APS approves record $2.35B budget despite enrollment drop - Natalie Robbins, Albuquerque Journal
The Albuquerque Public Schools board approved the district’s largest budget to date on Wednesday, despite declining enrollment. The budget includes cuts to almost 300 full-time positions.
APS’ total budget for next school year is $2.35 billion, up about 4% from last year’s budget of $2.25 billion.
The district receives the lion’s share of its funding from the state’s Public Education Department, which distributes money to schools using a formula called the state equalization guarantee, or SEG, which assigns a unit value to each student and adds additional dollars for factors like special education and English-language learner status.
As New Mexico’s largest district, APS is set to receive a total of $1.02 billion from the PED for next school year — just over half of the department’s total funding pool for all schools, according to PED spokesperson Janelle Garcia.
Divided evenly, APS’ budget shakes out to a cost of about $36,859 per student — more expensive than the $30,118-a-year tuition at the area’s most expensive private school, Albuquerque Academy.
APS’ operating scale is so large, its budget surpasses the city of Albuquerque’s projected budget for next fiscal year by 60%, or $880 million.
More than 20% of the entire New Mexico state budget for next fiscal year will go to APS.
School board members voted 4-2 to approve the budget Wednesday night. Board members Ronalda Tome-Warito, Janelle Astorga, Heather Benavidez and Courtney Jackson voted in favor, while board members Rebecca Betzen and Warigia Bowman voted against. Board member Joshua Martinez was not present.
Enrollment declines
APS’ enrollment is down 20% from pre-pandemic levels, in line with national trends. The district had 63,726 students enrolled on the 40th day of this school year, down from 80,109 in 2019.
Since last school year, enrollment at APS is down 2,560 students. The drop means a decrease of about $40 million in revenue from the SEG for the upcoming school year.
Public schools across the country are facing enrollment declines, in part due to falling birth rates and post-pandemic societal shifts. In 2015, 50.3 million students nationwide were enrolled in public schools, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. That number is projected to be down to 47.6 million in 2026.
APS is facing a $16.1 million deficit, requiring a dip into the reserve fund, according to Chief Financial Officer Rennette Apodaca. The district will have $57.8 million in reserves after the money is spent.
“We know that declining enrollment is causing us to have this deficit that we’re facing,” said David Vigil, executive director of budget and strategic planning at APS.
Despite the enrollment drops, the district’s spending continues to rise due to an increase in construction projects and higher costs for compensation and benefits, APS officials said.
APS officials predict enrollment will keep falling for the foreseeable future. The district projects it will have 54,672 students by the 2029-30 school year.
“Until the kindergarten numbers go up, we essentially will continue to decline in our enrollment — unless millions of people move to Albuquerque, which would be great,” APS Superintendent Gabriella Blakey said.
Staffing cuts
The district plans to cut 290 full-time positions next school year, though APS officials said a majority of those employees will be able to stay employed at the district by transferring to another open position at a different school.
APS’ “must-hire” list of employees whose positions were cut and are first on the list to be hired for other district jobs contains 192 people, according to APS spokesperson Martin Salazar.
On the list are 82 elementary school teachers, 46 secondary school teachers, 39 special education teachers, 17 assistant principals, three ancillary employees (speech language pathologists, social workers, etc.), two counselors, two nurses and one fine arts teacher.
Blakey said Wednesday she was “99.9% confident” that all of the people on the list would get placed in other jobs within the district.
“In the district, where you lose enrollment isn’t all at one place. When you have 144 schools, it can be a variety,” Blakey said. “So it’s a shift of where we move the teachers to match the enrollment. We haven’t seen…that there’s a worry that we won’t be able to place everybody.”
Albuquerque Teachers Federation President Ellen Bernstein told the Journal the district has never had a reduction in force.
“If you’re on the priority hire list, that’s because APS owes you a job,” Bernstein said.
The district is cutting six full-time physical education teachers, which means six more schools will have a half-time teacher for PE, according to Deputy Superintendent Antonio Gonzales. These teachers will have to split their time between more than one school.
Betzen — a former APS employee whose campaign was endorsed by the teachers union — said she voted against the budget primarily because of the cuts to physical education and to other teachers.
