{"id":513639,"date":"2018-02-01T20:58:04","date_gmt":"2018-02-02T03:58:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=513639"},"modified":"2018-02-01T20:58:04","modified_gmt":"2018-02-02T03:58:04","slug":"legislator-says-he-was-shut-out-during-budget-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/02\/legislator-says-he-was-shut-out-during-budget-process\/","title":{"rendered":"Legislator says he was shut out during budget process"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_56542\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-56542 size-large\" 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>A member of the state House of Representatives is asking for an investigation of a legislative committee, charging that several of its members met privately without him to craft part of the annual state budget and omitted his proposal to restore about $41 million cut from the reserves of school districts last year.<\/p>\n<p>Rep. James Townsend, R-Artesia, said the meeting left legislators like him out of part of the process of preparing the spending plan.<\/p>\n<p>In an unusual move, Townsend asked the Legislative Council Service to investigate why the meeting did not include him and many other members of the House Appropriations and Finance Committee.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>About this article<\/h3>\n<p>This article comes from\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.santafenewmexican.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Santa Fe New Mexican<\/a>. NMPolitics.net is paying for the rights to publish articles about the 2018 legislative session from the newspaper. Help us cover the cost by\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/donate\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">making a donation to NMPolitics.net<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t believe it&#8217;s in any of our interest, whether it be a Democratic majority or a Republican majority, to have a process that prevents your constituents or my constituents from being represented,&#8221; he said on the House floor\u00a0<span class=\"aBn\" data-term=\"goog_1628309161\"><span class=\"aQJ\">Thursday<\/span><\/span>\u00a0before heading to the council&#8217;s offices on the fourth floor to file what the representative described as a verbal complaint.<\/p>\n<p>Rep. Patricia Lundstrom, the Gallup Democrat who chairs the House Appropriations and Finance Committee, said the panel did nothing improper or out of the ordinary.<\/p>\n<p>The meeting was part of a working group and it did not act on Townsend&#8217;s proposal, she said. Moreover, he was free to attend, she added.<\/p>\n<p>Regardless, the episode raised questions about how exactly lawmakers craft the state&#8217;s multibillion-dollar budgets each year.<\/p>\n<p>And it showed that even as a proposed $6.3 billion budget wends through the Legislature with bipartisan support &#8212; it passed the House 65-3 &#8212; some still feel the sting of spending cuts that were made amid the financial shortfalls of previous years.<\/p>\n<p>Legislators voted in 2017 to shore up the state&#8217;s budget by taking money from the cash reserves of school districts. The trims were designed to leave districts with at least 3 percent of annual spending in reserves.<\/p>\n<p>Some districts had much more, however, and Townsend has said the approximately $50 million shift of funds hit smaller school districts particularly hard, leaving schools with less financial flexibility.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Townsend filed legislation in December to restore the money. He said\u00a0<span class=\"aBn\" data-term=\"goog_1628309162\"><span class=\"aQJ\">Thursday<\/span><\/span>\u00a0that some top lawmakers had assured him the budget bill would include this funding or at least get a vote on the House floor.<\/p>\n<p>But the budget approved by the Appropriations and Finance Committee and the full House did not include money for the proposal.<\/p>\n<p>And the committee\u00a0<span class=\"aBn\" data-term=\"goog_1628309163\"><span class=\"aQJ\">on Wednesday<\/span><\/span>\u00a0tabled Townsend&#8217;s bill during a hearing crowded with school superintendents.<\/p>\n<p>Lundstrom said the proposal simply did not follow the budget-writing process.<\/p>\n<p>The chairwoman suggested that the legislation had other drawbacks.<\/p>\n<p>The House was committed to ensuring that the budget provided the state with reserves of at least 10 percent. If it sent $41 million back to school districts, reserves would drop below that level, she said.<\/p>\n<p>Townsend himself has argued for reserves in the double-digits because of the state&#8217;s reliance on the volatile oil and gas industry.<\/p>\n<p>The Senate could still provide funds to restore school district cash reserves. But it faces long odds as lawmakers seek to boost the state&#8217;s financial cushion while also guaranteeing pay raises for state employees and teachers.<\/p>\n<p>Gov. Susana Martinez last year referred to the school reserves as &#8220;slush funds.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>While lawmakers have grumbled over the years about senior legislators crafting pieces of the budget behind closed doors, Lundstrom maintained the meeting at the center of Townsend&#8217;s complaint was a normal part of a process that often involves subcommittees.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We set up subcommittees,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Anyone who wants to attend can attend.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Legislature is not subject to the state&#8217;s Open Meetings Act, which governs, for example, city council meetings. And subcommittees are common. But the House rules also say committees cannot meet without a quorum and that meetings shall be webcast as well as archived.<\/p>\n<p><em>Contact Andrew Oxford at (505) 986-3093 or\u00a0<a href=\"mailto:aoxford@sfnewmexican.com\">aoxford@sfnewmexican.com<\/a>. Follow him on Twitter at <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/@andrewboxford\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@andrewboxford<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The committee omitted Rep. James Townsend&#8217;s proposal to restore about $41 million cut from the reserves of school districts last year.<\/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":[3634,125,3643,107,706],"class_list":["post-513639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-2018-legislative-session","tag-education","tag-james-townsend","tag-roundhouse","tag-transparency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513639","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=513639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513639\/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=513639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}