CREDA poll: New Mexico’s gross receipt tax makes it hard to do business - Kylie Garcia, Albuquerque Journal
In New Mexico, a gross receipts tax is a key revenue source. But for local commercial real estate developers, it is becoming an increasingly costly burden of doing business in the state.
That was a prominent finding from a poll distributed by the Commercial Real Estate Development Association — or CREDA, formerly NAIOP — last month.
The poll asked real estate leaders if New Mexico’s gross receipts tax, or GRT, makes doing business in the state more difficult. GRT is a tax that the state and its counties and municipalities impose on businesses and the total amount of money or value they receive for their services.
The majority — 93% — said the state’s GRT makes business harder, with 60% saying it makes business “significantly” more difficult. Meanwhile, less than 10% said they weren’t sure or felt the tax is reasonable or has little to no impact.
For more information on this story, visit the Albuquerque Journal website.
New Mexico delegation seeks broader probe of claims that federal agents let fentanyl into the state - Joshua Bowling, Source New Mexico
New Mexico’s congressional delegation signed a letter on Friday asking a federal government watchdog to broaden the scope of its investigation into allegations that drug enforcement agents knowingly let fentanyl shipments cross into New Mexico.
The U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General on Aug. 17 announced it was investigating whistleblower complaints, which alleged that Drug Enforcement Administration agents monitoring fentanyl shipments in New Mexico would routinely stop short of seizing them in hopes of catching bigger traffickers down the line.
All five of New Mexico’s U.S. senators and representatives asked investigators to extend its probe further back than 2024. DEA whistleblower complaints make reference to these tactics, known as “fentanyl walking,” as far back as 2022, they wrote.
“One of the whistleblowers claims (is) that the DEA surveilled a drug trafficker ‘who made repeated deliveries of fentanyl from Phoenix to Albuquerque between 2022 and 2023.’ There is reason to suspect that the DEA’s policies of allowing fentanyl to ‘walk’ stretches back before 2023,” they wrote. “The people of New Mexico deserve answers as to why the agency charged with seizing drugs instead allowed deadly pills to flood their streets. We ask that the DOJ OIG conduct a full and thorough investigation to bring some measure of accountability to actions carried out by DEA.”
In their letter, U.S. Sens. Ben Ray Luján and Martin Heinrich and U.S. Reps. Melanie Stansbury, Teresa Leger Fernández and Gabe Vasquez — all New Mexico Democrats — mentioned a statistic that the state’s leaders have often cited since the scandal became public in June: New Mexico was one of just seven states to report a recent increase in overdose deaths amid a national decline.
Republicans on the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Monday announced an investigation of their own into the “fentanyl walking” allegations.
“While DEA agents may not have the resources to intercept every single known shipment, a policy directing them not to intercept significant shipments is unconscionable and undoubtedly resulted in considerable harm and lives lost,” U.S. Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), who chairs the Oversight and Government Reform committee, wrote in a Monday letter to U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche.
New Mexico Corrections Department continues to siphon settlement funds from state coffers - Santa Fe New Mexican
The New Mexico Corrections Department regularly spends millions of dollars from what is being described as a “depleted” state public liability fund.
The New Mexican reviewed information about settlement payouts on the state’s publicly available Sunshine Portal. Their report says the Corrections Department regularly pays private attorneys more to fight a case than the department ultimately pays to resolve it.
The New Mexican reports that the agency in June paid $567,000 to settle a whistleblower case filed by a woman who worked for the department for 38 years before suing for retaliation. The employee said she was retaliated against for reporting problems, including inappropriate relationships among agency administrators.
The New Mexican also reports that last November, the department paid $350,000 to a woman who was raped by a guard. The guard confessed to the assault, pleaded guilty to reduced charges and was sentenced to probation.
Unsent memo blasts panel’s denial of NMHU track, field work after injuries – Chris Potter, Searchlight New Mexico
Careful, Cowboys. There’s trouble underfoot at New Mexico Highlands University.
A March 13 memo indicates university and state officials were well aware of unsafe conditions at a track and field, which had led to multiple injuries, and the “potentially significant tort liability” those conditions posed for the school.
