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Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Wednesday signed the state budget for Fiscal Year 2023, making record investments in education, public safety, quality of life improvements and social support services, benefiting New Mexicans in every corner of the state. Highlights of the enacted budget include:
“This budget makes transformative investments exactly where they’re needed: from historic raises for New Mexico educators and growing the country’s most expansive tuition-free college program to creating a new fund to hire public safety officers and unprecedented funding to fight food insecurity,” said Gov. Lujan Grisham. “We are taking full advantage of this unprecedented opportunity to strategically and meaningfully build upon our progress to lift up every New Mexico family.”
Totaling nearly $8.5 billion, the budget for the year beginning July 1, 2023 increases annual recurring state spending by fourteen percent while maintaining nearly 29 percent of recurring expenditures in reserves, continuing to prioritize fiscal responsibility while making transformative investments.
The governor also signed legislation on Wednesday making capital appropriations, reauthorizing prior capital outlay allocations, and approving general obligation bonds (Senate Bill 212, Senate Bill 213, and House Bill 153). SB 212, the capital outlay bill, funds over $827 million in projects across the state, including $246 million in state agency capital projects. The bill also funds over $114 million for law enforcement and public safety projects, over $124 million for public schools, over $27 million for higher education institutions, over $55 million for water and irrigation projects, over $46 million for roads and highways, over $18 million for behavioral health facilities, and over $16 million for housing projects, as well as an additional $20 million to update the state Veterans Home in Truth or Consequences and an additional $20 million for the establishment of a state media academy.