NM House approves $11 billion budget bill – Joshua Bowling, Source New Mexico
The New Mexico House of Representatives voted 55-15 after hours of debate on Wednesday to approve a roughly $11 billion state budget proposal.
House Bill 2, known as the budget bill, represents a “measured” increase in recurring spending of nearly $295 million, Rep. Nathan Small (D-Las Cruces), who chairs the House Appropriations and Finance Committee, told reporters Wednesday morning ahead of the vote.
“That is a responsible increase, but it’s also very measured, reflecting the uncertain times and the truth that over committing to recurring increased spending can lead in economically uncertain times to painful budget cuts,” he said. “We’ve been very cautious.”
The proposed budget would allocate $254 million for health programs, including subsidies for New Mexicans on the health care exchange who would otherwise lose federal subsidies for low- and no-cost premiums. It would essentially double the size of the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. And it would appropriate $22 million for an aquifer mapping program to gauge groundwater levels across the state.
The budget came with a notable asterisk, though. It would implement co-pays for higher-earning New Mexico families who want to access the universal child care program, which Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has said she wants to make free to all families, regardless of income.
“This budget in an economically challenging time makes big investments we can all be proud of as New Mexicans,” Small said before casting his “yes” vote.
It’s unclear whether such provisions in the proposed budget will win over the fourth floor of the Roundhouse. Lujan Grisham’s office has consistently said she opposes the child care co-pays and her push for universal free child care has drawn national attention. Small, for his part, said the co-pays remain the subject of ongoing negotiations but currently would be 4 to 5% of household income for families earning 400% of the national poverty level.
The governor “appreciates lawmakers’ attempts to fund universal child care, but she does not support co-pays when we have enough money to fund the initiative this year,” spokesperson Michael Coleman wrote in a Tuesday email to Source NM. “She continues to urge lawmakers to fully fund this historic initiative that will benefit New Mexico children and create economic opportunities for families across the state.”
When asked whether he thinks the co-pay proposal has legs, given the governor’s opposition, Small said it’s important to ensure the program is sustainable.
“I think that there is an understanding in the Legislature and the executive [branch] that financial sustainability and co-pays are linked,” he said. “Whether co-pays are a part of it right off the bat, that’s also dependent upon how many folks choose to sign up, at what time of year, at what level of income and what program.”
REPUBLICAN FLOOR AMENDMENTS TABLED
During debate, Republican lawmakers proposed a floor amendment aimed at the Immigrant Safety Act, which the Senate sent to the governor’s desk late Tuesday evening. The amendment would require the state to reimburse local governments “in which a facility” — presumably a detention center — “has closed due to the provisions of House Bill 9 or similar legislation.”
They also took aim at a $2.3 million appropriation for dormitory operations at the New Mexico School for the Arts, which critics said were only occupied by a few dozen students. Small responded and said that only one student in the dorms was able to pay the full fee for attendance and saw the appropriation as meaningful aid to families who need it.
After much debate, representatives voted 40-30 to table the amendment. Almost immediately, Rep. Jonathan Henry (R-Artesia) introduced a second floor amendment, which contained identical language regarding the Immigrant Safety Act.
“I don’t care what you think about detention facilities,” Rep. Stefani Lord (R-Sandia Park), whose district includes the Torrance County Detention Facility, said from the House floor. Losing those facilities would take away one of the area’s only economic lifelines, she said.
“We are going to be left holding the bag,” Lord said. “If they close tomorrow, we’re done. It’s a ghost town.”
Representatives also voted 43-27 to table that amendment.
House Speaker Javier Martínez (D-Albuquerque) told Lord he would stop recognizing her comments and move on to the next lawmaker in line to speak if she continued to use budget bill negotiations to discuss a different piece of legislation.
STABLE PRESENCE AMID NATIONAL 'CHAOS'
Beyond the child care issue, Small said the proposed budget was meant in part to address the ongoing national “chaos” of tariffs, trade wars and health and food assistance program cuts.
For months, lawmakers have worked behind the scenes and in public committee hearings to craft a budget that does more with less. In December, state economists told lawmakers that New Mexico’s economy was “treading water” while much of the nation was in or near a recession. Small at the time said the state was in a good position to continue paying for non-recurring projects, such as construction and other one-time purchases, but needed to be careful with taking on too much recurring spending.
Wednesday’s budget vote represents a slight decrease from the governor’s budget recommendation. In December, Lujan Grisham released an $11.3 billion budget recommendation, which represented a nearly $503 million recurring spending increase.
The budget now heads to the Senate.
Short-term rental regulations fail in City Council – Gillian Barkhurst, Albuquerque Journal
A proposed ordinance that would have put restrictions on short-term rentals in Albuquerque failed in the City Council on Monday, the third time such a policy has floundered.
“This doesn’t level the playing field,” said Councilor Dan Lewis, who voted down the ordinance.
The bill would have restricted permitting for short-term rentals, like Airbnbs and Vrbos, forcing rentals to be at least 330 feet apart, roughly one city block.
Proponents said such a rule would alleviate an Airbnb takeover in neighborhoods popular with tourists like Old Town and Nob Hill.
“This is a reasonable approach for an issue that affects a very small part of our city in a very big way,” said Councilor Joaquín Baca, who sponsored the legislation.