“I cannot support a budget that adds increased strain on already overburdened teachers and support staff,” she said.
Blakey said schools with fewer than 300 students — of which there are around 40 — have always employed half-time teachers for extracurriculars.
“If we were able to give all schools full-time PE, art, music and librarians — of course, that would be great, but that would be at a point where we wouldn’t be able to fund something like that,” she said. “It would have to come at an expense somewhere else.”
Operating costs
A 1% salary increase for school employees mandated earlier this year by the state Legislature will cost the district an estimated $6.2 million, APS officials said. The district is also required to pay for at least 80% of employee health insurance premiums starting next school year under the newly signed House Bill 47, totaling an estimated $35 million.
APS’ operational budget for the 2026-27 school year is $1.15 billion, 92% of which will go to employee compensation and benefits. Last year’s operational budget was $1.08 billion, marking an increase of 6.6% this year.
The $2.35 billion total budget includes capital outlay funds — next year, APS has allotted almost $729 million for construction and renovation. The district plans to build a new special education facility on Albuquerque’s West Side, which will cost an estimated $15 million funded through bonds.
The budget also allots nearly $208 million for debt service — largely the repayment of bonds, according to Salazar.
Other funding will go to student services. APS is the largest transportation agency in the state of New Mexico, Salazar said, and the district will spend nearly $24 million next school year for student transportation.
APS has until May 20 to submit its budget for approval to the PED.
Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District halts water delivery to Corrales - Gregory R.C. Hasman, Albuquerque Journal
Corrales farmers experiencing a dry start to the year now have less water to use for the foreseeable future.
The Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District (MRGCD) has suspended irrigation deliveries to the village.
The deliveries rely on temporary pumping operations that lift water from the Rio Grande into the Corrales main canal. These pumps require sufficient river levels to function. When river levels fall below operational limits, pumping must be suspended and deliveries halted, a MRGCD news release states.
Mike Hamman, Corrales Farmers’ Cooperative vice president, said residents were “not surprised, just disappointed” by the district’s decision, which came down in late April.
“We all knew this is going to be a really, really poor water year,” he said.
The stoppage was due to the low amount of snowpack that came and March’s high temperatures that “caused what snowpack there was to come off the mountains and show up in the river earlier than expected,” said Anne Marken, MRGCD river operations and telemetry manager.
“And so, right now, the only water that’s available in the river is what the basin is kind of naturally producing and we’ve seen most of the snow already melt off the mountains,” she said. “We’re not seeing a lot of water come into the middle valley right now.”
Corrales farmer John Lopez said in a phone interview that without water, “I can’t irrigate.”
“My growing season for alfalfa is over,” she said. “I’m having to buy alfalfa. I’m having to buy feed for my animals because I can’t raise the feed.”
Farmers like Russell Trujillo and his daughter Ysabela Trujillo are finding ways to adapt.
Russell Trujillo said they are doing drip irrigation to feed their crops. Drip irrigation is the slow application of water through emitters or tiny holes spaced along polyethylene tubing or tape, according to New Mexico State University.
“It’s really important that we are continuing to farm here in Corrales because we want to provide this source of food for our community, for families, for everyone that we can reach out to because the food system is pretty fragile at times, especially with all these E. coli breaks and these whatever,” she said. “And small farmers have the opportunity to (provide food) at a more sanitary level and provide food that is very high nutritionally.”
‘You need that river to irrigate’
Historically, Corrales received well water from the district’s diversion dam, north of Bernalillo. The water then went to the Corrales main canal where a siphon, or a pipe, that goes underneath the river, “and take(s) water from the east side of the river and send(s) it to the west side where Corrales is,” Marken said.
“In 2022, that siphon collapsed and was no longer safe for us to send water under the river to Corrales and so we had to install some pumps,” she said. “It’s like a temporary pumping operation where instead of diverting far up north … we actually are pumping water from the river into the Corrales service area where we would historically have moved it through our system.”
The problem with the pumping operation is that in order for the pumps to work, there must be a minimum amount of water in the river for the pumps to take that water to Corrales, Marken said.
