{"id":275309,"date":"2017-01-20T21:22:16","date_gmt":"2017-01-21T04:22:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=275309"},"modified":"2017-01-20T22:01:53","modified_gmt":"2017-01-21T05:01:53","slug":"state-budget-relief-may-place-burden-on-schools-fire-departments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2017\/01\/state-budget-relief-may-place-burden-on-schools-fire-departments\/","title":{"rendered":"State budget relief may place burden on schools, fire departments"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_56542\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-56542\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse-771x504.jpg\" alt=\"A statue outside the Roundhouse in Santa Fe.\" width=\"771\" height=\"504\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse-771x504.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse-336x220.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse-768x502.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse-1170x764.jpg 1170w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Heath Haussamen \/ NMPolitics.net<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">A statue outside the Roundhouse in Santa Fe.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Legislators&#8217; last attempt to balance this year&#8217;s budget relied heavily on across-the-board cuts to state programs, but some critics of the new effort say lawmakers are placing the burden of a projected $69 million deficit on local institutions ranging from school districts to fire departments.<\/p>\n<p>Discussions on a package of solvency measures continued <span class=\"aBn\" data-term=\"goog_213163844\"><span class=\"aQJ\">Friday<\/span><\/span> with the House of Representatives meeting for less than an hour before recessing until <span class=\"aBn\" data-term=\"goog_213163845\"><span class=\"aQJ\">Saturday<\/span><\/span> morning to vote on the legislation.<\/p>\n<p>With an eye toward stopping cuts to schools and economic development programs, Republicans plan to propose a series of amendments.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>About this article<\/h3>\n<p>This article comes from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.santafenewmexican.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Santa Fe New Mexican<\/a>. NMPolitics.net is paying for the rights to publish articles about the 2017\u00a0legislative session from the newspaper. Help us cover the cost by\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/donate\/\" target=\"_blank\">making a donation to NMPolitics.net<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>&#8220;We don&#8217;t want to vote &#8216;no&#8217; on something and not have an alternative,&#8221; said House Minority Leader Nate Gentry, R-Albuquerque.<\/p>\n<p>The Senate&#8217;s own budget-cutting plan passed easily this week with bipartisan support. But there&#8217;s resistance to similar bills that Democrats have proposed in the House. Much of the pushback is from Republican Gov. Susana Martinez and local governments.<\/p>\n<p>Martinez has said she will not sign legislation that cuts funding for schools and economic development programs.<\/p>\n<p>School district superintendents argue that a plan by the Senate to reduce funding by about $50 million for the remainder of the fiscal year, which ends in June, would force some districts to draw down cash reserves to perilously low levels.<\/p>\n<p>Santa Fe Public Schools Superintendent Veronica Garc\u00eda said her district would absorb a reduction of about $1.9 million under the proposal.<\/p>\n<p>The district could take that money out of its reserves, but &#8220;you need that operating cash to do business,&#8221; Garc\u00eda said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think we all recognize the schools aren&#8217;t going to get out of this without contributing something,&#8221; she added. &#8220;I would prefer a solvency plan that would not take school districts to dangerously low levels of cash balances.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The governor has proposed taking more than twice as much money from the cash reserves of school districts but not to the same ratio across the board.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The cuts would undoubtedly hit classrooms, said Stan Rounds, executive director of the New Mexico Superintendents Association.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re at the quick on school district budgets,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, fire chiefs are sounding the alarm over a proposal to use tens of millions of dollars in taxes on insurance policies. That money is usually split each year between the state&#8217;s fire departments.<\/p>\n<p>Instead of divvying up the revenue, which can be a big piece of the budget for smaller volunteer departments, the state would use the money to balance its finances and then start paying departments a share of new taxes collected each month.<\/p>\n<p>James Salas, president of the New Mexico Fire Chiefs Association, says the big annual payments provide greater financial stability for fire departments and are needed to for major expenses, such as vehicles and loan repayments.<\/p>\n<p>Legislative staffers say the proposal would merely modernize accounting practices that are common in other areas of state government.<\/p>\n<p>But the smaller payments for fire departments would rise and fall based on tax revenue each month, creating uncertainty, Salas said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is going to have a huge impact for the fire services in New Mexico,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We need this operating capital for payments on equipment, fuel costs, loans.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Salas said departments will have to turn to town, county and village governments to pay for the high-dollar purchases that would have been covered by the fund.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The state is asking them to pick up the tab,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Legislators have proposed a similar change to a fund designated for local law enforcement agencies.<\/p>\n<p>By <span class=\"aBn\" data-term=\"goog_213163846\"><span class=\"aQJ\">Friday<\/span><\/span> afternoon, more than 500 people had signed an online petition opposing the measures.<\/p>\n<p>The solvency plan approved by the Senate would also cut funding for the Local Economic Development Act, which proponents say is a means of paying for projects such as roads and water systems that are needed to close deals with businesses interested in relocating to New Mexico. But critics call the program corporate welfare.<\/p>\n<p>Senate leaders say the cutbacks are unavoidable because lawmakers have already drained reserves in other areas of state government in previous efforts to balance New Mexico&#8217;s budget.<\/p>\n<p>Sen. John Arthur Smith, a Democrat from Deming who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, said the Legislature&#8217;s only path to solvency is &#8220;robbing every nook or cranny we could possibly find dollars in.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em>Contact Andrew Oxford at (505) 986-3093 or <a href=\"mailto:aoxford@sfnewmexican.com\">aoxford@sfnewmexican.com<\/a>. Follow him on Twitter at <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/@andrewboxford\" target=\"_blank\">@andrewboxford<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Senate leaders say the cutbacks are unavoidable because lawmakers have already drained reserves in other areas of state government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":56542,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[3329,196,234,125,107],"class_list":["post-275309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-2017-legislative-session","tag-budget","tag-children","tag-education","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}