Merilee Dannemann 2-20 on

Site Content

merilee dannemann 2-20-23 on

Libraries can be political targets

By Merilee Dannemann

Triple Spaced Again

Communities cherish their local libraries. We count on them not only for books but for music, movies, access to computers and other services. We are so used to them that we often take them for granted.

But recently, libraries have become embroiled in the so-called culture war.

There’s no controversy about the small rural libraries throughout New Mexico. There are more than 50 such libraries, from Chama and Questa to Glenwood and Lordsburg, and including several pueblos. Many are located outside any municipality, with no municipal government to support them. They are nonprofits, sustained primarily by community members and functioning as multipurpose community centers. They are linked through the New Mexico Rural Library Initiative.

A new documentary film celebrates these libraries. It’s titled “Library Stories: Books on the Backroads,” by filmmakers Ben Daitz and Mary Lance, and was recently aired on New Mexico PBS. It shows how central these libraries are to their communities.

The state now has an endowment fund for them. According to Sen. Jerry Ortiz y Pino, who sponsored some of the legislation, the goal is to reach $52 million, so each library will have access to the income from about $1 million – maybe $40,000 to $50,000 each year – and therefore can count on a base of funding. The fund is more than halfway there, with $28 million at the last count. The controversy has arisen at a couple of our larger urban libraries. A movement started in other states has reached New Mexico.

In Los Alamos and Rio Rancho, individuals have made public objections to the presence of specific books in public libraries. The targeted books were primarily related to LGBTQ or gender diversity.

In Rio Rancho, instead of following the customary procedure, the book challengers skipped the library board and went straight to the City Council. One speaker claimed he had tried to approach the library board, but a meeting was canceled.

Many more local residents were present to oppose the book ban than the four who requested it. The council did not support the book ban request.

The significance of these events was explained in a recent presentation to New Mexico Press Women by librarian Deirdre Caparoso. She is a research librarian at the UNM Health Sciences Center Library and chair of the Intellectual Freedom Committee for the New Mexico Library Association.As Caparoso explained, librarians are aware and prepared for challenges to books. Libraries have policies, committees and formal procedures to address challenges or complaints about specific books or other media.

The American Library Association’s website says, “Under the best professional standards, reconsideration policies ask those charged with reviewing a challenged book to set aside their personal beliefs and evaluate the work in light of the objective standards outlined in the library’s materials selection policy.”

Caparoso said challenges to books are coming almost exclusively from the political right and, as in other states, are largely directed at LGBTQ and race-related subjects. It may be frustrating for some conservatives, but the reality is that gender-diverse individuals have the same right to relevant literary materials as everyone else.

A new report by the Anti-Defamation League and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation documents that incidents of harassment and assault against LGBTQ and other marginalized groups are on the rise in most states. Fortunately, the numbers for these reports are low in New Mexico.

I’m reminded as I look at this report that books in a library are a gentle way to introduce sympathetic awareness of marginalized groups to those who might never meet members of those groups in person. It’s one of the reasons we value our libraries.

Contact Merilee Dannemann through www.triplespacedagain.com.

An earlier version of this column mistakenly identified Gail Armstrong as an Albuquerque Republican. This is the corrected version. The mistake was made in editing.

Tragedies continue at CYFD

By Merilee Dannemann

Triple Spaced Again

How has New Mexico’s Children, Youth and Families Department gotten it so tragically wrong so many times? Don’t you wonder?

A recent special report by KOAT television highlighted the story of four-year-old James Dunklee Cruz, beaten to death by his mother’s male roommate after numerous previous incidents had been documented. He had been sent back to his mother’s home by CYFD multiple times, even though there were loving relatives who wanted to take him. Those who speak for CYFD have not answered the simple question: Why did they send him back?

A recent news report said Rep. Gail Armstrong, R-Magdalena, became so frustrated at a committee hearing that CYFD staff could not answer simple statistical questions that she walked out of the meeting.

Apparently the requirement to keep cases confidential has been followed to the extreme by CYFD. Armstrong told me confidentiality was the reason given for an incident in which CYFD officials deleted text messages.

