The number of executions in the United States increased this year, but the number of new death sentences handed down fell to the lowest total since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976, according to a new report from the Death Penalty Information Center, noted today by the Washington [...]
Arizona is one of the country’s seven worst states in emergency health preparedness, a new report says, according to the Arizona Daily Star. Whereas Arizona scored an overall 5 out of 10 in the report (least prepared), New Mexico logged a 7 along with a dozen or so [...]
A 100-megawatt wind farm near Willard, N.M., could become the first beneficiary of the state’s push into the world of renewable energy.
The New Mexico Renewable Energy Transmission Authority (RETA) on Wednesday took a first step toward issuing up to $85 million in bonds to [...]
The state officially has closed off enrollment to small employers who aren’t already part of a program that helps tens of thousands of New Mexicans afford health insurance by paying part of the cost of monthly premiums.
Last month the New Mexico Human Services Department stopped accepting applications from individuals wanting [...]
The Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday sued the chip maker Intel, accusing it of using its dominant market position “to stifle competition and strengthen its monopoly,” reports the New York Times. Intel has a big presence in New Mexico in the form of [...]
Guy Riordan, a former New Mexico State Game Commission Chairman and friend of Gov. Bill Richardson, has been banned from the securities industry for life and fined $1.5 million by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, reports the Albuquerque Journal.
Riordan, as you may recall, factored in the [...]
Missouri officials acknowledged Monday that they reported inflated numbers of food stamp recipients to the federal government, calling into question millions of dollars of bonuses paid to the state for running one of the nation’s top-flight programs, according to the Kansas City Star. Food stamp use is up across the [...]
Photo by Kasaa
An attorney for a high-profile whistleblower charged Monday that a state agency has since January resisted handing over e-mails and other documents that show the state’s former state investment officer pressured firms to hire a politically connected New Mexico man.
But a spokesman [...]
Maine Gov. John Baldacci this week will submit a budget proposal that assumes Congress will pass additional stimulus measures, Stateline.org reports today. That begs the question, How many other states, including New Mexico, will make the same assumption going into legislative session at the start of next year? (New [...]
A credit rating agency downgraded the creditworthiness of the country’s largest pension fund yesterday, according to the Los Angeles Times. It’s the latest bad news for the California Public Employees’ Retirement System fund (CalPERS), which has been beset by scandal this year with allegations similar to those buffeting [...]
Thirty-six states confront budget shortfalls totaling $28 billion this year according to an analysis by the National Conference of State Legislatures, Stateline.org reports today. New Mexico is listed in the report as struggling with one of the worst budget gaps as a percentage of its budget — 11.8 percent, [...]
Photo by Peter St. Cyr
State lawmakers are nearing a decision on whether they will drag Gov. Bill Richardson into court over what some interpret as his constitutional power grab last month. In November, the governor vetoed language in a Legislature-approved budget [...]
The number of people in U.S. prisons has grown at the slowest pace in nearly a decade, according to figures released Tuesday by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, according to the Washington Post. The study also noted that incarceration rates in 30 states declined last year. New Mexico apparently [...]
The Obama administration says it is settling a long-running and contentious lawsuit over royalties owed to American Indians, the Associated Press reports. Under an agreement announced today, the Interior Department will distribute $1.4 billion to more than 300,000 tribe members to compensate them for historical accounting claims, and to [...]
The Colorado secretary of state on Friday approved two measures for the 2010 ballot that would slash at least $1 billion annually in state taxes and roll back property taxes statewide, reports the Denver Post. This comes at a time when Colorado, like many other states, is struggling financially because [...]
A Republican state senator charged Friday that the Department of Health had hired more than 90 state employees since Gov. Bill Richardson imposed a state hiring freeze – and she wants to know why. Sen. Sue Wilson Beffort, R-Sandia Park, charged during a meeting of the Legislative Finance [...]
Another money manager with ties to New York and New Mexico state investment scandals has pleaded guilty to bribing state officials in New York in exchange for a $250 million investment from that state’s pension fund, the Albuquerque Journal reports today.
“Elliott Broidy, founder and chairman of Markstone Capital Group, [...]
