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Wednesday
March 5

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Legislative Session Contacts for Legislators-Phone: (505) 986-4300, Letters:
New Mexico State Capitol Building, Santa Fe, NM 87503, or Fax: (505) 986-4610.

[The "Hotlines Link"  will take you to our daily hotline archive.  You may view previous hotlines to place current events in perspective.]

Legislative Education Study Committee Listing of All Introduced Education Legislation as .pdf Document

Link to State Department of Education Bill Analyses as .pdf documents

Public Employee Bargaining Bills
Both on Way to Governor!

Signing Ceremony at Noon Friday in the Capitol Rotunda!

At about 12:30 PM on Friday, March 7 New Mexico's Public Employees will make history.  Collective bargaining rights lost when former Governor Gary Johnson vetoed the extension of the public employee collective bargaining law will be restored!  Governor Bill Richardson plans to sign legislation restoring those rights!  Everyone is invited to the ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda to witness this historic event!  The Ceremony will begin at noon and conlude by 1:00 PM.  House Bill 508, sponsored by House Speaker Ben Lujan and Senate Bill 46 , sponsored by Senate President Pro-temp Richard Romero are identical versions of the Public Employee Collective Bargaining Legislation.  Both versions are on the way to the Governor's office.  The Governor will have to choose which of the two identical versions to sign.

The legislation, which takes effect on July 1, contains language that:

(1) forces local board policies adopted since 1991 to comply with most provisions of the new law; 
(2)adopts a scope of bargaining that forces school management to talk about professional and instructional concerns; and 
(3)a impasse resolution procedure that ends in final binding arbitration if the parties cannot reach agreement on a successor contract.

The House vote on Senate Bill 46 was:  40-YES; 24-NO; 3-EXCUSED; 3-ABSENT

Representative	Vote on Senate Bill 46
Thomas A. Anderson Bernalillo	NO
Janice E. Arnold-Jones Bernalillo	NO
Ray Begaye San Juan	YES
William "Ed" Boykin Dona Ana	NO
Donald E. Bratton Lea	NO
Gail C. Beam Bernalillo	YES
Joseph Cervantes Dona Ana	YES
Max Coll Santa Fe	YES
Kandy Cordova Valencia	YES
Jose A. Campos DeB, Curr, Guad, & Roosevelt	YES
Anna M. Crook Curry	NO
Daniel R. Foley Chaves, Lincoln & Otero	ABSENT
Mary Helen Garcia Dona Ana	YES
Miguel P. Garcia Bernalillo	YES
Ron Godbey Bernalillo, Sandoval & Santa Fe	NO
Roberto J. Gonzales Taos	YES
Irvin Harrison McKinley & San Juan	YES
Dianne Miller Hamilton Grant, Hidalgo & Sierra	NO
Ted Hobbs Bernalillo	NO
George J. Hanosh Cibola & McKinley	YES
John A. Heaton Eddy	YES
Manuel G. Herrera Grant & Hidalgo	YES
Dona G. Irwin Luna	YES
Rhonda S. King Bernalillo, Santa Fe & Torrance	YES
Larry A. Larranaga Bernalillo	NO
Fred Luna Valencia	YES
Patricia A. Lundstrom McKinley & San Juan	YES
Antonio Lujan Dona Ana	YES
Ben Lujan Santa Fe	YES
W. Ken Martinez Cibola, McKinley & San Juan	YES
Rick Miera Bernalillo	YES
James Roger Madalena Bern, McK, R.A. & Sandoval	YES
Terry T. Marquardt Dona Ana & Otero	NO
Brian K. Moore Cur,Hard,Quay,Roose,S.M. & Union	NO
Andy Nunez Dona Ana	YES
Rory J. Ogle   Bernalillo	NO
Al Park   Bernalillo	YES
Danice Picraux Bernalillo	YES
Jane E. Powdrell-Culbert Sandoval	NO
Pauline J. Ponce Chaves	YES
Raymond M. Ruiz Bernalillo	YES
Bengie Regensberg Colfax, Guad, Mora, S.M. & Taos	YES
Debbie A. Rodella Rio Arriba, Sandoval & Taos	EXCUSED
Earlene Roberts Chaves, Eddy, Lea & Roosevelt	ABSENT
Henry Kiki Saavedra Bernalillo & Valencia	YES
Nick L. Salazar Mora, R.A., S.M., S.F. & Taos	YES
Edward C. Sandoval Bernalillo	YES
Joe M Stell Eddy & Otero	YES
Mimi Stewart Bernalillo	YES
Thomas E. Swisstack Sandoval	YES
Sheryl Williams Stapleton Bernalillo	EXCUSED
Daniel P. Silva Bernalillo	YES
Jim Trujillo Santa Fe	YES
Sandra L. Townsend San Juan	ABSENT
James G. Taylor Bernalillo	EXCUSED
Thomas C. Taylor San Juan	NO
Don Tripp Catron, Socorro & Valencia	NO
J. Paul Taylor Dona Ana	YES
Joe Thompson Bernalillo	NO
Nick Tinnin San Juan	NO
Richard D. Vigil San Miguel & Torrance	YES
Luciano "Lucky" Varela Santa Fe	YES
Gloria C. Vaughn Otero	ABSENT
Avon W. Wilson Chaves, Lincoln & Otero	NO
W. C. "Dub" Williams Lincoln & Otero	NO
Jeannette O. Wallace Los Alamos, Sandoval & Santa Fe	YES
Robert White Bernalillo	NO
Donald L. Whitaker Lea	NO
Eric A. Youngberg Bernalillo & Sandoval	NO
Teresa A. Zanetti Bernalillo	NO