Writing about CYFD a few months ago, I highlighted the priority given to keeping families together. Public policy – not just in New Mexico – places a high value on keeping children with parents because evidence shows children are deeply traumatized by being removed from their parents. But what we seem not to know, because nobody’s answering the question, is where CYFD draws the line between leaving the child with an incompetent parent and determining that in a particular case the risk is too great.

In other words, what the heck is CYFD’s policy?

New Mexico law says the safety and health of the child come first.

Rep. Marian Matthews, D-Albuquerque, says the language of the state Children’s Code is clear – and it looks clear to me – but Matthews keeps hearing that other people either are confused or think family preservation has higher priority. Regardless, we don’t know what CYFD believes because nobody will say.

The annotation for a 1987 appellate case says, “Best interests of children is paramount consideration. Parents do not have an absolute right to their children, for any right is secondary to the best interests and welfare of the children.”

Within the child welfare profession, it is understood that when a child is left with problem parents, social services involvement must be intensive; that could mean daily visits by a social worker. New Mexico has a few private nonprofit organizations that provide a high level of support for clients, but they all have limited capacity. If CYFD has been providing the necessary degree of intervention, it’s another part of the story that is not being disclosed. But that’s very unlikely; we know there is not nearly enough professional staff.

In several of our dreadfully tragic cases, the perpetrator was a live-in boyfriend who was not the child’s father. That, to point out the obvious, is not family unification. That person is not a family member. If the boyfriend – or any household member, for that matter – has behaved badly toward a small child, does CYFD have the authority to require that he (or she) be barred from the household as a condition of keeping the child?

Who is family anyway? In the Children’s Code I could not find a definition of the word “family.” James Cruz’s aunt and grandfather looked like they might qualify as family. Maybe we need a definition in the statute.

Legislators have been working on this issue for several years. The plan proposed in our recent legislative session – an independent Office of Child Advocate located outside CYFD – seems like the best available next step toward a solution. The office would have to be empowered to have full access to confidential files. The bill to create that office almost made it through the legislature this year.

It is past time for a special or extraordinary legislative session to get this under control.

Contact Merilee Dannemann through www.triplespacedagain.com.

A welcome relief on gross receipts tax

By Merilee Dannemann

Triple Spaced Again

New Mexico doctors got a bit of relief in an amendment to the tax law enacted this past session. Doctors have had to pay New Mexico gross receipts tax on co-pays and deductibles -- the portion of the bill paid by the patient. That was eliminated by this law.

It used to be worse. Until the late 1990s, we required gross receipts also on the portion paid by the insurance company. A 2022 report by the New Mexico Medical Society said New Mexico is one of only 4 states that tax medical services in any way (the others are Ohio, Michigan and Hawaii). That darn gross receipts tax. It keeps making life harder for business, including the business of health care.

It has also been a blessing. Because it taxes so many things, it does not depend on a single economic trend. Therefore it keeps revenue stable so the state can rely on it to fund essential services. Among governments, that is enviable.

This tax originated during the Depression era as the “emergency school tax” at rates around 2%. It was applied to retail sales of both tangible property and services, spread out broadly so everybody paid a little, including professionals like doctors, lawyers and accountants. The logic was, as explained recently by tax expert Jim O’Neill, that people in every occupation send their children to school, so everyone should all contribute.

The tax was updated extensively in the 1960s, but major problems remained. We taxed services that were not taxed in other states, making New Mexico uncompetitive. Medical practices cannot pass the tax on to the customer – they have to absorb it.

We taxed tangibles sold from one business to another business to produce a consumer product. That’s called tax pyramiding, and the business community has been pleading for years with the Legislature to fix it.

Somewhere in there, we started making exemptions. After all, what would you pay a lobbyist for if not to convince legislators that you are a special case and get you an exemption? In the statute (Chapter 7, Article 9) the specific exemptions start at paragraph 12 and run through paragraph 41.4, followed by deductions, which run through paragraph 114. That’s about 100 exemptions, some of them very detailed and difficult to administer.

Today the tax is no longer levied equally on everybody but riddled with exemptions. Therefore the rate is much higher than the originators intended. It’s easy to make the argument that it’s unfair or even immoral to tax a certain item. That’s how we made an exemption for the tax on food. How can any state justify taxing food?

