Lawmakers’ expenses top $68K for 3 days

Reimbursements add to bill for session, which typically costs more than $50K a day

Last month’s three-day special session of the New Mexico Legislature cost taxpayers more than $68,000 in expense allowances and mileage payments to lawmakers.

Gov. Susana Martinez called legislators back to Santa Fe after she vetoed the entire budgets for higher education and the Legislature itself. Martinez, a Republican, also vetoed the Democratcontrolled Legislature’s bill to balance the operating budget with a menu of tax and fee increases.

Lawmakers reconvened from May 24-25 to adopt a new budget bill. Then they recessed before the long Memorial Day weekend, but returned May 30 for a 20-minute meeting to discuss Martinez’s signing of the budget before adjourning.

Though the session technically lasted through the weekend, all 112 legislators declined their $164 daily expense allowance for the four days they were in recess.

They received mileage reimbursement for only one round trip between their home and the Capitol, even if they returned home during the recess.

The session’s costs were covered by the Legislature’s cash reserves, not with money from the state general fund.

Sen. Carroll Leavell, R-Jal, received the largest check for expenses, mainly because he lives the farthest from the Capitol. He traveled a total of 682 miles, and had expenses and mileage of $856 for three days, according to state records.

Overall, the 70-member House of Representatives received $42,294 for expenses and mileage. Two of its members were absent for the special session.

The Senate, with 42 members, received $26,212. One of its members missed the special session because of a death in his family.

Other expenses are outstanding. For example, the New Mexico State Police, which provided security during the leg-

islative session, hasn’t sent a bill.

A special session typically costs more than $50,000 a day, which includes pay for legislative employees.

Senate Minority Leader Stuart Ingle, R-Portales, who was reimbursed $727 for the session, said lawmakers couldn’t avoid the extra session.

“That’s just the way it works,” he said. “When there are vetoes, we just have to go up there to fix them.”

Most Republican senators, including Leavell, had voted for the package of tax-and-fee increases during the regular session. Leavell said it was the first time he’d voted for a tax increase in his 21 years as a senator, but saw no choice this time because deep cuts already had been made in the operating budget for schools and state agencies. Martinez then vetoed all the proposals, which ranged from a 10-cents-a-gallon increase in the gas tax to a higher permit fee for heavy trucks.

State revenues improved a bit between the end of the regular session in March and the special session in May, so lawmakers balanced the budget, but with little room to maneuver in case of an emergency. They projected that the state would end the next fiscal year with less than half of 1 percent in reserves. The state budget is about $6.1 billion.

The special session was the second in eight months.

A seven-day special session last fall cost about $264,400. Martinez initially said she wanted only a one-day session to rework the budget because revenues were not as robust as anticipated. But then she added crime-and-punishment bills to the agenda, extending the session to seven days. Democratic state senators, who said the crime bills were a political maneuver by Martinez that had no place in a special session, recessed for a portion of the seven days.

In 2015, a one-day special session cost taxpayers $54,480. The most expensive special session in the last six years occurred in 2011, when lawmakers met to redraw political boundaries after the U.S. census. They spent 19 days in session at a cost of $758,648.