Where the Budget Cuts Might Come From

Posted by Jim Spence on Saturday, January 15, 2011
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Capitol Report New Mexico - Last Friday (Jan. 7), the Legislative Finance Committee (LFC) came out with its recommendations for closing the $250-$400 million gap in New Mexico’s budget. Then, on Monday (Jan. 10), new Gov. Susana Martinez came out with her administration’s recommendations. While both sides generally agree their respective proposals are in the same ballpark and hope legislators and the executive office can hammer out a deal in the upcoming 60-day legislative session without spilling too much political blood, Capitol Report New Mexico decided to take a closer look at the differences between the two proposals. Read full story here:
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2 comments:

Paul said...

I posted the following comment directly on Capitol Reports' article:

"Reviewing the General Funds budget allocations cannot be done in isolation. Some line items have funding sources from elsewhere that overwhelm the “General Fund” portion, and that is seen in the “Total Funds” table. The “General Fund” is a subset of the “Total Funds” numbers.

I don’t have the time or the inclination to analyze every line item in the Governor’s FY12 budget, but I have looked at the Environment dept’s lines.

In the case of the Environment Dept, the general fund input is about one-ninth of the total funds. So the Governor’s 21.1% general funds reduction is really only 2.8% of the total ($3M of a total budget of over $108M). Hardly a massive cut.

Similarly, some people have looked at the zeroing-out of the Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Development line item in the Environment Dept’s General Funds section, and screamed bloody murder, but the overall total funds for this line item is still $9.9M, a 4.1% reduction."

January 15, 2011 at 12:36 PM
Anonymous said...

The EIB may have cost the citizens of New Mexico millions in jobs that will leave the state. As far as I'm concerned eliminating the EIB, right after the new board reverses the cap & tax measure they voted on in November and December (if necessary), will be the best first decision Governor Martinez could make. Trimming the environmental department to the bone will benefit all. Most of us are fed up with environmentalists. Look what they did to the timber industry in Oregon under the guise that they were saving the Spotted owl populations. Decades later we're learning that not only have the Spotted Owl populations dwindled further but the timber industry had nothing to do with their demise. Instead we now know the spotted owl was being out competed by another species of owls. So much for environmentalists and their stupidity which cost millions of jobs, homes, dreams and the livelihood of millions who worked in the timber industry. As a result the timber industry is on the extinction list. Way to go, tree huggers! Lets make the environmentalists extinct instead.

January 17, 2011 at 9:10 AM

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