But a portion of gross receipts tax revenue goes to the local municipality where the purchase was made. In some small towns, the only retail business is a convenience store. The food tax exemption has been devastating for them. Legislators know that but have not devised a permanent fix.

How to reform our tax system is a great puzzle. It pits two opposing concepts against each other. On the one hand, taxation should be fair and spread out widely so no group is overburdened. On the other hand, virtually every interest group can make the argument that it deserves an exception.

If anything merits a new exemption, it’s medical services. New Mexico does not have enough doctors, and our medical care has been suffering as a result. We’ve been losing doctors for several years, as they choose to work in states with a more doctor-friendly economic climate.

This does not solve all the doctors’ tax problems, but it’s a welcome relief.

Contact Merilee Dannemann through www.triplespacedagain.com.

Stopping the shooter

By Merilee Dannemann

Triple Spaced Again

If teenager Beau Wilson – now forever labeled the Farmington mass murderer – had been behaving erratically, and a relative or friend had noticed and had sought help from law enforcement, what might law enforcement have done?

If a friend or family member had been concerned about the houseful of firearms he had access to, or the assault weapon he purchased several months ago, or the three magazines for that weapon he purchased a few days before his murderous rampage, and had asked for help, what might law enforcement have done?

We don’t know. But a declaration had been made, three years ago. Farmington declared itself by city council resolution in 2020 to be a Second Amendment sanctuary. So did San Juan County. The county sheriff, Shane Ferrari, declared publicly multiple times he would not enforce a red flag law. In 2019, when the law was under consideration, he said so in a letter to the governor on behalf of the New Mexico Sheriffs’ Association. Today, prominent on the association’s website is a letter supporting that position.

On the other hand, as of last year Farmington Police Chief Steve Hebbe had reportedly filed two red flag petitions that were granted.

New Mexico’s red flag law, officially the Extreme Risk Firearm Protection Order Act, was enacted in 2020. It says that if you are worried about possible gun violence from a person who possesses firearms, and you fit the definition (such as a relative), you can ask law enforcement to file a petition with a judge to take away the person’s guns. You must persuade the officer that this person is dangerous to himself or others. Then the officer has to convince the judge. The person has the right to a hearing.

The Farmington Daily Times reported in 2020 that “San Juan County Sheriff Shane Ferrari has stated his office will not enforce the law despite the governor warning sheriffs that the law must be enforced or they should resign.”The Albuquerque Journal reported last year in a copyrighted story that the red flag law in New Mexico had only been used nine times statewide since 2020.

I wrote last year: “If a judge grants the order, the law requires the sheriff to take away that person’s guns. That’s what 26 sheriffs said they would not do. If you know your sheriff won’t take the guns away, why would you go through the painful process of asking? Just because he threatened to murder his ex-girlfriend or shoot up his former classroom? The judge who would hear this case would probably be your own district judge, elected by you and your neighbors just as the sheriff was elected by you and your neighbors.”

Wilson was 18 and in the high school graduating class. There are reports about serious family issues, but we probably will never know exactly what motivated him to take this terrible action on the eve of what might have been his high school graduation. We just know he bought three AR-15 magazines.

At the news conference on May 16, the mayor, the FBI spokesperson and several officers praised and thanked all the responders for their swift and decisive action. No doubt the heroics were genuine and the praise and thanks were deserved, for the wounded officers and all the rest, who ended the incident within 10 minutes of the first 911 call.

Wilson was stopped after only three people were killed. No, four, including himself. Countless lives were saved, the mayor said. Maybe the death toll could have been zero.

Police Chief Hebbe told the public about the three magazines in a follow-up news conference on May 17.

But apparently nobody was alarmed enough about a kid buying assault weapon magazines to ask for help.

Contact Merilee Dannemann through www.triplespacedagain.com.

Cannabis is not without risk

By Merilee Dannemann

Triple Spaced Again

New Mexico has passed the one-year anniversary of legalizing recreational adult-use marijuana. The news releases were bursting with excitement. Government and business leaders were celebrating, saying the industry is off to a great start.