The proposed ordinance ultimately failed along familiar lines in a 4-5 vote, with more progressive-leaning councilors Tammy Fiebelkorn, Stephanie Telles, Nichole Rogers and Baca voting yes and more conservative-leaning councilors Lewis, Brooke Bassan, Dan Champine, Renée Grout and Council President Klarissa Peña voting no.
Before the vote, numerous short-term rental owners took to the podium to protest the proposed ordinance, saying it would affect their livelihoods and that it mischaracterized owners as greedy and detached from their communities.
“I am not a faceless corporation, I am a neighbor,” said short-term rental owner Darron Su.
Responding to owners' complaints, Telles said the legislation is not meant to target or penalize small business owners. Any pre-existing permitted rentals would be excluded from the 330-foot rule as long as the permit is renewed.
“Listen, we’re not cracking down on small STR owners, right?” Telles said. “We want that. We want a 'small is beautiful' economy in Albuquerque where we’re supporting our local entrepreneurs. This is a guardrail.”
Other public commenters echoed Telles' sentiments, expressing anxiety over out-of-state owners and corporations.
Proponents said that the lack of regulation for short-term rentals was pushing local families out of neighborhoods so that out-of-state owners could turn a profit on properties that are only occupied for a few weeks or months out of the year.
“I want us to penalize the land speculators who are sitting on vacant property (by) holding the reins on short-term rentals and landlords' greed,” said Trevor Selbee during public comment.
Additionally, Baca said the ordinance is necessary because many short-term rental owners are not playing by the rules, dodging permitting requirements and not paying lodgers taxes. As an example, Baca pointed to a dip in revenue from lodgers taxes during October, which is typically Albuquerque's biggest tourism season because of the Balloon Fiesta.
"We had a record year," Baca said.
New regulations are nothing to worry about, Baca said, unless an owner is already breaking the law and refuses to get into compliance.
Other councilors agreed that the short-term rental economy has gone unchecked in Albuquerque, but said that the solution was not more regulation — as the city already struggles with enforcement.
“Why are we not saying we need code enforcement with another 30 people?” said Champine. “So that we can go after the bad rentals, the bad landlords.”
Before the vote, Baca said that regardless of the outcome, he would support any measure to better staff Code Enforcement and catch owners dodging the law.
With another failed vote, this is the third time such a measure has lost steam. Similar ordinances that sought to regulate the number of short-term rentals in Albuquerque failed in both 2024 and 2023.
A memorial to address New Mexico’s rape kit backlog advances through first committee – Danielle Prokopp, Source New Mexico
Senate lawmakers on Wednesday unanimously advanced legislation that would establish a task force to address a growing rape kit backlog in New Mexico, just a decade after working to address a different backlog of untested evidence kits collected in sexual assault cases.
Senate Memorial 17, sponsored by Albuquerque Democratic Sens. Linda López and Antoinette Sedillo Lopez, unanimously passed the Senate Rules Committee Wednesday morning.
SM17, which would only require passage through the Senate to go into effect, would establish a task force to study statewide progress in processing sexual assault examination kits and propose possible solutions to lawmakers by November 2026.
The Department of Public Safety, which owns the state’s lab for testing the kits, last year reported a backlog of 1,419 untested sexual assault kits, a significant jump from 2024, when it had 249 untested kits. The state evidence laboratory has hired additional forensic scientists and said in the fiscal analysis DPS will train them to address the backlog early this year.
The memorial establishes a 12-member task force headed by the New Mexico Department of Public Safety secretary and the executive director for the New Mexico Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs. Other members would include representatives from the state police, state auditor’s office, attorney general’s office, the state’s evidence laboratory, sexual assault nurses and leadership from rural and urban rape crisis centers.
The state convened a similar task force in response to the 2016 state audit that found more than 5,000 untested evidence kits across the state, some dating back to the 1980s. While rape kit backlogs was a nationwide problem, New Mexico had the largest backlog per capita. All of the kits were tested by April 2021.
In 2019, lawmakers passed and Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed into law the Survivor’s Bill of Rights. The law allows survivors to track the location of their sexual assault evidence kits through a barcode and requires state laboratories to test kits within 180 days of receipt.
Alexandria Taylor, the executive director of the Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs and an expert testifying for the bill, said the exact cause of the current backlog remains unknown.
Ten years later, the state needs to look at the fixes implemented to address the previous backlog and ensure they are still working or “determine if different things are necessary,” Taylor told Source NM in the halls of the Roundhouse.
Lawmakers from both parties vented their frustration about the problem’s reappearance.
Sen. Jay Block (R-Rio Rancho) put it bluntly to sponsors: “What the hell’s going on? I mean, if we’re putting these resources to it, why is the backlog happening?”
“We want to ask that exact question,” Taylor told Block in the committee.
Senate Pro Tem Mimi Steward (D-Albuquerque) called the recurrence of the issue “hard to bear” in statements during the committee.
“When this was first identified, we made all kinds of changes to police process so that they could not have rape kits sit around for years and years. And it seems as though they continue to not follow those processes,” Stewart said. “So we need another task force now to try to change their processes, because they’re just not doing it right — and it feels like they don’t care.”
SM17 heads to the Senate Health and Public Affairs Committee next.