The Senate roll call was Yes-23; N0-12; Absent-7

 We need to thank all supporters of collective bargaining rights, including the sponsors House Speaker Ben Lujan and Senate President Pro-temp Richard Romero.  Also several committee chairs in both Houses were important in making sure these bills moved expeditiously though the process. These chairs are Representative Sheryl Williams Stapleton, House Labor; Representative Max Coll, House Appropriations; Senator Dede Feldman, Senate Public Affairs; and Senator Michael Sanchez, Senate Judiciary.  These chairs deserve special thanks for their support of collective bargaining rights for school employees.

We need to thank all House Members who voted yes and all Senators who voted yes!

Senate Joint Resolution 6 May Get Another Vote Thusday

Senate Joint Resolution 6, sponsored by Senator Cynthia Nava, failed to pass the Senate last Friday.  The measure would have placed a constitutional amendment before the voters  to amend the state constitution to increase from 4.7 percent to 6.0 percent the amount of the annual distribution from the Permanent Fund to public schools and other recipients of money from the Permanent Fund, providing about 80 million new dollars annually for public schools. Democratic Senators Tim Jennings, Michael Sanchez, and Leonard Tsosie voted against the measure creating a 21 to 21 tie (a tie that could not be broken by the Lt. Governor, since constitutional amendments must pass by a majority of the elected Senators, 22).  Senator John Arthur Smith then changed his vote from yes to no, defeating the measure by a 22 to 20 vote, his vote change was to allow him to make a motion for reconsideration later. The measure was revived on a motion to reconsider late Monday made by Senator Smith.  The reconsideration may take place on Thursday morning, if enough votes for passage can be achieved (the measure now rests on the President's table).   We need to ask all no votes (all republicans and Senators Tim Jennings, Michael Sanchez, and Leonard Tsosie)  to respectfully reconsider the need to provide the voters with the the right to choose whether or not to fund public schools.

Two measures are still awaiting hearing in the House to allow the voters to approve additional revenues for public schools.

These proposals are:

• House Joint Resolution 16 Permanent Fund Distributions, Constitutional Amendment sponsored by Representative Bobby Gonzales.

  • This measure will place a constitutional amendment on the ballot in a special election to provide more Land Grand Permanent Fund Revenues for public education. However it uses less of the value of the fund  than Senate Joint Resolution  6, increasing the percentage of the value of the fund used each year from 4.7% to 5.5%, netting about 55 million new dollars for schools

• House Joint Resolution 4, Statewide Millage Rate for School Funding, Constitutional Amendment, sponsored by Representative Mimi Stewart, will allow the voters to impose two mills of property tax, netting schools about 60 million new dollars per year.

