The Roundhouse in Santa Fe (Photo by Heath Haussamen)
Late Thursday the House shifted gears and voted to approve Senate changes to a bill that would require public employees to pay more for their pensions, sending Gov. Susana Martinez a funding bill that balances the budget.
The bill will provide $111 million toward funding the appropriations bill lawmakers sent the governor late Wednesday.
The original vote on concurring with Senate changes to House Bill 628 was 30-38, so the bill was thought to be going back to the Senate to see if that chamber would recede from its changes.
Instead, House Speaker Ben Luján held the bill while he and others worked to flip votes. Thursday night, the House concurred with the changes on a vote of 35-34.
The governor had threatened earlier Thursday to veto the entire budget if lawmakers didn’t balance it. She did that in an interview with KOB-TV.
“This isn’t Washington D.C., and I’m not going to sign an unbalanced budget bill. Period,” she said.