{"id":288967,"date":"2017-02-13T19:49:55","date_gmt":"2017-02-14T02:49:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=288967"},"modified":"2017-02-13T19:50:35","modified_gmt":"2017-02-14T02:50:35","slug":"lawmakers-have-serious-issues-to-address-in-current-session","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2017\/02\/lawmakers-have-serious-issues-to-address-in-current-session\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawmakers have serious issues to address in current session"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Editor&#8217;s note: Senate Finance Committee Chairman John Arthur Smith delivered the following remarks about the state&#8217;s budget and financial situation on the Senate floor Monday.<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_123111\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 336px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-123111\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Smith-John-Arthur.jpg\" alt=\"John Arthur Smith\" width=\"336\" height=\"281\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Courtesy photo<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">John Arthur Smith<\/p><\/div>\n<p><strong>COMMENTARY:\u00a0<\/strong>We believe that there will be a new revenue forecast <span class=\"aBn\" data-term=\"goog_1419063616\"><span class=\"aQJ\">on Wednesday &#8212;<\/span><\/span>\u00a0and hopefully, we will receive <a href=\"https:\/\/nmlegis.gov\/Legislation\/Legislation?Chamber=H&amp;LegType=B&amp;LegNo=2&amp;year=17\" target=\"_blank\">House Bill 2<\/a> (budget) by the middle of next week.<\/p>\n<p>I want to remind people that under the present revenues that we have, and if they do not change, we will need somewhere around $200-250 million new dollars to build reserves and plug some holes in the budget.<\/p>\n<p>We have a vacancy rate with corrections officers in the 32-35 percent range; we have a court system that we wrestled with for solvency in \u201917, and which will face the same problem in \u201918; and we have a Cultural Affairs division that is limping along and wondering if they are going to be able to complete the year in the present situation without a supplemental infusion.<\/p>\n<p>You need to wrap your heads around it. We need $200-$250 million just to build any reserves. The \u201918 budget is virtually flat from \u201917. We still have a huge, serious problem. And we have not addressed the Medicaid issue.<\/p>\n<p>We really don\u2019t know the extent of the downturn of with our revenues. We are hoping the new forecast numbers will reflect a leveling out. But it probably will not reflect an increase.<\/p>\n<p>We\u00a0have serious issues that need to be taken care of in next 32 days.<\/p>\n<p>We still have to address the universities; we still have to deal with public education that\u2019s already reflecting the pain. As a result, hopefully, we can pull together and find some solutions, working with the executive branch, to do what is responsible and still preserve our bond rating &#8212; which is in deep trouble right now.<\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/nmlegis.gov\/Members\/Legislator?SponCode=SSMIT\" target=\"_blank\">John Arthur Smith<\/a>, a Deming Democrat, represents District 35\u00a0in the New Mexico Senate.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You need to wrap your heads around it. We need $200-$250 million just to build any reserves. And we have not addressed the Medicaid issue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":123111,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,16],"tags":[3329,196,107],"class_list":["post-288967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-guest-columns","tag-2017-legislative-session","tag-budget","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288967","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=288967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}