These announcements focused only on the business side – lots of money, lots of tax revenue – not mentioning the effects on New Mexico consumers.In one year, New Mexico had $300 million in adult-use cannabis sales. The state issued around 2,000 cannabis licenses, including 633 retailers, 351 producers, 415 micro producers, and 507 manufacturers.

Cannabis retailers pay both New Mexico gross receipts tax and excise tax. The state is collecting more than $2.5 million a month from these taxes. The excise tax is 12% until July 1, 2025, and then gradually rises to 18%.

Unnoticed in the news reports, cannabis shops have apparently been a boon to commercial landlords. Until recently, strip malls were pockmarked with payday loan shops. We just outlawed high-rate payday lending, but we unintentionally saved the landlords, replacing those loan stores with cannabis shops.

Excuse me, not shops. We made marijuana respectable by changing its name to cannabis, and upscaled the stores by calling them dispensaries. Just like when we legalized gambling and changed its name to gaming.Cannabis has good sides and bad sides, and we should not forget about the bad sides.

It seemed, in the news coverage of the anniversary, nobody was talking about the moral hazard of giving full legal status to an intoxicating drug.

In April the New Mexico Department of Transportation hosted a conference cleverly titled, “High on the road: The intersection of recreational cannabis and traffic safety.” DOT is taking this seriously. It had reported that in 2021, before cannabis was legal, New Mexico had 71 driving deaths in which cannabis was involved. (Cannabis was not necessarily the cause. Cannabis traces stay in the body for many days, and that makes measurements unreliable.)

Impaired driving is not the only bad effect. So are stupid behavior and impaired decision-making, which are not measured. So is the increased possibility of workplace injury.

When New Mexico legalized gambling, in 1996, there was considerable debate about whether our citizens might fall prey to the dangerous temptations of gambling. Gov. Bruce King refused to sign the legislation, which was a factor in his losing the 1994 election to Gary Johnson.

Did a few people develop a gambling addiction that otherwise would not have occurred? Yes. Did a few people gamble away their family savings? Yes.

Did a few people commit crimes to cover their gambling losses? Yes.

Retired dentist Guy Clark, chairman of Stop Predatory Gambling, has been a lone voice continuing to remind us of the social costs of gambling, calling it “an addictive and self-harming activity …. correlated with suicide, child and spouse abuse, and homelessness.”

There has been ongoing pressure to expand what gambling venues are authorized to do. For example, a bill was introduced to legalize sports betting at racinos in 2021. It was defeated, suggesting that legislators share some concern.

It was also noted that gambling would not draw much tourism. Revenue would come mostly from locals, who otherwise might have spent their money on other local entertainment – so it might be economically neutral.

Likewise, it appears our cannabis customers are mostly local. We really don’t know whether the revenue is a net gain for the state. The probable exception is a few communities near Texas that are doing exceptionally strong business.

The state should be tracking all of this so eventually we can find out what legal cannabis is doing to us. And we need a cannabis version of Guy Clark reminding us that this stuff has risks.

Contact Merilee Dannemann through www.triplespacedagain.com.

Legislative salaries range from high to almost zero

By Merilee Dannemann

On a recent episode of the PBS TV show “New Mexico in Focus,” a panelist used the phrase “full time” in talking about a salaried legislature. This was the latest confirmation that when New Mexicans talk about a salaried legislature, most of us don’t know what we’re talking about.

I wrote about the legislative policies of several other states a few weeks ago. None of those states has a “full time” legislature.

Can we please stop all the boo-hooing about being the only state that doesn’t pay legislators a salary and have an informed conversation?

To make sense of a potential legislative salary, we should understand what legislators do and how much time they spend doing it, and then think rationally about what we might want them to do that they are not doing now.

Every state except New Mexico pays legislators a salary, but most are nowhere near “full time.” The National Council on State Legislatures describes 5 categories of legislatures.

· Full-time, well paid, large staff: four states, the high-population states of California, New York, Pennsylvania and Michigan.
· Full time Lite: six states, Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio, Alaska, Hawaii, Massachusetts.

For those ten states, time on the job averages 84 percent of a full time job; compensation averages around $82,000. NCSL counts campaigning as time on the job. The total compensation estimate includes per diem (pay toward expenses such as hotel costs) and other expense payments. The other 40 states are categorized as part-time, low pay, small staff; part-time lite; and Hybrid. There are 14 states, including New Mexico, in the low-pay category.

