Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities

Lawmakers say budget highlight of session

SANTA FE — As eastern New Mexico’s lawmakers make their way home from Santa Fe following the 30-day legislative session that wrapped up on Thursday, they do so satisfied with the $6.4 billion bipartisan budget headed to Gov. Susana Martinez’s desk.

“Simply the biggest accomplishment we had was the budget,” said Sen. Pat Woods (R-Broadview).

Lawmakers pointed to the improved financial state of New Mexico as the source of a less argumentative and divisive session than past years.

“I thought it was a really good session,” said Rep. George Dodge Jr. (D-Santa Rosa). “It was a real bipartisan session and was one of the best I’ve been a part of.”

“It’s always a successful session when basically you have a pretty good agreement about things in the budget matter,” said Sen. Stuart Ingle (R-Portales). “I think the House and the Senate worked together well and got the business for New Mexico taken care of.”

The budget includes raises for school and state employees, including an increase of about $2,000 a year for teachers.

“The highlight to me was seeing some of our state employees getting a compensation increase after seeing no increase for three years, that was a good thing,” said Rep. Randal Crowder (R-Clovis).

Rep. Dennis Roch (R-Logan) was also happy with the passing of House Bill 19, which combined several different crime initiatives under one bill including stricter penalties for convicted felons who possess firearms, improved mental health treatment for inmates and added requirements before someone convicted of drunk driving can remove an ignition interlock device.

“It was nice to be able to see a bipartisan crime package going through the Legislature,” Roch said. “Certainly crime in New Mexico has been on the rise and we've got to get a handle on it. When businesses are looking to move to a state or expand their operations, their employees want to come to some place where they can feel safe.”

Though some lawmakers still thought more could have been accomplished during the session. Roch was disappointed the house and senate could not come to an agreement on tax reform.

“I think we had a real shot at comprehensive tax reform this year. Under the governor who is not running for re-election, it was the perfect opportunity to do that,” Roch said.

“My fear is that in future sessions we're going to have a brand new governor, whatever party, they're not going to want to eliminate deductions and exceptions because they're going to want to continue to keep the support of those industries for their re-election campaigns. So this was sort of our one window to do it and we fell a little bit short. Maybe there will be an opportunity down the road to do some tax reform at the state level.”

Woods lamented the failure to pass Senate Bill 47 which would have given the Public Service Company of New Mexico a chance to sell bonds in order to make up some of its losses from the closing of the San Juan Generating Station.

“It might not have been a perfect bill but it should have been a bill that was kept alive and tried to refine it, determine how to do that,” Woods said.

Similarly, Crowder was disappointed the Legislature could not pass a bill to benefit the Farmington area which he said is currently suffering economically due to the closing of coal power plants and the mines that supply the coal.

For a session that was preceded months earlier by gun violence in Las Vegas and even locally in Clovis, and ended on the same day as a school shooting in Parkland, Fla. that left 17 people dead, Woods said he was mindful of trying to pass bills that benefit the health, well-being and safety of New Mexicans.

“I went in this time to a session and I attempted some things that the governor even asked, ‘What the hell are you doing, Woods? You don’t carry stuff like this, what’s up?’” Woods said. “Then she told me that she would support anything that passed in those areas. Of course you see how far it got, it got nowhere.”

Fellow lawmakers saw some of the same sentiment as Woods and think it could have led to the passage of the crime bill.

“Sen. Woods is right, there’s a different mindset in Santa Fe right now,” Dodge said. “I feel an urgency to fix these things, I feel an urgency to do what we need to do to keep our kids safe in school. It’s mind-boggling what’s happening, we need to get to work on that.”

“I think that may have been one of the reasons why (the crime bill) was able move this year,” Roch said. “Everybody had it in their mind that we've got to take some steps to reduce violent crime. We don't want our citizens living in fear, we don't want to have that be an impediment to economic development or job growth, so I think that's why we saw that bipartisan package move this year and be successful.”

 
 
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