Legislative Update
Saturday, February 13, 2010

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Legislative Session Agendas and Calendars

Dates related to the 2010 Legislative session:

January 19 Opening day (noon)
February 3 Deadline for introduction of legislation
February 18 Session ends (noon)
March 10 Legislation not acted upon by governor is pocket vetoed
May 19 Effective date of legislation not a general appropriation bill or a
bill carrying an emergency clause or other specified date

The Conservative Senators Who Control the Senate Continue March Toward Cuts to Education

Deep cuts, a payroll tax on public employees, and a tax on junk food, sodas and "non-nutritional" staples, such as white bread and white flour tortillas are the conservative leadership of the Senate's plan for the state budget.

The Senate Finance Committee approved these plan elements yesterday and is voting on them as this is written. The plan trims more than $150 million from the House budget plan and completely ignores major revenue increases sought by the House. The Senate Finance Committee wants to substitute a tax increase of its own through Senate Bill 10 — a reinstatement of the state's gross receipts tax, or sales tax, on a wide range of food items, including white bread, macaroni noodles and certain tortillas. While we support all revenue increases Senate Bill 10 raises much less revenue than the package voted on by the House, only about $138 million.
            
The budget plan adopted unanimously Thursday by the Senate Finance Committee counts on about $154 million in new revenue.  That revenue would be generated by Senate Bill 10 as well as $16 million from House Bill 120. sponsored by House Speaker Ben Lujan, D-Santa Fe, that would ratchet up income tax compliance on out-of-state residents.  The rest of the House revenue package — a temporary increase of the state's gross receipts tax base rate and a surtax on high-earning state residents —didn't even get a hearing in the Senate Finance Committee.

Compared to the House-approved budget, the Senate plan slashes public school funding by $53 million, higher education funding by $6 million and enacts a payroll tax of some $72 million on public school employees and state workers by increasing the amount of money they pay into retirement plans.

If this sets up a train wreck between the House and Senate that derails this 30-day session (which ends Feb. 18), the engineers whose side we are routing for are House Speaker Ben Lujan and Governor Richardson, who said, "The Senate Finance Committee budget includes unacceptable cuts to critical services, such as education, that will inevitably hit the classroom and hurt teachers and kids."

Even Blogger Joe Monahan Can See Through The Senate Finance Committee's Shell Game

Not known for his liberal leanings, political blogger Joe Monahan had bad things to say about Senator Smith's budget plan (the Dr. No in Monahan's reference). In referring to the Senate Finance Committee refusal to raise taxes on the wealthy, Monahan says, "The glaring omission of having the wealthy share in the budget pain clashes with the Democratic Party's constant refrain that it is the defender of "working families.  While Senate Finance fronts its budget as an act of bravery, the tax-paying peanut gallery is sure to see it for what it is--an evasion.  Spread the pain around? We know that Deming, where Dr. No hails from, is a long way from Santa Fe. We just didn't know it was so far from reality." Follow this link for the entire article.

Continue  Calling  Your Senator to tell him/her to use a balanced approach  in creating a new state budget.

Senate Bill 246 Will Cut School Employee Pay in Senate Finance Committee Saturday Morning

The payroll tax portion of the Senate Finance Committee plan is in Senate Bill 246.  As proposed by Senator Stuart Ingle, this measure would increase your and state employee's retirement withholdings by
2.64%, thus reducing your take-home pay by that amount. The state would then save the funds by not funding 2.64% of the school district's share of retirement withholdings.

As the bill left its last committee, two Democrats and all Republicans worked out an agreement to change the across board cut to a progressive salary cut based on total salary; the bill was sent by the same five Senators with no recommendation to the Senate Finance Committee. 

Apparently calls to moderate this bad legislation have had an effect already. In the latest version of the Senate plan the pay cut has been reduced to 1.6% for all employees who earn more than $20,000.  One rumor has it that when the bill is heard this morning (Saturday) in he Senate Finance Committee it will be reduced to 1%.  Any cut is too much!  Keep those calls coming!!!!

Tell  all Senators  that teachers and other public school employees and state employees don't deserve this kind of disrespect anytime, much less in a year when they have seen no salary increases and last year's 1.5% increase in retirement withholdings! Tell them to defeat Senate Bill 246.

House Revenue Bills in Senate Corporations and Transportation Committee this Afternoon

The rest of the revenue package passed by the House will be in the Senate Corporations and Transportation Committee after the Senate floor session this afternoon. House Bill 9, and income surcharge on the wealthiest New Mexicans and House Bill 119, raising gross receipts by only.5% add more than enough to stop the Senate Finance cuts.  Call  Senate Corporations and Transportation Committee members and ask them to support these broad based revenue increases.

	Call Your Senator's Office Now to Protect Public School Funding and Raise Revenues!
See the House Votes on These Important Bills, Click on	House Bill 9       NEA-NM position=Yes House Bill 119    NEA-NM position=Yes House Bill 120    NEA-NM position=Yes House Bill 270    NEA-NM position=Yes House Bill 2        NEA-NM position=Yes

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Education Partners' Poll on school funding and revenues