As financial literacy expands, teachers head back to class — Natalie Robbins, Albuquerque Journal
It takes a good teacher to get a class full of high schoolers to care about their retirement savings.
As teachers gear up for the new school year, some of them are getting an education themselves. English, math, science and social studies teachers from across New Mexico are meeting at Albuquerque Public Schools’ southeast operations complex this week to attend seminars on how to teach financial literacy, and APS teachers will present their own lesson plans.
Almost two-thirds of New Mexico high school students must take a personal finance class to receive their diploma — financial literacy is now a graduation requirement in 56 of New Mexico’s 89 school districts. The upcoming school year will be the second that the course is required for students at APS.
“The single most important gift that we can give our children is to let them know they’re on their own,” Charlie Bergman, who teaches financial literacy at St. John’s College in Santa Fe, told the group of teachers. “You’ve got to figure out how to be smart with money.”
Bergman walked the group through the basics of passive income through savings and investments, using the teachers’ own pension plans as an example of appreciation.
“I would love for New Mexico over the next several years to become the recognized national leader in financial literacy,” he said.
As of October 2025, 30 states require a personal finance course for high school graduation, according to Next Gen Personal Finance, a group providing teaching materials on financial literacy.
“It’s really just kind of sweeping across the nation,” said Mandi Torrez, education reform director at the nonpartisan policy group Think New Mexico. Think New Mexico has lobbied lawmakers and school districts to require financial literacy since 2020, and co-sponsored the teacher conference at APS.
Though a 2024 legislative effort to make the course a requirement for all New Mexico high school students narrowly failed to pass, the class is now offered as an elective in every high school, Torrez said.
“We talk about chronic absenteeism and student engagement being such an issue. When students feel like what they’re learning is actually relevant to their lives, they’re going to get more out of it,” Torrez said. “It’s the practical learning that they’re asking for.”
Travis Crawley, a government and economics teacher at Volcano Vista High School in Albuquerque, said he hopes his students carry the lessons from the course with them into adulthood.
“The unfortunate part is the mistakes can be pretty costly,” Crawley said. “Getting yourself into credit problems or debt problems and lowering your credit score can have a pretty literal, costly impact on your life.”
Crawley said he often asks students to pick their dream college and plug the cost into a student loan calculator to see how much they might be paying back for the next 10 years.
“They’re usually blown away and really dejected by it,” he said.
Though it’s easy to get overwhelmed by how bleak the financial situation may be for many Americans, Crawley said he tries to teach students how to give themselves a head start through savings and investments.
“Here’s the really good benefit of it,” Crawley said. “Let me show you how to do it correctly, so you can be the winner from the system.”
Natalie Robbins covers education for the Journal. You can reach her at nrobbins@abqjournal.com.
Mental illness, substance abuse driving New Mexico’s high maternal mortality, new data shows — Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
Mental illness, particularly substance abuse, was the biggest contributing factor to 74 pregnancy-related deaths of New Mexico mothers between 2018 and 2023, according to new data presented Monday to a legislative health committee.
New Mexico Department of Health officials presented the most recent figures from the department’s Maternal Mortality Review Committee, a board tasked with investigating all deaths that occur during or within one year of pregnancy and recommending measures to prevent such deaths in the future.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, New Mexico’s maternal mortality rate is well above the national average. Still, the new data shows that New Mexico’s pregnancy-related mortality rate has dropped precipitously since the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2021, the state’s pregnancy related-mortality rate — was 149.6 per 100,000 live births. By 2023, however, the rate decreased by nearly 84% to just 24.2, according to the new data.
The rate the New Mexico Mortality Review Committee measures is the number of people who die due to pregnancy complications or from health conditions a pregnancy exacerbated.
The decline brought levels back to pre-pandemic rates. Nonetheless, the review committee noted that more than 97% of the 74 deaths in that six-year period were “preventable.”
The report identifies mental illness as the biggest factor underlying those deaths, a term that includes includes suicide, substance abuse and post-traumatic stress disorder, among other psychiatric illnesses.
Mental illness accounted for nearly 42% of the deaths, followed by infections at roughly 16% and heart-related illnesses and hemorrhages or other injuries that each caused approximately 10% of the deaths.
“Mental health conditions, especially substance use disorders, remain the most significant contributing factor to maternal mortality and the most common underlying cause of death,” NMDOH Chief Medical Officer Miranda Durham told lawmakers.
The review committee also determined that more than three-quarters of the patients who died in that period had no prenatal care or unknown prenatal care, according to the new data. Kevin Peine, executive director at the NMDOH’s Centers for Public Health, noted that the rate of deaths drops sharply even if patients receive prenatal care only in their first trimester.
“This drives home the point to me that access to prenatal care in the state is critical, and early prenatal care can be a driving factor towards some of those preventions,” he said.
