which would raise the hourly minimum wage from $7.50 to $9 but allow employers to pay new hires a training wage of $8 per hour for up to two months. The bill would also raise the minimum wage for tipped employees, such as waitresses and baristas, from $2.13 to $2.63. A major public employees union, New Mexico Voices for Children and the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce have backed the proposal, seeing it as a compromise that would ensure at least some increase in pay for low-wage workers while also proving palatable to some in the business community.
Mayor Richard Berry’s $119 million Albuquerque Rapid Transit project along Central just got a double-dose of bad news. The U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee has recommended a $19 million cut in funding for project, and the New Mexico Restaurant Association now opposes ART. The Appropriations Committee, in its 2017 budget proposal to the full House, has recommended that the FTA’s Small Starts grant for ART be cut from $69 million to $50 million, according to the committee’s report. In the Senate, the Appropriations Committee has recommended that the FTA’s Small Starts grants – of which ART is just one applicant – total $240.7 million for all 10 projects, about half of the $407.8 million the House wants to spend. The difference in proposed spending will have to be worked out in conference committee negotiations, and those could be months away.