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Morning Word
Gov. Lujan Grisham proposes $10.5 billion budget
In advance of today’s scheduled release by the Legislative Finance Committee of its budget recommendations, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham yesterday released her executive budget recommendations for Fiscal Year 2025. The Legislature, when it convenes Jan. 16, will hold a 30-day finance-focused session following the highest general fund revenue forecast in the state’s history—roughly $3.5 billion in new money—largely driven by oil and gas production, which is expected to decline in the coming years. Lujan Grisham’s proposed $10.5 billion in recurring spending represents a 9.9% increase from the last fiscal year, and maintains reserves at 34.2%. “Because of our historic—but prudent—investments made over the last few years in New Mexico in everything from small businesses to hospitals, childcare to college, free school meals to law enforcement, the future of our state is brighter than ever,” the governor said in a statement. “Here’s my promise to New Mexicans today: I will continue to push for programs, services and solutions that work. Here’s my promise to New Mexicans in future years and future generations: We will continue to spend within our means, responsibly and with an eye toward accountability, always, while capitalizing on the fiscal opportunities available.”
Budget highlights noted by the governor’s office include: a $500 million capital appropriation from severance tax bonds for the governor’s proposed Strategic Water Supply; $250 million each to the New Mexico Housing Trust Fund and the New Mexico Finance Authority Opportunity Enterprise Revolving Fund, the latter to increase funding for affordable housing and other home programs directed at lower-income residents. The budget also proposes: 3% pay increases for educators, as well as one for state employees; $33 million to expand pre-kindergarten by 1,380 spots; $58 million for literacy initiatives, including $30 million to create a Structured Literary Institute; and more than $100 million to accommodate the cost to schools for a controversial proposal to expand the number of classroom days. The governor also has proposed $2.15 billion in recurring general fund for the new Health Care Authority, a new agency launching July 1 and replacing the Human Services Department. The governor’s budget also proposes $35 million each for law enforcement/corrections recruitment, as well as firefighter/EMT recruitment.
Lawmaker proposes oil/gas setbacks
Legislation pre-filed by state Rep. Debra M. Sariñana, D-Albuquerque, would ban oil and gas production within a mile of schools and day care centers, the Associated Press reports. The bill precedes an expected overhaul from Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s administration of the state’s Oil and Gas Act, originally passed in 1935. That effort, a spokesman for the New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department told Capital and Main last month, comes amid recognition that the act “no longer contains all the tools necessary to oversee the current industry and ensure robust environment protection.” Sariñana’s bill would stop approval for drilling permits in school zones in July and require the “cessation of oil and gas operations in children’s health protection zones” by Jan. 1, 2028. Reforms from the governor’s office would also include setbacks, the AP reports, the distance of which have not yet been determined. Sariñana tells the AP her proposal would impact approximately 800 existing wells out of 65,000 statewide. “It’s about our kids. This year it’s about our kids,” she says.
Feds award PED $8 mil for teaching program
The US Department of Education’s Innovation and Research Program has awarded the New Mexico Public Education Department a five-year $8 million grant for its NM Residencies Program. The program, PED says in a news release, is geared at providing “aspiring teachers with a year of co-teaching alongside an accomplished mentor teacher as part of their pre-service preparation program.” The program’s three primary goals include: strengthening teacher recruitment and selection; ensuring “equitable access” to “well-prepared teachers”; and creating “sustainable funding streams with competitive wages,” so such paid residencies become the norm. In its application to the US Department of Education, PED notes that “quality teachers matter for all students, but, too often, our schools lack equitable access to a stable pool of strong teachers. In historically underserved communities, teachers are more likely to be in their first years of teaching and to leave the profession quickly; they are more likely to be hired from fast-track programs before they are fully certified; and they are more likely to come from backgrounds that do not reflect the students they serve.” In a statement, PED Secretary Arsenio Romero notes that “having aspiring teachers observe and assist experienced teachers benefits everyone in the education process. We are grateful for the opportunity to advance this program and further develop a coherent, high-quality teacher preparation system.”
State awards $1 mil in outdoor equity funds
Several Santa Fe-based nonprofits are among the recipients of $1 million in recently awarded grants from the state Outdoor Recreation Division’s Outdoor Equity Fund. Girls Inc. received $40,000 for its program, which a state news release says “immerses over 250 girls in outdoor programs, accumulating over 100 hours of engagement.” New Mexico Wildlife Center, which operates in both Santa Fe County and Española, also received $40,000, to “provide interactive programming about wildlife and habitat conservation to sparks excitement in students,” and for its Ambassador Animal Encounter programs. The Santa Fe Children’s Museum received $40,000 to partner Earth Care Santa Fe from May through September 2024 “to give local underrepresented youth an opportunity to experience the outdoors. Youth will tend and harvest the 12-bed community garden, and learn about pollination, conservation, responsible farming practices and child development,” with harvests distributed to local shelters. In total, the state awarded funds to 30 organizations, school districts and local governments in 12 counties and five tribal communities. The new round of funding, ORD Director Karina Armijo says in a statement, helps “collectively ensure that outdoor experiences become an inclusive and empowering force for all, fostering a diverse community that thrives in the great outdoors.”