River flow was about 430 cubic feet per second the day the pump shut down, MRGCD spokesperson Amanda Molina said in an email.
“When releases from Cochiti drop below about 500 cubic feet per second, we start to see impacts to the Corrales pumps,” she said. “It’s really more about the level of the water in the river than the flow number itself – when flows drop, the river level drops with it. We visually monitor the water level and compare it to a fixed reference point on the pump structures. When the water level approaches that mark, we know the pumps are at risk of becoming inoperable.”
As of Wednesday, the Rio Grande in Albuquerque was 2.3 feet high, which is well below normal, said Michael Anand, National Weather Service of Albuquerque meteorologist.
As long as the Rio Grande stays as low as it is, Marken said, the pumps will remain shut off.
“If we see flows get up high enough then we can turn the pumps back on,” she said. “So one thing we’re telling Corrales, actually all irrigators, is ‘to be prepared to take water on very short notice, just in case we’re able to turn them on when there’s a rain event.’”
As everyone waits for the rain, the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District is working on a new siphon that should be done by the end of the year, Molina said.
“The new ($7.7 million) siphon will improve the efficiency of water delivery to the Corrales area and restore gravity-fed flow from the Albuquerque Main Canal to the Corrales Main Canal, eliminating reliance on a mechanical system that can be prone to operational issues,” she said. “However, the siphon will still depend on sufficient upstream water supply to function; it facilitates conveyance but does not generate additional water.”
Farmers like Lopez are hopeful, but doubtful, they will see enough rain during the upcoming monsoon season to get them through the year.
According to the National Weather Service, the likelihood of an above average monsoon season is 40%-50%.
“You need that river water to irrigate,” Lopez said. “Without that, you know, there isn’t anything coming up.”
Suspect faces 5 years in unsolved 2021 disappearance of Navajo elder Ella Mae Begay - By Savannah Peters, Associated Press
The only person ever charged in the unsolved 2021 disappearance of Navajo elder Ella Mae Begay, whose case became a symbol of the nationwide crisis of violence against Native Americans, is scheduled to be sentenced Friday in federal court.
Under the conditions of a plea agreement, Preston Henry Tolth, 26, faces a maximum of five years in federal prison with credit for three years of time served. He pleaded guilty to robbing Begay and driving off in her pickup truck.
If U.S. District Judge Douglas Rayes in Phoenix approves the agreement, that will effectively close the government's yearslong case against Tolth, which has been troubled by a lack of physical evidence and the suppression of a confession from Tolth.
Family members said they'll urge Rayes to reject the agreement during Friday's hearing and reiterate they don't want Tolth released without him leading investigators to Begay.
A beloved grandmother and talented weaver of Navajo-style pictorial rugs, Begay was 62 when she vanished from her home in Sweetwater, Arizona, on the Navajo Nation in June 2021. Tolth's sentencing comes amid a week of awareness for the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples movement, which highlights the disproportionate number of Native Americans who are missing or have been killed.
In the years since Begay went missing, her family members have organized searches, pushed law enforcement for answers and even walked across the country to keep a public spotlight on her case. Advocates have compared Begay's case to that of Gabby Petito, a young white woman whose disappearance the same summer drew a frenzy of news coverage, social media attention and law enforcement action that ultimately led to the discovery of her remains in Wyoming.
Navajo Nation police and FBI agents identified Tolth as a suspect within days of her disappearance. Tolth, whose father was dating Begay's sister, initially denied any involvement. In a later interrogation, an FBI agent lied to Tolth, telling him police found Begay's truck and were processing evidence that would implicate him. In response, Tolth waived his right to remain silent and confessed to stealing Begay's pickup truck, beating her and leaving her for dead on the side of the road.
It is typically legal for U.S. law enforcement to fabricate evidence during interrogations. But Rayes ruled that in this instance, the FBI agent failed to "scrupulously honor" Tolth's initial refusal to speak and threw the confession out. A panel of appellate court judges agreed.
In court documents, federal prosecutors acknowledged that this weakened their case against Tolth significantly, prompting them to negotiate a plea agreement rather than take the case to trial.