Legislators spend 47% of their time on legislative matters, says NCSL, and the average compensation is around $18,000. That figure includes per diem.New Mexico is not necessarily the lowest.

Our current per diem rate is $210, so legislators will have received $12,600 for the recent 60-day session. The same rate is paid for attending interim committees, so some New Mexico legislators will probably come close to that $18,000, depending on how many days they attend interim committees. The rate is based on the IRS expense rate for Santa Fe.

Most of them spend some of that money on lodging in Santa Fe and in whichever city the interim committees meet. A few don’t have to. It is not an accident that many legislative leaders over the years have lived in Santa Fe. Indexing the per diem and mileage rates to the IRS rates was adopted as a constitutional amendment in 1996. Prior to that, the per diem was a fixed dollar amount. To change the rate, a new constitutional amendment had to be passed by the state’s voters. Legislators hated having to ask the voters for a raise in the rate. The late Rep. George Buffett gleefully claimed credit for introducing the amendment that fixed the problem by linking per diem to the IRS rate. Total pay for New Mexico legislators might exceed that of Rhode Island, where legislator salary is $16,835 but no per diem is paid. None. Tiny Rhode Island measures 48 miles north to south and 37 miles east to west. But that doesn’t mean legislators have no expenses. They still could get stuck overnight in Providence in a snowstorm.

In the Hybrid states, NCSL estimates legislators spend 74% of their time on legislative business, and the average pay, salary plus whatever else is included, is around $41,000. Every state has written its own laws and rules, so no two states are exactly alike.

Whenever New Mexico decides to pay legislators a salary – which I believe we eventually will – we do not have to invent our rules from scratch. There are numerous models we can learn from.

Contact Merilee Dannemann through www.triplespacedagain.com

The new normal in feeding children

By Merilee Dannemann

Triple Spaced Again

If your children attend New Mexico schools, starting next school year you can decide whether to give them three meals a day or let the schools provide two of them.

The choice is yours, if you can afford it. It’s quite a shock how many parents apparently can’t. Senate Bill 4, passed and signed, will provide breakfast and lunch at public expense to every public school student and optionally to some private and tribal school students.

The motivation behind this bill, made explicit by sponsor Sen. Michael Padilla, D-Albuquerque, is that children should not just get their meals regardless of ability to pay. Children from low-income families should not have to be embarrassed by the bureaucratic process of qualifying for free meals. The law sets a few other ambitious goals.

It requires that the food be healthful, and we don’t yet know what that means. Standards will have to be adopted by the Public Education Department.

It requires that meals be culturally relevant, and somebody is going to have to define that.

It encourages, by means of incentives, the use of New Mexico-grown or -produced food products. It promotes elimination of food waste, first by requiring students in kindergarten through sixth grade to have up to 20 minutes of seated time to eat, so they have time to finish their meal, and second, by collecting unused food for use by food pantries, students, and other charitable organizations.

“Unused,” let’s assume, will mean food that was not served – not the leftovers on the plate. These additional goals are admirable, but they will add complication. I would not be surprised if they don’t get done, at least not right away.

A couple of questions jump out at us.

First, do we really want the taxpayers to pay for meals for students whose parents can afford it? It is a legitimate question to argue.

The Legislative Finance Committee staff, in the Fiscal Impact Report for the bill, said: “(D)ata shows that, proportionately, the majority of school meals served go to those who are in greatest need and qualify for federal reimbursement: 84 percent of school breakfasts served go to students qualifying for FRL (free or reduced-price lunch) and 81 percent of school lunches served go to students qualifying for FRL

. “Thus, only 16 percent of school breakfasts … and only 19 percent of school lunches go to students who fully pay for meals, demonstrating free and reduced-price school lunches and breakfasts are reaching the students who need them most.”

In other words, existing programs were already serving those who needed the support. The usually less opinionated LFC analysts noted that the state could save some money by continuing to charge those who can afford it.

On the other hand, we can sympathize with the desire to spare the feelings of low-income children. Perhaps, by not having to collect money from some students, the schools might eliminate an administrative headache. And there’s no harm in giving higher-income parents a break.

