The Roundhouse in Santa Fe (Photo by Peter St. Cyr)
There’s still time for lawmakers to resolve dispute over employee pension payments and balance the budget before the session ends
You can watch the entire House debate on these bills by clicking here.
The House refused early today to concur with Senate amendments to a bill that would require public employees to pay more for their pensions. That leaves the state $111 million short of balancing its budget, though there’s still time to resolve the issue before the session ends.
It all happened during consideration of three budget bills late Wednesday and early today that ended with the House sending the appropriations and film incentive bills to the governor but kicking the pension bill back to the Senate.
If lawmakers don’t balance the budget before the session ends at noon on Saturday, Gov. Susana Martinez will be left to veto about $111 million from the appropriations bill.
The late night/early morning House debate on whether to concur with Senate versions of the budget bills began with consideration of House Bill 2, the primary appropriations bill.
Hearing the appropriations bill first set off debate, with Republican lawmakers arguing that the other bills – which would help pay for the appropriations in HB2 – should have been voted on first to ensure lawmakers sent a balanced budget to the governor.
The concern about not sending the governor a balanced budget became reality when the House rejected the Senate version of the pension bill.
Ultimately, here’s the action the House took:
• The House concurred with Senate changes to HB2 on a vote of 36-32, but not before some passionate speeches, including a lecture from Rep. Brian Egolf, D-Santa Fe, aimed at the governor and colleagues who refused to consider revenue raisers such as tax increases to help balance the budget.
“We haven’t turned the campaign switch off to start governing, and so we are continuing the campaign with the radio ads, and robocalls, and everything else,” he said. “And people are starting to cast votes based not on what’s right, but what sets each other up to be defeated in the next election. … Why can’t we turn that off?”
• The House also concurred with Senate changes to House Bill 607 on a vote of 51-17. The bill, in the version now headed to the governor, caps film incentives at $50 million annually.
• The House failed to concur with the Senate’s changes to House Bill 628 on a vote of 30-38. One of the sticking points is that the Senate wants to increase employee contributions to pensions for more years than the House wants to increase them. The pension bill would free up money in the state budget by decreasing state contributions to pension funds and making up the difference with increased employee contributions.
The pension bill now heads to the Senate, which the House asked to recede from its amendments. If senators don’t do that, a conference committee will be formed to try to resolve the differences.
Because the Legislature approved the appropriations and film incentive bills in the final three days of the session, Martinez doesn’t have to act on them until after the session ends on Saturday.