It notes the deteriorating track and turf surfaces had caused three broken ankles, one ACL wound and lower body injuries to 28 of 30 women’s soccer players.
“This is not a speculative hazard. These injuries have already begun,” states the nine-page memo, which The New Mexican obtained through a public records request. It’s unclear who drafted the document.
The memo — a scathing document written in response to the New Mexico Higher Education Department Capital Outlay Committee’s rejection of a privately funded project to remedy the dangerous conditions at the facilities — was never sent to state officials, according to correspondence between university administrators, and notes the “hazardous conditions remain unaddressed.”
“The next injury, whether another broken ankle, another ACL, a more catastrophic outcome, will not occur without warning,” the memo states.
It suggests there was potential bias among committee members and “fundamental disregard for student safety,” and points to the heavy impact of student athletes at the school — where some 425 undergraduates, a quarter of the estimated 1,700 undergrads enrolled, participated in university sports in the last school year. Highlands also serves about 1,100 graduate students.
The Higher Education Department contends, however, the committee denied approval of the project’s first phase at a March 11 meeting due to concerns about whether the school was ready to move forward with construction and limited information about financing.
Higher Education Department spokesperson Aurellia Ortiz said in a statement Friday evening the first phase was estimated at $8.5 million and “focused on the demolition and removal of the existing track and related track and field elements, visitor bleacher, a press box and the construction of a new Olympic-style track, stadium lighting upgrades, new track turf for football and soccer fields, and security fencing and sidewalks.”
Paul Grindstaff, Highlands’ former vice president for advancement and university relations, had told The New Mexican in October that Phase I was part of a larger, $85.5 million facilities overhaul and would cost about $5.1 million. Funding for the first phase was “largely in place,” he said. He envisioned completion by the Cowboys’ 2026 football season opener.
The Capital Outlay Committee’s decision and Highlands’ unsent response came ahead of an administrative upheaval in May that led to dismissals of Grindstaff and several other high-level officials at the state-owned school in Las Vegas, N.M. — including then-President Neil Woolf — as well as a string of lawsuits and probes by state agencies.
Email records show Grindstaff had sent the March 13 sports safety memo to General Counsel Doajo Hicks on May 4, — the same day Grindstaff was fired, according to a federal lawsuit he filed against the university in July.
“I wanted to take a minute to put some things in writing, most of which we’ve already discussed but making sure they’re on the radar,” Grindstaff wrote in the email to Hicks, which also notes concerns about the availability and competence of an athletic trainer and the use of a football helmet model “recently disqualified for use in competition by the NFL.”
Grindstaff writes in the email the sports safety memo was “circulated, though never sent” to state officials.
The committee’s denial
The March 13 memo wasn’t addressed to any particular person but requests action regarding the track and field safety improvement project, the overall capital outlay system and Highlands’ potential liability exposure due to injuries from several government agencies: the Governor’s Office, the Higher Education Department, the Legislative Finance Committee, the General Services Department’s Risk Management Division and the State Board of Finance.
“The Committee denied the request, stating that the project could not be advanced out of its priority order in the master plan or five-year plan, and could not leapfrog other projects in the queue,” the memo states.
While the document doesn’t note the proposed cost of the project, it points out the priority system governs state-funded capital requests — not privately funded projects — and notes the Higher Education Department’s regulations allow the committee to expedite emergency requests for safety projects, regardless of the funding source.
The memo doesn’t cite the source of funding, but Grindstaff’s lawsuit indicates it would be covered by the NMHU Foundation; he also served as the foundation’s executive director.
The memo cites other high-dollar higher education athletics projects that secured state funding while Highlands’ safety project was denied: “$18 million for a press box and luxury suites at New Mexico State University, and approximately $50 million for expanded concession stands and a concourse renovation at the University of New Mexico.”
It notes 165 or more of Highlands’ 425 student athletes are New Mexico residents, “a higher percentage of in-state student-athletes than any other institution in the state.”