As New Mexico’s state lawmakers approach next month’s regular legislative session with pleas to raise taxes ringing in their heads, they need to know they’re not alone. Twenty-nine states raised taxes or fees this year, bringing in an estimated $23.9 billion — the highest increase since at least 1979, [...]
Before handing over its sprawling behavioral health system to Optum Health this July, the state wanted to know whether the company would be able to process the thousands of invoices and claims submitted every month. So it looked at Optum’s [...]
OptumHealth New Mexico, the firm slapped with a penalty of more than $1 million in October for not paying hundreds of providers for services already rendered—sometimes for months—is disputing the state’s action, a state official announced Thursday.
Linda Roebuck Homer, director of the New Mexico Behavioral Health Collaborative, announced the [...]
Weeks before the New Mexico state Legislature is expected to take up the issue of domestic partnership, the New York state Senate voted down a same-sex marriage bill Wednesday, shocking proponents who had predicted its passage, the New York Times reports.Meanwhile, in warm, sunny Florida, the news isn’t as shiny [...]
New Mexico has huge potential to produce electricity from renewable sources like wind and solar, but a small window to develop transmission lines to deliver that power to customers, the Associated Press reports.
The wire service quotes a New Mexico lawmaker who heard the first statewide transmission report from the [...]
Nearly 60 of Gov. Bill Richardson’s political appointees will lose their jobs next month, the governor’s office announced today.
Supervisors notified 59 exempt, or appointed, state employees that their positions are being eliminated, effective Jan. 8, in an effort to save about $8.3 million dollars and help balance the state [...]
Gov. Bill Richardson recently ordered five furlough days for state workers and said he wants to eliminate more than 1,000 vacant positions across state government as a response to New Mexico’s worsening financial situation. But next year’s budget likely will be worse than this year’s. Stateline.org reports that many [...]
Swine flu is killing American Indians in New Mexico at a higher rate than other ethnic groups, the Associated Press reports.
New Mexico so far has recorded 40 deaths from the H1N1 virus. But while American Indians make up 10 percent of the state’s population, they represent 20 percent of [...]
New Mexico is one of the growing number of states that allows marijuana for medicinal use. Now New Jersey appears poised to become the next state to allow residents to use marijuana, when recommended by a doctor, for relief from serious diseases and medical conditions, according to the Wall [...]
Photo by Mills Baker
Here’s another sign of how the poor economy is affecting New Mexico: state data show that 70,000Â more New Mexicans are using food stamps than just a year ago.
According to data from the New Mexico Human Services Department, individual use of [...]
A legislative committee is scheduled to vote this afternoon on proposed legislation to strengthen oversight over New Mexico’s investment of taxpayer money.
One proposed bill before the Investments Oversight Committee would require all state funds that invest money to add seats to their respective boards, state Sen. Tim Keller said [...]
The use of food stamps, the federal program, has increased dramatically during the recession, reports the New York Times. Food stamps pays benefits to individuals and families making around the poverty level — around $22,000 for a family of four. Like the rest of the nation, use of food [...]
Throngs of students in California protested hikes to fees they must pay. Photo by James Buck, Creative Commons
LAS VEGAS, Nev. — With impending service cuts, taxes sure to increase and a cash-short state road fund, life in New Mexico might seem, [...]
Minutes after a houseboat piloted by Gov. Bill Richardson’s chief of staff Brian Condit had crashed into another boat Sept. 5, a woman called 911 to report: “The people who are driving it are drunk.”
So writes Tom Cole in the Albuquerque Journal today, pushing the story about the [...]
Some states, struggling to balance their budgets, are selling or leasing public property, including state office buildings, prisons and major toll ways, and Stateline.org has a story that examines the pros and cons of such decisions.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry thinks his state has a better handle on [...]
Photo by David Mason
In a preview of potential cost-cutting measures to come, the state of New Mexico has stopped accepting individuals into a program that helps uninsured New Mexicans pay for health coverage.
The State Coverage Insurance program (SCI) helps nearly 50,000 low-income [...]
Two projects in New Mexico won federal ’smart grid’ stimulus money today, the U.S. Department of Energy announced.
But it’s difficult to tell how much of the money will actually stay in New Mexico. More than $4.7 million of $6.5 million awarded to projects in New Mexico according to the [...]