 Our urgent message must be:

House Passes School  Funding

The House passed House Bill 2 , the General Appropriations Act late Friday.  The Act now includes accelerating the 6% salary increase for teachers and other certified instructional personnel to begin with the second paycheck in December and a 3% salary increase for other school employees to begin July 1.  (State and higher education employees remain at 2.5% increases in the measure.)

After several days of negotiations regarding school funding with our lobby team, the NMFEE lobby team, school administrators, the Governor and leaders of the House and Senate Education Committees, the major parts of school funding proposals appear to be holding. However, some school administrators appear to be backing away from the formula for spending cash balances as agreed by the parties to the spending compromise and have had an amendment drafted to reward cash rich districts at the expense of cash lean districts.  Currently the formula is contained in House Bill 745, sponsored by Representative Rick Miera.

House Bill 745 also passed the House on Friday afternoon.  As agreed to in this version, districts that have large cash balances (balances that could have been expended on student and employee needs, not squirreled away) will give up more cash than districts that have prudently expended school equalization money each year for the operations of the school district.  It has been a long standing part of our legislative platform that school districts should be required to account for all funds as the budget is prepared, not hide funds to later appear as cash balances! Attempts to amend the bill to favor the cash rich districts failed by a narrow margin,

The major components of the compromise funding proposal include:

• A requirement that school districts cut administrative spending by one percent of their total budgets, resulting in 18 million dollars statewide.
  

• A require that school districts spend 16.4 million dollars of cash balances.
  

• A  requirement that school districts provide a 3% raise for all classified staff starting at the beginning of the 2003-2004  school year; this will be reflected in base funding for 2004-2005.    
  

• A requirement that school districts provide a 6% raise for all teachers and instructional staff (such as librarians, counselors, special ed ancillary, etc.) starting in December of 2003 (about 1/3 of the way through the year); this would be reflected in the base funding for schools in the 2004-2005 school year and become a permanent part of salary bases at the 6% increase.
  

• A guaranteed minimum salary for beginning teachers of $30,000 starting at the beginning of the next school year.
  

• Caps on school district cash balances and the requirement that school districts use 1% of non-instructional budgets along with 16.4 million dollars from cash balances to help fund salary increases were also agreed to fund the 3% salary increase for classified staff.
  

• 6.3 million dollars (in Senate version only- remains to be worked out) to  help districts growing at least 1% to fund  new students over beyond the previous year's level.

These efforts represent the foundation of fundamental changes in education for the state.  If we remember that early proposals provided only teachers with any salary increase and the potential for cuts in school district non-instructional personnel, this compromise is a great step in the right direction.

When we consider that most of our neighboring states are dealing with deficits and proposing cuts in public education funding, this proposal seems even more substantial.

The Rest of the Reform Story

House Bill 212, sponsored by Representative Mimi Stewart for the Legislative Education Study Committee, representing the recommendations of the Education Reform Task Force, passed the House late Friday.  Passage of this measure is also vital to completing the education reform agreements.  The measure provides real reform including a new licensure system for teachers tied to minimum salary levels, which when fully implemented after five years, will provide $30,000 starting salary for level I licenses, $40,000 minimum salaries for level II licenses, and $50,000 minimum salaries for level III licenses.  While the bill mainly addresses teachers, it is a good first step to comprehensive reform and is supported by most education advocacy groups. 

The major components of education reform and funding are in place after the today's House action.  All measures require the concurrence of the Senate, which has already passed similar funding mechanisms in different pieces of legislation.  However the failure of Senate Joint Resolution 6 calls some of the funding mechanisms for this package for the future into question-stay tuned! 

We need to call all Senators now, to urge support for House Bill 2 (as passed by the House, without any amendments lowering public school funding-amendments increasing school funding are ok!), House Bill 745, and House Bill 212.  These three bills represent the major education reform package before the legislature and the funding for reform as well as salaries!