{"id":9111,"date":"2009-11-09T16:17:20","date_gmt":"2009-11-09T23:17:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=9111"},"modified":"2009-11-09T21:17:52","modified_gmt":"2009-11-10T04:17:52","slug":"guv-oks-cutting-scholarship-program-spares-auditor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/11\/guv-oks-cutting-scholarship-program-spares-auditor\/","title":{"rendered":"Guv OKs scholarship fund cuts, spares auditor"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Gov.

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

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

Gov. Bill Richardson<\/a> signed today legislation<\/a> that cuts $110 million from various state funds to help plug this year\u2019s budget shortfall, but he vetoed a provision that would have taken additional money from the state auditor.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout the money, the auditor would not have been able to conduct effective audits,\u201d a news release from the governor\u2019s office states in announcing that Richardson vetoed the provision in House Bill 3 that would have taken $500,000 from the audit fund.<\/p>\n

Last week, I reported that the Office of the State Auditor said it would face a \u201cbudget crisis\u201d<\/a> if cuts lawmakers approved in the recent special session were signed by the governor.<\/p>\n

State Auditor\u00a0Hector Balderas\u2019<\/a> office had the amount of money it receives from the state\u2019s general fund cut by 14 percent in the regular legislative session earlier this year. That forced the office to become more reliant on the audit fund, which comes from fees and costs collected from agencies audited by the office.<\/p>\n

Then, in the special session, lawmakers voted to strip $500,000 from that fund, which currently has about $617,000 in it, and cut the auditor\u2019s budget by an additional 4 percent. Balderas\u2019 office said that would threaten the office\u2019s ability to do its job.<\/p>\n

Richardson has yet to act on House Bill 17<\/a>, the bill that would make the 4 percent cut to the auditor\u2019s office and cuts to other state agencies and education. He has until Thursday.<\/p>\n

In signing HB3 today, Richardson \u201creluctantly\u201d agreed to cut $68 million from a college scholarship fund he created to help provide need-based scholarships to New Mexicans, the release states.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt pains me to pull this money from a program that has successfully increased opportunities for many New Mexicans to attend college,\u201d\u00a0Richardson said. \u201cUnfortunately, we all have to make sacrifices in order to balance the budget.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to have to continue to make these kinds of sacrifices, especially when it comes to cutting\u00a0capital outlay projects, when the\u00a0Legislature\u00a0meets again in January,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In signing the bill, Richardson also line-item vetoed provisions that would have cut $500,000 for domestic violence programs, $3 million for a 911 enhancement fund, $800,000 for the Trail Safety fund and $1.7 million for pre-kindergarten programs.<\/p>\n

Update, 8:10 p.m.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Balderas said this in a news release:<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to commend Governor Richardson\u2019s veto of the $500,000 transfer from the Audit Fund.\u00a0In these\u00a0tough economic times, it\u2019s critical that every effort is made to protect\u00a0New Mexico\u00a0taxpayer dollars from financial fraud, waste and abuse.\u00a0This past March, the Legislature cut my agency\u2019s general fund appropriation by 14 percent, more than most agencies.\u00a0This substantial budget decrease, combined with the Audit Fund transfer and additional 4 percent cut made to my office during the\u00a0special session, would severely impact our ability to protect New Mexicans. I appreciate Governor Richardson\u2019s recognition that the Audit Fund transfer would put my agency at risk to regulate\u00a0government agencies.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all must make sacrifices to help balance the budget, but it must be done in a fair and judicious manner with the best interest of the taxpayer in mind.\u00a0I will continue to aggressively fight to not only protect my agency from further cuts, but to also ensure that every measure and agency resource is used to make governmental agencies accountable.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UPDATED: Gov. Bill Richardson signed today legislation that cuts $110 million from various state funds to help plug this year\u2019s budget shortfall, but he vetoed a provision that would have taken additional money from the state auditor.<\/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":[118,107],"class_list":["post-9111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-economy","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9111","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=9111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9111\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}