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New Mexico voters gave county boards more power by enacting a state constitutional amendment allowing county commissions to set the salaries for themselves and other elected county officials.
Unofficial election results show that 520,053 New Mexicans (about 66 percent of the vote) approved the measure, while 271,935 (about 33 percent) opposed it. In Doña Ana County, 51,482 residents voted to approve (about 69 percent), while 22,851 (about 30 percent) voted against.
The New Mexico Constitution now reads: “The legislature shall classify the counties of the state. No county officer shall receive any fees or emoluments other than an annual salary, as established by the board of county commissioners. All fees collected by a county official shall be paid into the treasury of the county.”
Arguments presented in support of the amendment assert that changes would provide more local control and allow counties to recruit better-qualified candidates.
Arguments against the amendment asserted that it could lead to wildly different salaries for sheriffs, clerks and other officials while removing a degree of oversight. Moreover, county commissioners are now totally empowered to set their salaries, which could lead to abuse.
There is some degree of constitutional protection on the latter point.
The state constitution prohibits elected officials from receiving more or less compensation during their term. So, if a county commission wants to raise commissioners’ salaries, those raises would not go into effect until after each official survived an election challenge.
Before this amendment, the state legislature set the salaries of county clerks, commissioners, treasurers and sheriffs, with larger counties with a population paying better.
According to documents from the New Mexico Legislative Council Service, this system has its roots in the territorial days.
Before statehood, the state paid county officials based on each official action. A clerk might collect fees for each oath of office administered or a sheriff for each warrant served. That changed with the state's first constitution.