A debate has erupted in Maryland over higher taxes levied against the state’s wealthiest residents, according to Stateline.org. It’s of interest here in New Mexico because raising income tax rates on the state’s wealthiest residents will be a major issue in the coming January legislative session in Santa Fe [...]
Senators from both parties are pushing to free up billions of dollars for federal highway projects, as Congress looks to infrastructure investment to combat double-digit unemployment, according to the Wall Street Journal. Federal highway funds to states could drop by an average of $1 billion a month, or 30 [...]
Gov. Bill Richardson’s administration is proposing to overhaul Medicaid, the government’s low-income health insurance program, to cope with a projected budget shortfall of $300 million next year, the Associated Press is reporting.
Human Services Department officials told lawmakers on Thursday that Medicaid benefits and eligibility probably would be [...]
Here’s something New Mexico state officials can back up with experience: predicting revenues in this recession are incredibly difficult, says Stateline.org. Indiana hasn’t produced an accurate monthly tax revenue estimate in over a year. The state has never been so wrong, says an Indiana University professor who has worked [...]
Hassan Nemazee, a longtime Democratic moneyman, was arrested last August and later accused of perpetrating a $292 million Ponzi scheme. Nemazee has pleaded not guilty to the bank fraud charges, but “it may be unsettling for New Mexico citizens to now learn that a New York firm that [...]
The University of California’s Board of Regents is expected to raise students’ fees today by 32 percent, pushing the annual cost of a UC education, not including campus-based fees, to $10,302 — about triple the UC costs of a decade ago, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Meanwhile on the [...]
A local organization that works for more openness in government is claiming victory after a state agency decided Tuesday to publicly release documents that had been sought by the media for months.
“Today’s action is a win for transparency,” Sarah Welsh, executive director of Foundation [...]
In national news, about one million laid-off workers will see their unemployment benefits end in January unless Congress acts quickly to renew existing federally paid extensions, according to a new report and legislators and state officials, the New York Times reports.California faces a nearly $21 billion budgetary shortfall — [...]
Former New Mexico State Investment Officer Gary Bland testified this fall before the federal Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as part of its own “non-public, fact-finding inquiry” into the investment scandal that is mushrooming, documents show.
Bland, who resigned last month from his $300,000 state job, was ordered to [...]
New Mexico is bracing for the worst but hoping for the best.
And right now all the hope appears to be focused on Washington, D.C., although it’s way too early to tell if it’s a mirage or the real thing.
Health reform legislation approved last week [...]
Budget woes continue for states across the nation. Tennessee might release up to 4,000 non-violent felons, including those convicted for drug dealing, to deal with that state’s woes, the Nashville Tennessean reports.
Meanwhile, Colorado can collect sales tax on medical marijuana, Attorney General John Suthers said Monday, according [...]
Help to states might be on the way. Tucked within the U.S. House’s version of health reform legislation last week is a $23.5 billion pot of money meant for states to pay for six more months of extra Medicaid funding, The Washington Post reports. State officials across the land [...]
Photo by Phoney Nickle.
This week Gov. Bill Richardson announced plans to end a policy that allows state workers to retire and then return to work, collecting both a salary and a pension. By the governor’s own count, more than 500 state workers are so-called [...]
The Obama administration released its final rules Wednesday for Race to the Top, a huge educational initiative meant to reward states undertaking bold school improvement initiatives. New Mexico is eligible for $25-$75 million in funding.
The paper reports:
States have until mid-January to prepare applications for a first round of the [...]
Gov. Bill Richardson is ready to tackle an issue that earned his veto earlier this year: double dippers. Richardson said in a press release Wednesday said he’ll propose the plan, which could save $7 million, for the January regular legislative session.
Double dipping is the practice where public employees retire, [...]
States, including New Mexico, are competing for $4 billion in federal funding for innovative education programs, reports the New York Times. As the story says: “The $4 billion is the most money Washington has ever given to overhaul schools. It is to be awarded in two rounds, in April [...]
In September, Katrina Lujan thought her days were numbered at Santa Fe’s Equest Counseling Center.
Her firm had gone two months without payment for services provided with the mentally ill, a lag that put a severe crunch on her bottom line. But more than that, it contradicted what [...]