The other major question is a broader matter of community values.

Under this program, a generation of children is having a basic human need, food, supplied not by their parents but by their school. What they are experiencing as children they may pass on to another generation when they themselves become parents. It’s an uncomfortable prospect.

I’m angry that this is necessary. I’m angry that we have an economy in which parents, for whatever reason, are unable to put breakfast on the table before sending their children to school. Feed the children, first, of course. But we cannot be complacent about the economic and social forces that have brought us to this reality.

Contact Merilee Dannemann through www.triplespacedagain.com.

State legislative salaries vary widelyBy Merilee Dannemann

Triple Spaced Again

In 2021, Democratic members of the Texas House of Representatives left the state en masse to prevent a vote on a bill they opposed. After a couple of weeks, some told national media they had to get home. Not to the Legislature, they said, but to their jobs and businesses. They could not afford to stay away too long.

Their legislative salary is $7,200 for the year.

Texas also pays per diem ($221 per day), transportation cost for one roundtrip home each week, and mileage for airplanes (how very Texan). New Mexico pays mileage just for one round trip per legislative session and for travel to interim committees. (Per diem is to cover daily expenses.)

This year New Mexico legislators did not pass the bill to start the debate on whether to pay them salaries, and if so, how much and under what terms. But it’s coming.

New Mexicans have been whining that our state is the only one that does not pay legislators a salary. But there’s no clarity about what sort of salary we have in mind or what difference it would make.

Many New Mexicans may have unclear ideas about legislative salaries. They may assume that salary equals full time – that salaried legislators would devote themselves year round to legislative business. Most state legislatures don’t do that.

For comparison, I sent a brief questionnaire to the legislative staff offices of 10 western states. I received answers from Nevada, Idaho, Washington, Colorado and Arizona.

“Since legislators receive a salary, is it expected that this salary will be their only or primary source of earned income?” was the first question. They all said no. “We don’t pay much,” said Idaho. “Are legislators expected to work year-round full time on their legislative business?” All said their legislators don’t have to, but Colorado and Washington said some members do.

“Are they allowed by law to hold another job or profession or own a business?” All said yes, some with restrictions related to possible conflicts of interest.

The salary figures I found are: Idaho $18,875; Arizona $24,000; Colorado $40,242; Washington $57,876.

Nevada is different. It pays a daily salary of $164.69 for days worked in the legislative session, up to 60 days, though the session may go longer. Unless there is a special session, my arithmetic totals less than $10,000 for the year and would make Nevada the lowest paying of these states. But it adds a $10,000 travel allowance.

The Nevada writer commented: “Not surprisingly, most of our legislators have other jobs or are retired, which is why it is often referred to as a ‘citizen legislature.”

New Mexico also uses the term “citizen legislature.” So does Idaho.

The Colorado writer says most legislators work full time at their legislative jobs but most also earn other income.

Washington’s Salary Commission estimates that legislators’ work is part-time (roughly 75%). Arizona, Colorado and Idaho all pay four to five times more money in per diem for legislators who live more than 50 miles from the state capitol than those who live within 50 miles.

New Mexico pays per diem equally to all legislators. The late Sen. Ken Kamerman (my husband) grumbled about this to me privately. Legislators who live in Santa Fe enjoy the comforts of home and don’t need hotel rooms but get full per diem anyway.

These are a few of the subjects New Mexico will be debating soon.

I found the answers from the five states so informative that I posted the complete text on my web site www.triplespacedagain.com. Legislative salary advocates and policy wonks like me are welcome to visit. Contact Merilee Dannemann through www.triplespacedagain.com.

Reinventing the state school board

By Merilee Dannemann

Triple Spaced Again

Something we New Mexicans are not good at: electing officials for certain powerful statewide commissions. Our track record is abysmal. We have elected people who have disappointed us over and over.

So it’s curious that legislators tried to reinvent the State Board of Education, the one we got rid of. Today we have a cabinet secretary appointed by the governor, the result of years of frustration with that previous structure. Senate Joint Resolution 1 attempted to recreate something that looks very much like that old board. The resolution passed the Senate almost unanimously but missed final passage in the House.

It would have been a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot in 2024.

The new board would take us back before 2003.

