Gov.: Furloughs of state workers may start soon
Martinez repeats promise to veto budget, call for special session
GALBUQUERQUE ov. Susana Martinez said Monday her administration is preparing to furlough employees across state government as soon as April.
Speaking to a group of commercial real estate developers, the two-term Republican governor said New Mexico is nearly out of money. Legislators, though, responded that cash reserves are ample to carry the state through the budget year ending in June.
Martinez also repeated her promise to veto the state budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1, as well as all increases in taxes that legislators approved in their recent session.
“I will keep fighting against the typical Santa Fe mentality, that of sticking it to New Mexican families and businesses in a crisis,” Martinez said. “I will not let politicians bail out big government on the backs of New Mexicans.”
Leading Democrats in the Legislature immediately challenged the governor’s characterization that ordinary people were under siege, signaling that lawmakers may fight Martinez when she brings them back into a special legislative session. Lawmakers, in fact, said it is Martinez who is causing families to worry.
“This is needlessly frightening state employees,” Speaker of the House Brian Egolf, D-Santa Fe, said of her announcement of furloughs.
Egolf and Senate Democrats also questioned the governor’s tactics and logic in saying a government shutdown is needed. They said the state has sufficient money to function because of a package of budgetbalancing legislation approved during the first few days of this year’s legislative session.
And for the budget year starting in July, Democratic lawmakers said, the Legislature has created a spending plan that protects essential services.
“Governor Martinez has the tools in front of her to give state government the financial stability required to meet the needs of our families,” said Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth,
D-Santa Fe. “She should follow the leadership of the majority of Republicans in the Senate who joined their Democratic colleagues in recognizing that acting responsibly means raising the recurring revenue necessary to prevent further cuts to public education, health care and public safety programs.”
But the governor has said she will reject the $6.1 billion budget because it would spend more money than the state is expected to raise through existing revenue sources. The Legislature has approved a separate bill that gives Martinez $350 million in options for raising revenue and boosting reserves, such as by freezing the implementation of corporate income tax cuts or raising the tax on gasoline by 10 cents a gallon.
The governor did not say when she would veto the budget and call the special session, which would be the state’s third in as many years. But Martinez told reporters she may ask legislators to take up issues besides the budget, such as legislation that would create a specific crime for assaulting an employee of the Children, Youth and Families Department.
In the meantime, she said, her administration is preparing to furlough state employees “across the board,” though the governor also said some personnel such as law enforcement would be exempt from layoffs.
The governor’s comments came the week after executives in her administration said they were preparing to cut the hours of some nonessential state services. Though officials have not said when they might implement such measures, Martinez has specifically mentioned the possibility of closing parks and museums as well as cutting days from the school year.
Martinez last week also ordered a statewide hiring freeze for most state departments.
“We have a tremendous opportunity right now to reduce the size of government,” Martinez told the audience in remarks that showed little inclination to take any steps toward compromising with Democratic lawmakers.
She also charged that legislators’ talk of raising taxes scared off investors who would have brought 2,000 jobs to Albuquerque. She declined when asked to provide any details about the project that she said was scotched.
As for the state budget, Martinez pointed to about $300 million in savings proposed by her administration, such as cutting public works funding divvied up by lawmakers for projects in their districts and commonly derided as pork barrel spending. Martinez also mentioned again her proposal for shaving the state’s contribution to the pensions of teachers and state employees. Many legislators have countered that her proposal would have amounted to a cut in pay for tens of thousands of people who have gone years with few or no raises.
And while the governor has been consistent in her public statements this year that she will not raise taxes, Democrats argue her position is unreasonable in the face of rounds of tax cuts in past years and the decline of oil and gas prices that have cut state revenues.
“I think it’s unrealistic to say ‘no new taxes,’ ” said Rep. Liz Thomson, D-Albuquerque, who joined a demonstration outside the Marriott hotel, where Martinez spoke Monday.
Thomson and others at the rally said Martinez should sign the budget approved by legislators.
“It would be great if, in our own households, we could say we’re not going to pay any more for electricity. But that’s not how the real world works,” Thomson said.
Labor unions representing public employees have expressed frustration, too, saying lawmakers had worked with Martinez during the legislative session.
“They spent 60 days compromising,” said Charles Goodmacher, a spokesman for the National Education Association New Mexico. “The budget is a compromise.”