Governor signs off on budget, pay increases.
ALBUQUERQUE — Gov. Susana Martinez signed a $6.3 billion state budget Wednesday that includes raises for teachers and state employees.
The budget brings to an end a legislative session notable for an improved financial outlook for the state amid a rebound in oil prices and, in turn, tax revenue. But the session also was marked by a sort of caution regarding the state’s budget, with fiscal hawks pushing to shore up reserves while more liberal members of the Democratic Party — and even some Republicans — called for restoring particular cuts from previous years.
Given that the state has seen three special sessions in as many years amid financial and political crises, however, this bit of basic governance was no small deal.
Martinez, the two-term Republican who leaves office at the end of the year, gutted the budget approved by legislators in 2017 and forced a special session in a high-stakes showdown with Democrats — at one point threatening a partial shutdown of state government.
In contrast, the general agreement on this year’s budget was evident Wednesday when Martinez used far less red ink to mark up the hundreds of pages that together make the spending plan.
The governor used her line-item veto power to strike out some pieces of the budget, such as $5 million meant to restore at least some of the roughly $40 million cut from the savings of school districts in 2017.
Martinez also nixed a provision that would have allowed teachers unions to decide whether districts could opt in to a controversial merit-pay initiative that some educators have argued relies too heavily on standardized tests.
Mostly, the governor nixed funding earmarks designating money for specific projects or programs. For example, she struck more than $100,000 for a weather modification program in Lea and Roosevelt counties as well as an earmark to fund programs geared toward students of color at The University of New Mexico.
Speaking to reporters at a state police station in Albuquerque, Martinez touted the budget as supporting fundamental services without raising taxes.
The budget includes 2 percent raises for state employees, an average of 2.5 percent for teachers. Judges, public defenders and prosecutors will get larger raises amid rising crime rates and mounting concerns about case backlogs in some parts of the state. State police will get raises of 8.5 percent.
The budget also called for an outsized boost in funding for Albuquerque’s district attorney as well as increased funding for other parts of the state’s justice system.
Under the budget signed Wednesday, the state government can expect to end up with reserves of about 10 percent, a big rebound after it effectively burned through cash set aside in recent years and lost the state’s bond rating.
The budget passed both chambers with bipartisan support, another departure from the past few years in which lawmakers approved spending plans mostly along party lines.
In all, it will increase general fund spending by about 4 percent.
“The next governor will have it much better than I did when I came in,” Martinez said, alluding to her first year in office in 2011, when New Mexico continued to grapple with the recession.
While Martinez offered the budget as part of an effort to define her legacy, other lawmakers cautioned against reading too much into the state’s latest financial upswing.
Tight budgets have taken their toll, said Senate Finance Committee Chairman John Arthur Smith, a Democrat from Deming.
“We have a lot of government that has been injured,” he said, pointing to difficulty in recruiting teachers and public safety personnel.
And arguing the governor had not done enough to diversify New Mexico’s rebounding, but straggling, economy, he described the state as still too reliant on oil and gas production to provide a steady stream of revenue for basic government.
“This roller coaster this state is on is not good for New Mexico,” Smith said, alluding to fluctuating commodity prices and cautioning policymakers against letting memories get too short.