“The Committee’s response to this information was to dismiss it with the observation that 165 is ‘not even half’ of 425. That response warrants examination,” the memo states. “One hundred sixty-five New Mexico student-athletes is not a rounding error … it is 165 New Mexico residents whose physical safety on a state-funded campus is at issue in this proceeding.”
The committee’s “apparent indifference” suggests it “was looking for reasons to deny rather than engaging with the merits of the project,” the memo states, adding the use of the figure as a condition of approval is a standard that “exists nowhere in governing law.”
It also alleges one committee member told university officials he had made up his mind to deny the project before the hearing.
Ortiz said in a statement Highlands had submitted the track and field improvement project for review Feb. 6.
Part of the agency’s review “involves verification of the project’s estimated budget and source of funding secured to cover the costs,” she said, adding, “NMHU provided several funding options to the NMHED, all involving the university foundation securing and funding the project.”
The Capital Outlay Committee “raised concerns regarding project readiness, limited documentation of funding structure and repayment strategy and the financial risk this project would have on the state, NMHU and the foundation,” Ortiz said. “Approval of a project this size without a dedicated funding source and structured repayment plan could add additional financial instability to an institution already on the NMHED’s Enhanced Fiscal Oversight Program.”
Dimensions and decay
The memo says the turf of the football and soccer field, under a manufacturer’s warranty for eight years and rated for a useful life of 10 years, has been in use 12 years and requires replacement.
The severely deteriorated track around the field at Highlands’ Sanchez Family Stadium, meanwhile, has not been used for competitions in years, interim President Kimberly Blea wrote in an email to The New Mexican.
Instead, student athletes train on undamaged portions of the track and at other university facilities.
Highlands’ cross-country and women’s track and field coach Bob DeVries said Friday the facility has never hosted a college meet and has only once hosted a high school event.
“I’ll put it this way, I don’t consider it unsafe,” DeVries said. “Our kids train on it and know to avoid the bumps in the turns. If we practice relays, we know we can’t use lane 4.”
Still, he acknowledged “if someone’s just out there walking around, they can easily hit a spot and go down.”
Former Highlands athletic director Ed Manzanares said the track, originally a deep shade of purple to match the school’s primary color, was the brainchild of another former athletic director, Joe Singleton, more than a quarter-century ago. It was installed in 1999, even though the school didn’t have a track and field program until 2011.
That once-purple track surface has faded over the years into a bleached lavender. Several large cracks spread in all directions, and small ridges have emerged where the surface has swollen and squeezed together.
Highlands’ women’s soccer team uses the soccer field at Memorial Middle School for training and competitions, according to Blea.
The Cowgirls have only occasionally played home matches on campus because the NCAA and the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, of which Highlands is a member, have said in the past the field dimensions are too small.
“We are regularly assessing facilities to ensure student safety,” Blea wrote in the email.
NCAA and RMAC requirements call for a soccer field that is 70 to 74 yards wide. The Highlands field spans that width — but just barely.
The current configuration essentially makes the track too long in the straightaways. Any renovation would widen the curves and allow the turf field to expand outward at least a few yards in each direction.
The current outer edge of the soccer pitch is mere inches from the concrete lip that serves as a border between the turf and the track. It’s a tripping hazard, DeVries said, but something the athletes have learned to live with.
“It’s one of those Northern New Mexico things where they say, ‘We’ll just have to deal with it and figure things out on our own,’ ” he said.
Manzanares said he explored several quick fixes that never materialized due to a lack of funding, including rolling out extra turf to cover the concrete lip and a few lanes of track.
In the end, the university’s soccer team has played most of its home matches off campus. Some were played at the city of Santa Fe’s Municipal Recreation Complex, but most were at the nearby middle school made famous as a filming location for the 1980s movie Red Dawn.
“That’s such a terrible spot for a college soccer game,” Manzanares said. “I mean, come on. It got to where we just had to tell the RMAC we were going go play at home because the field was technically big enough. Barely.”
Actions never requested
Highlands officials who drafted the March 13 response to the safety project’s rejection were requesting several “immediate actions” from the state. Though, the requests never reached their destination.
