Message from the Chairman: A Complete Toolbox

A contractor would not be expected to shore up a collapsing house with a hammer and some nails, and budget-drafters should not be limited in the tools they have available to fix New Mexico’s collapsing budget. We need everything available to us to keep state services standing during these difficult financial times — less spending and new revenue. And we need to look hard, very hard, at how well we are spending the resources we have.

There is a lot of alarmist talk about what will have to be cut to make ends meet. But, while state government is not generally fat, some of those cuts are not as alarming as they sound. Closing two prisons sounds like a drastic measure, but in fact many of the prisons have empty beds. The Crime Victims Reparation Commission spends $1.3 million to distribute $1.6 million in reimbursement checks to victims of crime. Surely there is a more efficient way to distribute these important funds.

In the schools, New Mexico spends less of its public school dollar on instruction than the national average and, while it spends about the same on school-level administration, it spends 40 percent more on state- and district-level administration, according to the Digest of Education Statistics. Nobody wants to cut classroom spending but maybe we can save on spending outside the classroom.

If we are to succeed in seeing New Mexico through this crisis, we must use every tool at our disposable and we must use them effectively to limit the impact on New Mexicans.

Representative Luciano “Lucky” Varela

Chairman