{"id":8338,"date":"2009-10-22T11:53:06","date_gmt":"2009-10-22T17:53:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=8338"},"modified":"2009-10-22T11:56:29","modified_gmt":"2009-10-22T17:56:29","slug":"guv-may-be-%e2%80%98encouraged%e2%80%99-to-cut-spending-on-exempt-employees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/10\/guv-may-be-%e2%80%98encouraged%e2%80%99-to-cut-spending-on-exempt-employees\/","title":{"rendered":"Guv may be \u2018encouraged\u2019 to cut spending on exempt staff"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Gov.

Heath Haussamen \/ NMPolitics.net<\/p>

Gov. Bill Richardson (Photo by Heath Haussamen)<\/p><\/div>\n

The Legislature appears to be moving toward asking Gov. Bill Richardson<\/a> to make cuts to his spending on exempt employees, rather than trying to force him to do it.<\/p>\n

House Bill 17<\/a> would implement some $220 million in cuts<\/a> to most state agencies, public education and Medicaid, but it wouldn\u2019t require the governor to trim his staff of hundreds of exempt employees.<\/p>\n

Instead, the bill states that the governor \u201cis encouraged to\u2026 reduce personal services and employee benefits for sixty vacant exempt positions\u201d before he makes cuts to other state agencies under his control. Overall, the bill would require the governor to cut almost $103 million from executive-branch agencies.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the only mention in the bill of the governor\u2019s exempt employees.<\/p>\n

Two other bills \u2013 one<\/a> from Rep. Nate Cote, D-Las Cruces, and the other<\/a> from Sen. John Ryan, R-Albuquerque \u2013 would force the governor to reduce the number of exempt, political appointees he employs, which both say would save the state millions of dollars each year. Though there\u2019s disagreement about how many exempt employees the governor has, all agree that he has hired more than did former Gov. Gary Johnson.<\/p>\n

Ryan\u2019s bill has been voted germane but not gone any further. And the House Rules and Order of Business Committee hasn\u2019t even decided whether Cote\u2019s bill is germane. With lawmakers trying to wrap up their work on plugging the massive budget shortfall today, there\u2019s a good chance neither piece of legislation will move forward.<\/p>\n

The governor has said he has already reduced spending on exempt employees with measures that include cutting their pay by 2 percent and halting comp time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

House Bill 17 would implement some $220 million in cuts to most state agencies, public education and Medicaid, but it wouldn\u2019t require the governor to trim his staff of hundreds of exempt employees. Instead, it states that he is \u201cencouraged\u201d to do it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[112,118,107],"class_list":["post-8338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-bill-richardson","tag-economy","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8338","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=8338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8338\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}