Several Democratic lawmakers on the interim Health and Human Services Committee keyed in on the findings regarding lack of prenatal care and substance abuse to criticize Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s 2025 order requiring state officials to take immediate custody of newborns with fetal alcohol syndrome or drug exposure.
Committee Chair Rep. Liz Thomson (D-Albuquerque) said she fears that mothers with drug addictions will opt out of prenatal care to avoid losing custody of their babies.
“That’s really scary to me, and something I think that we need to keep a close eye on,” she said.
State Sen. Linda Lopez (D-Albuquerque) also said the report shows the state’s resources would be better placed supporting mothers and babies exposed to drugs, rather than separating them. The report recommended expanding post-birth support, conducting additional screenings and expanding services to high-risk families in the period right before and right after birth.
“Separating a newborn from a new mom is trauma in itself,” Lopez said. “If we’re willing to separate and take away, then what is the state not doing to assist and help these new moms?”
Michael Coleman, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s communications director, did not respond to Source NM’s request for comment Monday, though he recently told Source NM that the governor stands behind the directive.
“The governor believes safety is the top priority — and that means giving parents the space they need to recover, while making sure no baby is left in a home where exposure puts them at risk,” he said.
PNM, private equity firm extend merger deadline to mid-2027 after regulators deem stock sale illegal
—Joshua Bowling, Source New Mexico
The parent company of New Mexico’s largest electricity provider and the private equity firm looking to acquire it are extending the deadline for their pending merger to mid-2027.
The announcement came weeks after state regulators found that TXNM Energy Inc., which owns PNM, and private equity firm Blackstone Infrastructure violated state law by conducting a $400 million stock sale in 2025 without first gaining approval from the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission. After the commission’s decision on the stock sale earlier this month, neither PNM nor Blackstone officials would say if they intended to continue pursuing the merger.
However, in a joint announcement Friday, officials for TXNM and Blackstone said they extended the deadline for the acquisition to May 31, 2027.
“We remain committed to our proposed partnership with Blackstone Infrastructure because it is critical to TXNM Energy’s long-term ability to provide clean, affordable and reliable power to the customers we serve,” TXNM Energy President and CEO Don Tarry said in a statement. “We appreciate the NMPRC’s careful review of this case and look forward to further demonstrating why this partnership will strengthen the grid, support long-term investment and deliver meaningful benefits for customers and communities across New Mexico and Texas.”
Officials with PNM and Blackstone had long said the deal adhered to state law and contended the pending $11.5 billion merger, first announced in 2025, presented an efficient way to quickly infuse much-needed cash into the state’s aging electric grid.
TXNM has taken out a $400 million loan to undo the 2025 stock sale, according to the joint announcement. The PRC also imposed $300,000 in penalties against the companies in its early July decision.
“Blackstone Infrastructure’s extension of our merger agreement is a sign of our commitment to continue to work collaboratively with stakeholders as we demonstrate the significant benefits of the proposed merger,” Sean Klimczak, global head of Blackstone Infrastructure, said in a statement.
Uranium mining pitch near Canjilon has locals on edge as feds say application still incomplete
—Santa Fe New Mexican
In northern Rio Arriba County, locals remain uneasy regarding a proposal from a Canadian mining company to conduct exploratory drilling north of Abiquiú.
The Santa Fe New Mexican reports that there is no timeline yet for the Forest Service to approve or reject Gamma Resources Ltd.’s application for a permit.
The Vancouver-based company has proposed drilling for uranium in the Carson National Forest near the community of Canjilon.
The New Mexican reports that the Carson National Forest has not yet received a completed plan of operations from the company, but would begin review of the proposal when the application is complete.
County commissioners in Rio Arriba County as well as Santa Fe County have voted to condemn the proposal.
Inmate dies at hospital after medical episode at county jail
—Gillian Barkhurst, Albuquerque Journal
An inmate at the Metropolitan Detention Center died at a hospital Sunday, marking the jail’s eighth in-custody death of the year.
The man, James Gonzales, 45, was found in medical distress at 11:12 p.m. on Friday, six days after he was booked into jail, said MDC spokesperson Daniel Trujillo in a news release Monday. In response to the emergency, the jail’s staff and medical team rendered “successful life-saving measures.”
Approximately 35 minutes after his medical episode, Gonzales was transported to the University of New Mexico Hospital where he died two days later.
According to the release, Gonzales had no next of kin.
Local authorities are investigating the jail death, including the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office and MDC Office of Professional Standards. The New Mexico Office of the Medical Examiner will determine the official cause of Gonzales’ death.
Gonzales is the eighth inmate to die while incarcerated at MDC in 2026. The sixth and seventh were 18-year-old Derrick Benavidez and 36-year-old Julian Wilgress, who died within 48 hours of each other in late April. What caused their deaths is still under investigation and has not been publicly released.
