{"id":8538,"date":"2009-10-26T17:36:37","date_gmt":"2009-10-26T23:36:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=8538"},"modified":"2009-10-27T15:56:29","modified_gmt":"2009-10-27T21:56:29","slug":"is-guv-getting-ready-for-line-item-vetoes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/10\/is-guv-getting-ready-for-line-item-vetoes\/","title":{"rendered":"Is guv getting ready for line-item vetoes?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Gov.

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

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

In blog posting, Richardson blasts the media for not examining whether other elected officials have already pinched pennies like he says he has<\/h4>\n

Gov. Bill Richardson<\/a> sounds a lot like a man who\u2019s getting ready to line-item veto certain provisions in a bill the Legislature approved last week that makes deep cuts to state government.<\/p>\n

In a new posting on its blog<\/a>, the governor\u2019s office complains that agencies under his control have already pinched pennies but, in spite of that, are being pushed to make deeper cuts now than others.<\/p>\n

The governor\u2019s office also complains that you wouldn\u2019t understand that from the way the media has portrayed the situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor more than a year, the executive agencies under the control of the Governor have been cutting expenses, operating under a hiring freeze and turning down salary increases,\u201d the new blog posting states.<\/p>\n

\u201cGovernor Richardson, in October 2008, urged others in state government \u2013 the Legislature, Attorney General, Secretary of State, and the judiciary \u2013 to make similar cuts. The Governor has no control over spending in those agencies,\u201d the posting states. \u201cDid those agencies make any budget cuts? Did they freeze hiring and forgo salary increases? Nobody would know from the media coverage of the budget during the past year. There has been little or no scrutiny of those budgets.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bill approved by the Legislature on Friday<\/a> to make cuts to state government would implement 7.6 percent cuts for most agencies under Richardson\u2019s control \u2013 on top of the 6.4 percent cuts to this year\u2019s budget implemented last session. By contrast, the Legislature and offices of other elected officials would face smaller cuts under the budget fix approved by the Legislature, Richardson\u2019s office points out.<\/p>\n

Richardson has already said he\u2019s concerned about the \u201cexcessive\u201d cuts<\/a> to state agencies under his control. He has yet to take action on any of the bills approved by lawmakers last week.<\/p>\n

In the new blog posting, Richardson calls the Legislature\u2019s move to cut his political appointees\u2019 salaries and benefits \u201cobviously for political reasons not related to overall budget savings.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGovernor Richardson\u2019s first action a year ago was to cut exempt salaries by 2 percent, while he fought against cutting salaries for other employees. No other elected official, including legislators, have cut salaries for any of the exempt employees under their control,\u201d the blog posting states. \u201cIn fact, the Legislature handed out pay raises \u2013 one as high as 17 percent \u2013 for 33 exempt employees since October 2008. The Legislature also hired or rehired 126 employees during that time period, although that includes session hires.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs of September 2009, the Legislature had all 164 positions filled with no vacancies. The Governor\u2019s Office, alone, has a 25-percent vacancy rate,\u201d the posting states. \u201cLegislative leaders may have good reasons for hiring new employees and boosting the salaries of others. But apparently nobody in the news media has bothered to find out.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gov. Bill Richardson sounds a lot like a man who\u2019s getting ready to line-item veto certain provisions in a bill the Legislature approved last week that makes deep cuts to state government.<\/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-8538","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\/8538","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=8538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8538\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}