New Mexico’s strategy for spending and investing its multibillion-dollar annual surplus closely tied to oil production came into focus Saturday as legislative committees advanced annual spending plans for a vote in the full Senate. became.
Lawmakers are putting the brakes on recent double-digit budget increases in the nation’s second-largest oil-producing state after Texas, while also using donations and investments to ensure funding for critical future programs. They’re putting money in their accounts — in case global oil demand rises — and oil becomes weaker.
Moving forward with an 11-0 committee vote, the revised budget would increase annual state general fund spending by about 6.8% to $10.2 billion for the fiscal year from July 2024 to June 2025.
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The Senate amendment adds $32 million to the spending package and sets an average civil service salary increase of 3% for state employees and employees of K-12 schools, state universities and public universities.
New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham is advocating for a stronger spending package – a 10% annual spending increase – that would strengthen housing opportunities, child literacy and access to health care.
The New Mexico Legislature formulates its own budget. The bill currently includes the governor’s request for $30 million to establish literacy institutions and strengthen reading programs, as well as $125 million in new loans for housing development projects.
The New Mexico State Capitol Building is visible in Santa Fe on a cloudy day. A legislative committee advanced a budget that would increase annual state general fund spending by about 6.8 percent to $10.2 billion. (Robert Alexander/Archive Photo/Getty Images)
Democratic Sen. George Munoz (Gallup), the Senate’s lead budget committee chairman, said the budget would limit spending increases, but would increase funding for local hospitals, new literacy schools, state police salaries and Social Security. He said more money was being poured into the system. Increased highway spending to overcome construction costs due to aging population and inflation.
He said the $25 monthly payments from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for poor seniors and people with disabilities will increase to $100.
“At the end of the day, you can go home and say we helped the poor, we helped the elderly, we helped law enforcement, you solved a lot of things,” Muñoz said. Told.
Lawmakers also want to help state and local governments compete for a larger share of federal infrastructure spending through the Inflation Control Act, the signature climate, health care and tax package of the Biden administration. . The Senate budget amendment would apply $75 million in state matching funds to the effort.
With an additional $1.5 million budget provision, New Mexico will, for the first time, help compensate landowners and agricultural producers for confirmed wolves killing livestock and draft animals.
Conflicts between wolves and livestock have been a major challenge for reintroducing the endangered Mexican gray wolf to the Southwest over the past two decades. Ranchers say wolves killing livestock remains a threat to their livelihoods, despite efforts by wildlife managers to drive them out and compensate them for some of their losses. There is.
Separately, an additional $300 million will be injected into the Nature Conservation Fund, which will be established in 2023. The fund underwrites an array of conservation programs in the state’s natural resource agencies, from soil improvement programs in agriculture to endangered and big game species protection.
Leading Democratic lawmakers also want to ensure that new initiatives in agencies overseen by the governor are cost-effective and responsive, especially when it comes to public education, foster care, and child protective services, before future funding is secured. He says he wants to confirm that it is.
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The state Legislature on Friday approved the creation of a “Government Results and Opportunities” Trust, which will require annual reports to the Legislature’s Office of Responsibility and Budget and undertake pilot programs during a three-year review period. Congress’ budget proposal would place $512 million into the trust.
“It gives us several years of funding to fix the problem,” said Rep. Nathan Small of Las Cruces, a co-sponsor of the initiative. “This allows us to easily analyze whether and how it is working.”
Lawmakers have until noon Thursday to submit a budget proposal to the governor, who can veto any spending item.
