Winners
Owners of unclaimed property
Ah, the New Mexico State Fair. Funnel cakes, donkey rides and...cash? The state Taxation & Revenue Department begins its annual effort to give unclaimed property back to its rightful owners on Sept. 5 at the state fair. Unclaimed property is defined as money, such as a refund on an insurance policy, that is undeliverable. It also is defined as anything in a safe deposit box (hello, granny's broach!) Last year the state returned $207,000 in unclaimed property at a state fair booth.
Bus riders
Penny-pinching bus riders unite! The City of Santa Fe is offering free rides to everyone on Sept. 4, in honor of Zozobra. The city's bus service, Santa Fe Trails, has seen ridership jump in recent months, due no doubt to the rise in gas costs (if not Santa Feans' burgeoning eco-consciousness). Maybe the free ride downtown will encourage even more folks to consider mass transit. It will at least save them a few dollars in parking fees.
Park Inn Hotel guests
In these belt-tightening economic times, the drop in gas from $4 a gallon to $3.60 a gallon offers little comfort. For out-of-towners, consider this: At least two hotels, Park Inn and the Eldorado, feel your pain and reward you for it. The latter gives guests $50 in credit toward dinner if they bought gas the day of check-in. Through the end of September, Park Inn is giving guests $20 for gas if they stay two or more nights. It's a nice gesture, but these days, will 20 bucks even get drivers (without a moped) up to Taos and back?
Losers
Thornburg Mortgage
Ever read through Securities and Exchange Commission filings? They're usually as boredom-inducing as a flight delay. Santa Fe-based lending giant Thornburg Mortgage, however, sounded an uncharacteristically dramatic note in its Aug. 26 quarterly report. The filing says there is "substantial doubt about the company's ability to continue as a going concern for the foreseeable future." Here is more bad news from the high-end lender: "These
conditions may not stabilize or they may worsen."
NM Dept. of Finance & Administration
If typical average Joe blogger goes a couple of days without updating the details of his mundane existence on his little nook of the Internet, we will all survive. But the state Department of Finance and Administration Local Government Division should be held to a higher standard. The most recent update on the Department of Finance's homepage is an announcement from 2006; the Local Government Division's most recent newsletter is dated Winter '07, and, under a section titled "Relevant Links," there is a link to State Auditor reports from 2002. What's so relevant about that? Oh, sweet irony!
Uninsured folks
On Aug. 26, the US Census Bureau released its 2007 figures accounting for those without health insurance, ranked by state. New Mexico's situation worsened, as noted by a 2.6 percent increase in uninsured people over three years. Most states saw no statistical difference. New Mexico's percentage of uninsured residents was better than a couple of states-Mississippi and Louisiana. Roughly one-quarter of New Mexicans lack insurance.