Yes, New Mexico’s budget is in the toilet, but California is the poster child for dysfunction. With a multi-billion dollar shortfall, a Legislature often stymied by bickering and The Governator at the helm, California keeps its capital reporters busyBut dullness might be a greatly appreciated commodity about now for Californians, [...]
While there’s talk here in New Mexico about the early release from prison of non-violent offenders, North Carolina is struggling with the potential release of two dozen prisoners, some of whom were convicted of murder, reports WRAL.com. The issue is whether these violent offenders have served out their [...]
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who has led the charge on bad actors in the investment world, including one or two here in New Mexico, now is going after Intel Corp, which has a big presence in the Land of Enchantment. Cuomo filed a new antitrust lawsuit [...]
Lt. Gov. Diane Denish (Photo by Heath Haussamen)
Anyone interpreting Republican victories in New Jersey and Virginia’s governor’s races Tuesday as a harbinger of a GOP upset next year in New Mexico, Lt. Gov. Diane Denish has a ready [...]
An emergency meeting has been scheduled next week to discuss the status of the state’s contract with a firm that took over management of the state’s behavioral health care system July 1.
Last week the Collaborative announced that OptumHealth New Mexico, faced a fine of more than $1.4 million [...]
It’s likely the New Mexico Legislature will take up domestic partnerships again during January’s regular legislative session after rejecting several previous measures. Not that other states are a predictor of what may happen here, but Tuesday’s elections produced mixed results for supporters. Maine voters defeated a same-sex marriage [...]
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has proposed changing the way the that state’s $120 billion pension fund is managed and regulated. That pension fund has emerged as an epicenter of corruption with a big New Mexico angle:Â Saul Meyer, the founder of New Mexico’s former investor adviser, recently [...]
Gov. Bill Richardson (Photo by Heath Haussamen)
The only things Gov. Bill Richardson seemed certain about Monday were that tax increases are needed when state lawmakers convene in January to address perhaps New Mexico’s most serious financial challenge in decades. [...]
States may make hundreds of important decisions about the way its residents are taken care of once Congress is finished with health care reform legislation, the Washington Post reports. Besides the opt-out choice, proposed last week by Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid, “health-care legislation being drafted on Capitol [...]
An early, controlled release of state prisoners has been mentioned as a consequence of deep spending cuts ordered by the New Mexico Legislature to the state’s $5 billion budget. Whether that actually occurs is unclear. My bet is that it won’t for several reasons. But one state, Illinois, appears [...]
A firm that took over management of the state’s behavioral health care system July 1 has not paid millions of dollars to nonprofits and other companies for work they have completed, the state said Friday.
As a result, the firm, OptumHealth New Mexico, faces a fine [...]
Reps. John Heaton and Ben Lujan (with Nick Salazar) in a committee meeting during the 2009 special session.
New Mexico state lawmakers struggled to pass a mid-year state budget fix last week, but in [...]
New Hampshire’s bid to become the 14th state to legalize medical marijuana fell two votes short Wednesday, according to the Associated Press.
It appears the Obama administration overstated how many jobs federal stimulus dollars have created or saved a few weeks back. An Associated Press review shows that the 30,000 [...]
The New Mexico Women's Correctional Facility, Grants
Two of New Mexico’s 10 prisons would be shuttered, hundreds of non-violent offenders released and dozens of people could lose their jobs if the state’s prisons were cut by 7.6 percent, Corrections Secretary Joe Williams said Wednesday.
Williams’s [...]
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. (Lauren Victoria Burke/WDCPIX.COM)
U.S. Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid said Monday health care reform legislation scheduled for the U.S. Senate floor in coming weeks would contain a public health care option with an opt-out [...]
The special session ended Friday, or so we were led to believe. But Kate Nash of the Santa Fe New Mexican is dead on with her story today that suggests that maybe the session has gone into overtime, what with all the bickering between Gov. Bill Richardson and state [...]
Photo by Sara Grajeda
A budget that largely protects K-12 education, while cutting deeply into most state agencies, won approval from the Legislature Friday evening.
The budget passage came after an exhausting and confusing day in which state lawmakers dueled and disagreed before finally finding [...]