We had a state school board, with 10 members elected by district. Most New Mexicans had no idea what the board did. The job did not attract exciting candidates.

Since we were dissatisfied with this board’s performance, we amended the state constitution to add five members appointed by the governor. But that didn’t solve the problem. We editorialized thunderously that the board had no accountability for results, so in 2003 we amended the constitution again and abolished the whole structure, replacing it with the current Public Education Department and a cabinet secretary appointed by the governor. So we could hold the governor accountable, we said. But we’re still frustrated by our poor progress in improving education.

Under the old structure, we had a State Superintendent of Public Instruction appointed by that board. Those superintendents were competent professionals, some of whom stayed around for years.

Under Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham the office door of the secretary of education has been revolving so fast our heads are spinning. Maybe this is why legislators want to go back to the old system. However, that was not happening under our previous governor, whose appointee, the infamous Hanna Skandera, stayed from 2011 to 2017, with most of the education establishment rebelling against her the entire time.

Here’s an option the legislators are not talking about, and perhaps have not thought of. Focus not on the boards or commissions but on the executives they hire. Amend the law so certain cabinet secretaries and other top managers cannot be fired automatically when a new governor takes office.

For comparison: New Mexico had a famous state engineer named Steve Reynolds who served, astonishingly, from 1955 until his death in 1990. When Reynolds started, governors’ terms were two years. He had to be reappointed and confirmed every term, and he was.

Reynolds’ policies were not without controversy but he was unquestionably an expert. In evaluating his tenure, perhaps we can consider not whether he was good or bad, but whether the consistent leadership of a critical state agency was better for the state than revolving-door changes of leaders. When I was a state employee, I saw firsthand that every change of agency head disrupts progress, wastes money and often spurs the most knowledgeable and competent employees to leave.

This approach was tried by the 1990 workers' compensation task force. It tried to create politics-free leadership by giving the director of the Workers' Compensation Administration a five-year term. That lasted for one term, with director Jerry Stuyvesant, an internationally recognized expert. Since then, every governor has ignored the law. Directors have not been experts, have resigned when the governor’s term ended, and have never been asked to stay on.

Suppose we were to enact a law that new governors cannot fire certain cabinet secretaries during their first year in office. That might be a wacky idea, but we have tried everything else.

Contact Merilee Dannemann through www.triplespacedagain.com.

Governing the school boards

By Merilee Dannemann

Triple Spaced Again

Years ago, as a young reporter in Taos, I was assigned to interview candidates for the local school board. This was considered a booby prize for the new kid in the newsroom.

Most candidates had no major policy positions and claimed to be qualified because of how much they loved children. The election process made no sense to me until someone whispered that school board members controlled the hiring of cafeteria and custodial workers, which, I was told, were the real power centers in the schools – teachers being barely relevant.

As technology and new regulations have increased demands on school districts, there have been attempts to upgrade the qualifications of board members. Another such attempt is in the works now. It’s House Bill 325 (Natalie Figueroa, D-Albuquerque; Patricia Lundstrom, D-Gallup; and Susan Herrera, D-Embudo).

The only statutory requirement to serve on a school board – still – is to be a New Mexico qualified elector residing in the district.

Existing law allows the Public Education Department to suspend a school board. That has been done recently, including the Floyd board when it refused to follow COVID-19 safety restrictions. HB325 would allow PED to suspend individual members, but only after consulting with the elected Public Education Commission. PED analysis says that requirement renders this power virtually useless because the commission meets so infrequently.

Law already requires board members to undergo five hours per year of training.

HB325 expands the requirement and enumerates topics that must be covered. The list includes budgeting, public school finance, laws and regulations affecting schools, open meetings and open records, and other items that you might think should have been required long ago.

Finally, HB325 goes high-tech, requiring school board meetings to be live-streamed, with recordings archived on the website for five years.

This provision is very hip and 21st century, but overlooks a much more basic part of public transparency: Minutes. Written, published minutes, summarizing briefly, clearly and officially what the board did. Quick to read, as essential as ever, and nowhere to be found.

For the public, video recordings of hours-long meetings are almost useless unless the person seeking information has plenty of time or knows exactly where to look. With written minutes, information can be found almost immediately.