In an unusual move, Rayes rejected a previous plea agreement that called for Tolth to serve three years of time served, saying it was overly lenient. Begay's family members had presented anguished testimony and said they would prefer to the case went to trial.
"Accountability is not time served," Begay's niece Seraphine Warren told Rayes tearfully during an April hearing. "It's about truth, and we still don't have the truth."
Navajo Nation public safety director Michael Henderson said finding Begay is still a priority for tribal law enforcement.
"One of the hindrances is that the federal investigation is still pending," Henderson said.
Once it wraps, Henderson said Navajo Nation police may gain access to information that will aid their search.
New Mexico AG seeks judge to fine, possibly jail landowner over threats to Pecos access – Danielle Prokop, Source New MexicoNew Mexico state prosecutors are seeking a judge to fine and possibly even jail a San Miguel County landowner on the Pecos River alleging he repeatedly threatened fishermen with a shotgun and has created “barriers” and “traps” in the river.
In an emergency motion filed Wednesday, the New Mexico Department of Justice alleged Erik Briones, a Terrero resident, violated a March 2025 court order and threatened waders’ and fishermen’s constitutional right to recreate in the Pecos River. Briones was one among several land owners ordered to remove fencing and “no trespassing” signs.
A 2022 ruling from the New Mexico Supreme Court found the public has the constitutional right to access streams for paddling, fishing and wading, including the right to walk on privately owned land beneath waters. Any use of the beds and banks must have minimal impact, according to the court.
Now, state prosecutor said new evidence shows Briones used heavy equipment in March to dig holes in the riverbed under the water line, which “deepens the river to between six and ten feet, making it difficult or impossible to safely wade across,” the emergency motion states.
Additionally, the motion shows pictures of barbed wire along the bank and riverbed, which the motion said “funnels” waders to the deeper portions of the river.
When reached by phone Thursday, Briones told Source NM “I really have no comment,” and declined to say if he had an attorney.
“This is not just noncompliance, it is a blatant disregard for the law, the court’s authority, and the safety of New Mexicans,” Attorney General Raúl Torrez said in a statement Thursday. “We secured a clear victory to protect the public’s constitutional right to access our rivers. We will not hesitate to return to court to enforce that ruling and hold bad actors accountable.”
The emergency motion requested a 4th Judicial District Court judge hold a hearing to find Briones in contempt. State prosecutors requested a fine of $1,000 per day for non-compliance, and escalate that to $5,000 per day fines if it continues, in addition to paying to put the river into its original state.
State prosecutors also asked a judge to consider jailing Briones in San Miguel County if he does not remove the physical hazards within 14 days.
New Mexico Highlands shakeup expands beyond president – Natalie Robbins, Albuquerque Journal
The New Mexico Highlands University administrative shakeup reached further than President Neil Woolf, who was placed on paid leave by the Board of Regents on Friday.
On Wednesday, NMHU’s general counsel Doajo Hicks confirmed Provost Dann Brown and men’s basketball coach Zach Settembre were placed on administrative leave as well.
Hicks also confirmed that administrators Paul Grindstaff, David Lepre and Johnny Montoya have been terminated.
Kimberly Blea, who most recently served as vice president for student affairs, is interim president and Ian Williamson, associate vice president for academic affairs, will be interim provost, Hicks said.
Settembre told the Journal late Wednesday that he was still unsure of his job status.
“Late (Tuesday) night, I received multiple calls from colleagues, friends, family, and the families of players asking about termination,” Settembre said in a text. “After a sleepless night, I asked our HR department first thing this morning if I had been terminated, and our head of HR told me unequivocally that I had not been terminated. I’ve never seen anything like this in my career.”
Settembre was hired at NMHU last year from Tarleton State University in Stephenville, Texas.
“I still have not heard one word on termination from our athletic director or our new interim president,” he said. “It is heartbreaking to witness the professional and personal lives that have been altered and permanently damaged with recent developments at our amazing university.”
Settembre, in his first season at NMHU, led the Cowboys to a 13-19 record and 11-9 in Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference play.
The school announced a three-year contract extension for Settembre just last week, but the news release has since been taken down from the school's website.
“I’m saddened for our current student athletes, including the eight graduating this Saturday (a single-season program record), as well as those currently signed for next season, as they are caught in the middle of what appears to be a political coup at our university,” Settembre said.