Along with reconsideration of the project and expedited approval, it asks the Governor’s Office to direct the Higher Education Department to “issue written guidance” clarifying that the “five-year plan priority ordering system governs state capital outlay funding recommendations and does not operate as a precondition for approval of privately funded safety projects.”
It also asks the Legislative Finance Committee to seek a list of privately funded projects the Higher Education Department has rejected or delayed based on the priority ordering system.
Citing concerns about potential litigation over student injuries, it requests that the Risk Management Division open a “formal file on this matter,” and asks that the higher education secretary inform the State Board of Finance the safety project was blocked “so that the Board is not operating without awareness of the liability posture should this matter require further escalation.”
“These are not hypothetical harms,” the memo states, referring to student injuries. “They are documented and present harms that the institution identified, reported through proper channels, and attempted to remediate with a privately funded project. The Committee was told about these injuries. It denied the project anyway.”
Federal actions caused ‘significant strain’ on New Mexico veterans’ agency, report says - Matthew Mondschein, Source New Mexico
The Trump administration’s federal hiring freeze and deferred resignation program caused staffing vacancies and increased patient wait times at the New Mexico Veterans Affairs Healthcare System last year, according to an independent oversight agency.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ Office of the Inspector General inspected the Raymond G. Murphy VA Medical Center in Albuquerque from Feb. 3-5 and published its findings on Aug. 26. The medical center serves as the hub of the New Mexico VA Healthcare System that provides primary and specialty care for New Mexico and Colorado veterans and their families. The facility treated 84,000 patients last year, according to the report.
Executive leaders at the Albuquerque facility told inspectors that federal policy changes, such as the government-wide hiring freeze and return-to-office mandate last year, caused vacancies at the facility and “stressed the effects of fewer nurses, anesthesiologists, and interventional cardiologists (who perform invasive cardiac procedures),” the report said.
The report found that 75 of the facility’s 300 patient beds were not operational in the past year, largely due to staff losses and a slow hiring process. As a result, the VA medical center was unable to perform certain specialty care and surgeries, such as surgery for heart attacks.
Last year, the VA announced its plan to reduce staff by 30,000 federal workers through hiring freezes, deferred resignations and voluntary early retirement. The hiring freeze was lifted in January, but at least one member of New Mexico’s federal delegation has expressed concern over the current state of the VA.
“Existing VA staffing shortages are already causing delays for surgeries, making it hard to access mental health care, and devastating morale for providers, employees, and veterans,” U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez (D-N.M.) wrote in a letter to VA Secretary Doug Collins on Wednesday. According to Vasquez’s letter, 172 VA staff in New Mexico were cut.
Workers at the Albuquerque VA medical facility told the Inspector General that they stayed “because they believe in the VA’s purpose and the importance of serving veterans.” When asked what would make them leave, 43% responded with stress due to burnout, the report said.
Patient advocates told the Office of the Inspector General that care coordination and “difficulty reaching community care employees by phone” were the top complaints from veterans receiving healthcare services. These complaints, New Mexico VA executive leaders told the OIG, were also “related to overall staffing issues.”
Despite federal cuts, the report notes that veterans largely remain supportive of VA healthcare. According to a survey conducted by the VA, 94% of New Mexico veterans receiving care at the facility said that they trust the VA to care for them.
“The score still indicates that veterans trust the facility and have confidence in the care provided,” the OIG wrote.
After recent ICE arrests, Santa Fe to consider new measures protecting immigrants – Santa Fe New Mexican
Santa Fe Mayor Michael Garcia says he wants the city to have the “strongest” immigrant protections in the state, even if it means getting sued by the federal government.
The Santa Fe New Mexican reports Garcia made the comments following a recent string of arrests in Santa Fe by federal immigration authorities.
Some policy options could be introduced at Wednesday evening’s meeting of the Santa Fe city council. The New Mexican reports that three proposals are expected to go before councillors for an initial review. One would prohibit U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials from using city property to stage raids.
Each proposal is scheduled for detailed consideration at the city Immigration Committee’s next meeting on Sept. 14. Measures would then go back to the council for a final vote on Sept. 30.