Minutes must be produced and approved, under the Open Meetings law, but there is no requirement to publish them. Few districts post board minutes online. I discovered this by hunting in vain on several school district websites.

The New Mexico School Boards Association publishes an in-depth policy manual (300-plus pages) for school boards that includes a detailed, helpful description of how minutes are to be written. The manual is a model, which districts can choose to adopt – or not. Several of the largest districts seem not to have adopted it. Maybe they just did not post the manual.

Section B-2100 of the manual says: “The summary of minutes shall be filed with the Board Secretary and shall be a public record open to inspection of the public and a copy thereof shall be mailed to each and every legal newspaper published in the county for such use as such newspaper may see fit.”

Mailed. A bit outdated, don’t you think?

Being able to review the minutes is one way to check whether all that new training required by HB325 (if it passes) will improve the quality of boards’ decision-making. That’s our right as citizens. So next year let’s update the Open Meetings Law.

Meanwhile, kudos to the Santa Fe school district for posting its minutes, which are comprehensive, well written, easy to find and only eight months behind.

Contact Merilee Dannemann through www.triplespacedagain.com.

Educator benefits move in Legislature

By Merilee Dannemann

Triple Spaced Again

New Mexico needs more teachers. And we want them to stay around so our schools can benefit as their experience increases.

This year we’re finding at least one new way to pay them more.

One bill has school districts paying all or most of the health insurance for all education employees. HB102 sailed through its first two committees with only two members voting no.

In its analysis, the Legislative Education Study Committee argues with itself about whether this subsidy is a more effective way to keep employees happy, compared to simply raising their salaries by an equivalent amount.

“While requiring employers to cover a larger share of health insurance premiums will help to increase take-home pay for school …employees, there is little evidence that an increase (in) compensation related to health insurance plans is more effective than providing an equivalent increase in employee salary,” says the analysis.

One possible advantage of this method, however, compared to salary, is that it might encourage school employees who haven’t enrolled to do so or to opt for higher value coverage, ensuring that health care can be funded, which in turn might possibly have a beneficial effect on the health care system as a whole.

Another bill acknowledges that teachers are not the only vital employees in schools. HB127 proposes to increase the pay of teaching assistants, from the current statutory minimum of $12,000 to a new minimum of $25,000.

This bill passed the same two committees with zero negative votes.

There are roughly 5,400 educational assistants in public schools in New Mexico. LESC analysis says most of them earn well above that $12,000 statutory minimum but less than the proposed $25,000. The analysis said there were 446 educational assistant vacancies as of September 2022, representing 33.2 percent of all educator vacancies.

If HB127 is enacted but HB102 isn’t, some of those assistants will pay more for health insurance because they will move to a category that receives a smaller subsidy. I’m betting HB102 will pass and the assistants won’t have that worry.

And thank goodness, somebody is paying attention to health insurance for these workers after they retire.

Retired state and local government employees (including me), as well as education employees, are eligible to participate in the Retiree Health Care Authority (RHCA), which offers several group health options and provides insurance at subsidized rates. Active employees and their employers pay for this subsidy through a small payroll deduction. There are currently 65,000 participating members and 90,000 contributing employees.

HB150 proposes to increase the payroll deduction for employees and the matching contribution for employers. For most employees the proposed increase is one-third of one percent.

RHCA has been underfunded from its inception. When it was created, in 1990, it was required to start providing benefits almost immediately but was not given seed money or time to build up its fund first. There has always been a struggle to maintain long-term solvency.

As of June 30, 2022, according to LFC analysis, total liabilities were $3.5 billion, while assets were $1.2 billion, for a 33.3% funded ratio. Precarious as that ratio is, it’s a big improvement over past years and represents years of effort by RHCA’s board.

HB 150 also passed its first committee with zero negative votes.

All three bills were sent to the House Appropriation and Finance Committee. They probably will sit for a time while the staff number-crunchers do the arithmetic of figuring the total costs of the entire budget. Then they likely will be merged into the big budget bills, and large numbers of New Mexico workers will be a little bit better off.

Contact Merilee Dannemann through www.triplespacedagain.com.

Site Content

merilee dannemann 2-20-23 on

This website uses cookies.