State agencies are proposing new budgets to lawmakers ahead of next month’s legislative session. Environment Secretary James Kenney is seeking a more than $9 million increase in recurring funds. He told KUNM about the request and the risks he sees to lawmakers not meeting it.
JAMES KENNEY: The budget requests this year goes to two basic components of the Environment Department. One, and most importantly, our people. $6.2 million for properly compensating the men and women who work at the New Mexico Environment Department. And two,- for our locations that are all throughout the state of New Mexico, twenty some offices. It would be for paying those leases so we can continue to serve in the communities in which we operate.
KUNM: What has it looked like to not have that $9 million?
KENNEY: You know, if you don't have proper compensation, then you feel devalued in your career. And who wants to come to work every day feeling devalued? Yet we do. We hold polluters accountable, we check to make sure drinking water is safe, we fight to make sure that the air quality is getting better, not worse. So, some of the basic things that we do in this department are done by underpaid civil servants. And then secondly, when you look at our leases, this year we had to shut down one office in Deming. Not because it wasn't functional but because we didn't have the money to pay for all of our leases. And you can't get a restaurant permit or a temporary event permit in rural New Mexico unless you come into one of our offices. Imagine driving two hours one direction just to get a food permit. It's unsustainable.
KUNM: Last year, the Legislative Finance Committee proposed a substantially smaller agency budget than what you requested. Is there any sense of whether the Legislature is more in line with your department and the Governor's Office this year?
KENNEY: Very much so. I have commitments — not just during the budget season, by the way, but throughout the year — that they want to focus on making the Environment Department whole. I think we'll start to get a sense of whether they're going to meet me where I am and where the governor is, or am I going to have to go through a 30-day slog of arguing for every dollar? You know, most of our budget is federal budget. So, EPA, Department of Labor for OSHA, FDA for our food program, Department of Energy for our hazardous waste program. In all of those federally funded programs, we have letters stating that "your federal funding is at risk." And they're not threatening, but they're saying the expectation of running a federal program, and us being partners, is that you actually pay for some of this. We're in jeopardy of losing more federal funds unless we bring more money into this agency.
KUNM: The requests that you are bringing to the Legislature this year, would it sufficiently meet the needs that are being called for by these federal agencies?
KENNEY: If we're making our employees whole, then we are in a much better place to be successful with those federal dollars than if we don't get that money. I would just add one other piece. After we submitted our budget request on September 1, and we had calculated that $6.2 million was the number that we needed to make our employees whole, the union that represents most of our employees filed a grievance saying that we were committing effectively unfair labor practices because we're not paying people sufficiently. So, there is sort of a backstop here. And if we don't make our employees whole, we have the union focusing in on what course of action they could be afforded should the Legislature and state government not properly compensate the employees. Do we want an Environment Department that's highly functional, protecting New Mexicans, bringing in more federal dollars? Or do we want an agency that's tied up in litigation and barely able to function? That's not the agency I want to run whatsoever. I don't think that's the agency that any elected official in the Legislature wants to see happen either. So, I think we're going to see good partnership with the Legislature in fixing the New Mexico Environment Department once and for all.