Officials from the New Mexico chapters of the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, along with the NMHU Faculty and Staff Association, said in a statement that Woolf’s dismissal came after “months of documented concerns.”
“After collective bargaining agreement violations, attempts to fire and privatize essential positions of our university staff, and the gross mismanagement of worker safety issues at the Ivan Hilton Science Building, we are not surprised by the actions of the Board of Regents,” the union officials said in a joint statement.
The group said Blea had an opportunity to “reset the University’s course and work to heal divisions and restore the mutual respect between administration and faculty and staff that make our university community strong.”
NMHU faculty union President Kathy Jenkins told the Journal that discontent worsened after faculty and staff raised workplace safety issues at the university’s Ivan Hilton Science Building, which closed for several months starting Sept. 3, 2024, after reports of a chemical spill, the Las Vegas Optic reported.
Marty Lujan, a custodian at NMHU who worked in the building, died 11 days later. An autopsy report obtained by the Optic found Lujan died of complications from diabetes, though union officials said he showed signs of chemical exposure.
In a Facebook post, Woolf said the board provided no explanation for the decision and he hadn’t heard any indications that there were concerns.
“Since day one, my focus has been clear: strengthening Highlands for the students and communities we serve,” Woolf wrote. “Together, we have made measurable progress — improving the university’s financial position, achieving record fundraising, launching new academic programs aligned with regional workforce needs, increasing enrollment, and building meaningful partnerships across New Mexico.
“I remain committed to that work. I welcome the opportunity to address this situation directly and to continue moving Highlands forward.”
Woolf was appointed to the presidency in 2024 after a national search. He most recently served as the executive vice president at Southern Oregon University.
Journal staff writer Geoff Grammer contributed to this report.
BLM fast-tracks ‘Green Chile’ pipeline construction review for NM data center Project Jupiter – Danielle Prokop, Source New Mexico
The Bureau of Land Management announced this week it had granted expedited permission to build a pipeline on New Mexico public lands to fuel the controversial Project Jupiter data center, but environmental groups say state and federal regulators will slow down construction plans.
The BLM Las Cruces district office said Wednesday it had accelerated reviews to allow for the construction of a 16 mile-portion of pipeline proposed by Dallas-based developer Energy Transfer, which owns Transwestern Pipeline Company.
Transwestern has proposed a nearly 18-mile pipeline crossing mostly federal, but some private and state trust lands, dubbed the “Green Chile Project.” The $60 million lateral would pipe 400 million cubic feet of gas per day from El Paso daily to the private power plants for the Project Jupiter data center for companies such as OpenAI and Oracle. That amount of gas used daily would supply winter heating in Española — home to more than 10,000 people — for one year, experts previously told Source NM.
The BLM said it circumvented lengthy reviews citing emergency permitting powers the U.S. Department of Interior adopted in 2025, shortening a federal environment review from a year to 14 days. The right of way allows Transwestern to have permission to construct, restore and operate most of the length of the pipeline.
The project already faced potential roadblocks when the New Mexico State Land Office denied the rights for construction on state trust land last month.
The project still requires approval by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which is still considering a January application from Transwestern to approve the pipeline immediately.
Several New Mexico environmental groups filed formal challenges against the project in April, as did FERC staff, noting the application was incomplete. The FERC staff protest required Transwestern to submit a missing review from the New Mexico State Historic Preservation Office within 30 days, or face a much longer review for the project.
In more recent filings to FERC, Transwestern and a Project Jupiter customer, Oracle Corporation, urged regulators to extend the 30-day deadline to submit the documentation, writing that “time is of the essence” and are seeking regulator’s approval immediately to ensure the pipeline is constructed by August.
Attorneys for Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity opposing the project said FERC has no procedure allowing a deadline extension and said the project must now undergo a more lengthy review process.
Additionally, attorneys said that New Mexico environmental regulators still have not weighed in on Project Jupiters’ power generation plans, which changed last week from solely using gas pipelines to incorporate fuel cells.
“This development reiterates that any potential need for the Project is uncertain at best,” the document stated.