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Bulletin report
The state of New Mexico will not have enough money to balance its budget, so members of the State Legislature are back in Santa Fe.
With less than a month to go before the general election when many New Mexico State Legislature seats are up for grabs, the state representatives and senators have been called back for a special session.
Gov. Susana convened the special session to address the budget shortfall and to also try and have the death penalty reinstated.
The governor’s proclamation to announce the new session reports: “Unavoidable and significant decreases in oil and nature gas prices resulted in a decline in energy production and employment losses that negatively impacted,” the amount of taxes collected by the state.
Thus, budget projects point to the fact the state faces a “significant” shortfall in the 2016 and 2017 fiscal years.
Some of the actions the governor has called for include: transferring money from the Tobacco Settlement Permanent Fund to the fiscal 2016 and ’17 appropriation accounts of the general fund and for the State Board of Finance to issue severance tax bonds.
In addition, Martinez has called for a bill to reinstate the death penalty in New Mexico and also a bill to make life imprisonment the punishment for intentional child abuse resulting in the death of a child, irrespective of the child’s age.