Gov. Bill Richardson would have to reduce the salaries and benefits for 102 political appointees rather than 80, if an amendment to the budget bill is approved by the House.
Sixty two of those exempt positions are vacant, meaning the governor would only have to trim 38 positions instead of [...]
Photo by Peter St. Cyr
A budget bill that would cut K-12 education by less than 1 percent, while trimming the budgets of most state agencies nearly 8 percent, cleared the House late Thursday.
Sponsored by Rep. Luciano “Lucky” Varela, D-Santa Fe, HB 17 [...]
If you think the budget situation is bad now, just wait until January when the shortfall for next year could reach $1 billion.
The solutions the Legislature are now considering to close this year’s budgetary shortfall rely heavily on a pot of money that once [...]
Gov. Bill Richardson is pushing back against state lawmakers again. For the second time in two days, the governor’s office is taking umbrage with state lawmakers on its blog.
Wednesday’s entry is titled “Setting the Record Straight on Exempt Employees.” As the governor wrote: “Some critics, including uninformed legislators, have [...]
At least four political appointees are also double dippers.
As soon as we published a list of “exempt” — or political appointees — compiled by the Department of Finance and Administration last night, we started getting questions about how many of them were also double [...]
Get ready for a bumpy ride. New Mexico’s roads may be a rough patch. Projected revenues for the State Road fund are between $340 million to $360 million for the year that ends June 30, state transportation officials told state lawmakers Tuesday.
New Mexico taps the State Road Fund to unlock [...]
Gov. Bill Richardson (Photo by Heath Haussamen)
Several state lawmakers are targeting a perk of being governor: hiring people for political jobs.
By some estimates, Gov. Bill Richardson has 500 political hires across state government, from cabinet secretaries and state investment officers [...]
Richardson's budget secretary, Katherine Miller, answers questions in the Senate.
SANTA FE — Three days into the special legislative session, a nearly $900 million structural deficit continues to confound Gov. Bill Richardson and the New Mexico Legislature.
Richardson [...]
The state needs to do revenues increases, Gov. Bill Richardson told KOB reporter Gadi Schwartz on Monday. But let’s not do them now. Do them in the January regular session. ”I don’t like revenue increases, but we’ve got to do them,” Richardson told Schwartz. “But let’s not do them in [...]
The New Mexico state Senate has advanced a new budget scenario that would cut state government deeper than other plans that have been introduced.
The proposal, Senate Bill 15, would cut state agencies by $314 million, including a 6 percent cut to public education.
On Monday morning, the [...]
By a 7 to 4 vote, a Senate panel killed legislation that would have altered the way the state collects its corporate income tax.
Called combined reporting, the bill (Senate Bill 8)sponsored by Santa Fe Democrat Peter Wirth would require multi-state companies with stores in New Mexico to pay taxes [...]
A powerful Senate panel just killed the first tax bill before it this afternoon. By a vote of 7 to 4, the Senate Committee on Committees deemed legislation filed by Sen. Dede Feldman, D-Albuquerque, irrelevant to the Legislature’s mission to address this year’s $650 million budgetary shortfall.
The vote followed [...]
Senate majority leader Michael Sanchez listens to a question about procedure. Photo by Matthew Reichbach
Despite Gov. Bill Richardson’s very clear message that tax increases aren’t part of the Legislature’s business during the special session, several senators filed such bills Saturday. They will [...]
Gov. Bill Richardson’s proclamation defines what the Legislature can work on during the special session. It contains this sentence:
Legislation concerning the object of this proclamation Shall not include measures reducing salaries or raising tax rates, reducing or eliminating tax credits, rebates, exemptions or deductions or imposing new taxes.
That seems to be [...]
Gov. Bill Richardson is considering cuts to public education to close this year’s $650 million budgetary shortfall, several state lawmakers confirmed early Saturday afternoon. The news represents a change for Richardson, who has stood firm against public school cuts for weeks of negotiations with top legislative leaders. Richardson has said [...]
Gov. Bill Richardson thinks it’s unlikely he’ll come to a budget deal with state legislators before today’s special legislative session starts at 2 p.m.
“Well, that’s a little optimistic,” Richardson said, chuckling a little and grinning, as he left a meeting with Senate Democrats just after 11 a.m.