Listen up
In advance of this year’s legislative session, which begins Jan. 16, the League of Women Voters New Mexico will provide a free online training session on citizen advocacy from 10 am to noon, this Saturday, Jan. 6. The webinar, LWV says, will provide tips from lawmakers and an experienced lobbyist on how to interact with legislators, speak at hearings and effectively lobby for one’s cause. Speakers include: state Sen. Carrie Hamblen, D-Doña Ana; state Rep. Jason Harper, R-Rio Rancho; and longtime lobbyist and Santa Fe Community College board member Linda Siegle. Register here.
Our winter wonderland
“Paris when it rains. Autumn in New York. Santa Fe covered in snow puts them both to shame.” So proclaims Chadd Scott in a story for Forbes magazine so poetically effusive it made us feel (momentarily) badly about grumbling when we defrost our windshield. “Red chile ristras, earthen adobe walls, and mighty cottonwood trees dusted by snow creates the most stunningly beautiful cityscape in the world,” Scott writes. The story highlights the Rosewood Inn of the Anasazi, where “luxury has more to do with character than expense,” Scott writes. Yes, the hotel is in fact expensive, he concedes, but includes “museum quality paintings and sculptures.” Also on the museum quality paintings and sculptures tip, the story advises a visit to the New Mexico Museum of Art to see Out West: Gay and Lesbian Artists in the Southwest 1900-1969 (through Sept. 2), and references comments made by Head of Curatorial Affairs Christian Waguespack during a talk on the exhibit Waguespack gave last summer at the Harwood Museum in Taos: “What drew so many gay artists to this rural outpost was the potential for a sort of sexual freedom and a community of acceptance that has only recently been getting the attention that it deserves.” Other highlights from Forbes include the Museum of International Folk exhibition Ghhúunayúkata / To Keep Them Warm: The Alaska Native Parka (through April 7). The parkas, Scott writes, “blow away anything seen on the runways of Paris” and “exemplify the museum’s vision for highlighting how the best of folk art, often diminished simply as ‘craft,’ not only compares, but often eclipses, objects esteemed as ‘fine art.’”
Photo op
New Mexico magazine starts the year with the big reveal of the 2024 photo contest winners for its 23rd annual competition. Rio Rancho resident Pam Dorner took the top prize in the animals category with “Golden Feather,” a stunning image of one of the great horned owls near her home that Dorner spent the summer observing. White Sands National Park continues to deliver breathtaking shots, and appears in Richard Larsson’s first-place photo in the landscapes category. Larsson also took first place in the nightscapes category for his capture of a frozen waterfall under midnight stars at Bluff Springs in the Lincoln National Forest. The contest, Editor-in-Chief Steve Gleydura writes, drew more than 1,800 submissions (the contest is open to amateur photographers), who competed in six categories and multiple rounds of review from five judges. Winners will be exhibited Jan. 27-28 at the Tularosa Basin Gallery of Photography in Carrizozo. Closer to home, SFR’s annual photography competition remains open through the end of the month. This year’s categories: faces, places, movement and “odd.” Winners, two per category, receive prizes from local restaurants and retailers, and selected photos will be printed in a February edition of SFR and showcased in a pop-up exhibition (check out last year’s winners here). Entries are due by Feb. 1; $5 per entry. Find all the details here.
Brrr
The National Weather Service has us under a “freezing fog advisory” until 9 am. Santa Fe Public Schools, as of press time, was on a two-hour delay, as are city offices and facilities. As for the rest of Friday, it should be mostly cloudy, with a high temperature near 37 degrees and west wind around 10 mph. We have a slight chance for scattered snow showers late tonight, with little accumulation expected. Saturday should be mostly sunny, albeit cold, with another possible round of snow Sunday heading into a snowy, frigid Monday (NWS predicts Monday’s low temperature at 6 degrees). The current storm delivered 12 inches in the last 24 hours up at Ski Santa Fe, where FREESKIER magazine recently spent some time with owner Benny Abruzzo.
Thanks for reading! Despite or because she is a big NPR fan, The Word eagerly anticipates this forthcoming animated NPR parody (backstory here from Vulture).
