State Rep. Joseph Cervantes (Photo by Heath Haussamen)
“Denial.”
State Rep. Joseph Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, says that’s the theme of the 2009 special session of the Legislature thus far.
“Few here are willing to discuss, much less confront, the fact that we now have recurring expenditures which are exceeding recurring revenues by about $1 billion,” he wrote in an e-mail.
“The budget proposals floated around Santa Fe for consideration all rely very heavily on one-time federal stimulus grants, using capital outlay bonds and appropriations other than for capital outlay, depleting our reserves and raiding permanent funds created for other purposes including college student loans,” he said.
“These tourniquets will keep the patient on life support for another year before bleeding out,” Cervantes said. “There is no genuine debate about what we will do after next year when all of this one-time money has been depleted.”
Lawmakers and the governor are working to plug a shortfall of more than $200 million in last fiscal year’s budget — which many expect them to do with cash reserves — and a shortfall of $660 million in the current year budget.
Education funding makes up more than half of the state budget, but Richardson and others have been working to keep education cuts to a minimum. And in his special session proclamation, Richardson took salary cuts and revenue-raising measures such as tax increases off the table, though the governor says revenue-raising bills can be considered when the Legislature meets again in January.
The House and Senate committees that decide whether bills are germane in the current session have backed up the governor’s rejection of revenue-raising legislation.
Cervantes is vice chair of the House Rules and Order of Business Committee, which is responsible for deciding whether House bills are germane. He has said the way to consider revenue-raising measures when the governor has disallowed them with his special session proclamation would be to call the Legislature into an extraordinary session in which lawmakers, not the governor, decide what can be considered.