Richardson was meeting with [...]
Just after 10 a.m. on Saturday, Gov. Bill Richardson went into a meeting at the Capitol to discuss the budget situation with Senate Democrats. Despite weeks of negotiations, the governor and legislators went into the meeting without any agreement on how to best resolve the budget crisis.
Legislative leaders offered their [...]
Just after five on Friday afternoon, legislative leaders met with Gov. Bill Richardson to discuss a budget proposal put together by the leadership. Emerging from the meeting, House Speaker Ben Lujan told the Independent he hopes the governor responds to their proposal today or tomorrow.
A handout distributed to legislators detailed [...]
On the eve of the legislative special session in Santa Fe, the Capitol is eerily quiet.
Top Democratic and Republican lawmakers were behind closed doors earlier in the day going over the budget, but it’s unclear when they’ll meet with negotiators for Gov. Bill Richardson.
One thing is for sure: As of [...]
Photo by Brandi Sims
With a $660 million state budget shortfall, Sen. Peter Wirth, D-Santa Fe, says he knows where to find $40 million to $50 million in new money.
During the special legislative session that starts Saturday, Wirth plans to introduce a bill [...]
Businesses with federal stimulus contracts have created few jobs in states with the worst unemployment rates, according to data released Thursday by the federal government, reports the New York Times.
As if it weren’t enough to have a governor admit a scandalous affair, thousands of out-of-work South Carolinians will [...]
Photo by Sara Grajeda
Like other states, New Mexico has hundreds of tax credits, exemptions and deductions. But New Mexico doesn’t compile all these so-called tax expenditures into a single report to show how much money it is forgoing as a result of policy [...]
An investment scandal that’s been plaguing New Mexico heated up last week when the state’s former investment adviser pleaded guilty to securities fraud in New York, admitting that he recommended deals that were not in the best interest of the state because they were pushed by politically connected individuals [...]
As New Mexico lawmakers prepare for Saturday’s special legislative session to deal with this year’s large budget shortfall, Gov. Bill Richardson and some lawmakers have repeatedly said that repealing the state’s income tax cuts isn’t an option — not yet at least.
The New Mexico Legislature goes into special session Saturday to address a yawning budgetary shortfall of around $700 million for the year that ends July 1. And Gov. Bill Richardson and powerful state lawmakers are still debating how exactly to close a gap between revenues and expenses that represents [...]
Green power is taking a step forward. And Clovis, N.M., is at the center of the progress.
A flurry of stories over the past 24 hours, from national news organizations like Reuters and the Wall Street Journal, have been published profiling the Tres Amigas Project.
What’s the Tres Amigas project? [...]
David Campbell is Mayor-elect Richard Berry’s choice for the city of Albuquerque’s top administrative officer, Berry’s campaign just announced.
Campbell is an Albuquerque lawyer who previously served as an assistant to Mayor Harry Kinney from 1981 to 1983 and as Albuquerque City Attorney from 1989 to 1993. Campbell also holds a [...]
More than 8,600 New Mexico teachers, construction workers and police officers kept their jobs or found new employment thanks to the federal stimulus package, Kate Nash of the Santa Fe New Mexican reports today.
Nash is drawing form a just-released quarterly report by the state Office of Recovery and [...]
New Mexico is suffering from a “brain drain” — a big-time “brain-drain,” according to a story by KUNM’s Jim Williams.
Apparently 60 percent of native New Mexicans have left the state, and only 2 percent of them come back. That’s what Dely Alcantara found, according to Williams. Alcantara is the [...]
New Mexico relies most heavily on the state gross receipts tax for its revenue — to the tune of 36.1 percent, according to a new report. By comparison, the state income tax comes in third as a revenue generator, behind licenses and other taxes, producing just 15.8 percent of [...]
R.J. Berry accepts his victory as his parents, son and wife cheer. Photo by MG Bralley
When R.J. Berry resigned his position as a state representative on Monday, he removed one from an [...]
New Mexico is losing $6 million in federal highway money this year, the state confirmed Thursday. The loss is part of a cost-savings move by Congress, effective Sept. 30, to claw back federal transportation dollars the states have not used.
Mark Slimp, a spokesman for the New Mexico [...]
