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Smoothing out the capital outlay process

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

Wesley Billingsley will soon be able to say, “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.” He will tackle one of the most stubborn problems in state government.

Billingsley is the first director of the new Infrastructure Planning and Development Division (IPDD). While that sounds boring and bureaucratic, the IPDD’s proud parent, the state Department of Finance and Administration, intends for Billingsley to lead an overhaul of the capital outlay system to help small organizations, communities and tribes steer their projects through bureaucratic hurdles to completion.

Currently, no state agency is clearly responsible for riding herd on capital outlay projects, making sure the money is spent and seeing that projects reach the finish line.

In February I wrote about House Bill 232 to create the new division and called it one of the most important bills of the legislative session because it could transform the state’s dysfunctional capital outlay system. With bipartisan sponsorship, it passed both houses unanimously with little publicity and no controversy.

Communities need public works, such as senior centers or playgrounds, and their legislators secure capital outlay money to get them built. However, small entities often don’t have the expertise or personnel to meet state requirements for planning, auditing or reporting, so the projects enter capital-outlay limbo, with funding committed but action suspended.

Currently, some 4,900 projects (some of them eight years old) and nearly $5 billion are stuck in the pipeline. This year members of the Senate Finance Committee were disgruntled enough to threaten halting more funding until the backlog subsides.

Now that the bill is law, the Department of Finance and Administration will add a division, the IPDD, which will receive the Rural Equity Ombud program and some other duties of the existing Local Government Division.

DFA Secretary Wayne Propst said he just named “the perfect person” to head the new division. Billingsley is director of the Local Government Division and chief of the Capital Outlay Bureau. He’s worked in capital outlay for 12 years. “He brings a wealth of experience but more importantly a vision that is needed as the state works to improve this critical function,” Propst said in a news release. IPDD will be a one-stop shop that tracks spending more accurately, ensures projects are funded appropriately, and provides dashboards so the public can see the process, the department said. It will provide expert guidance and hand-holding to chase funding, evaluate and advise on proposed plans, and leverage state funding to obtain federal grants.

Billingsley himself recently wrote: “The new division will have staff and resources solely dedicated to the capital outlay process, creating an improved level of commitment and focus… Under the new system, users and the public will be able to see real-time data on each project, from its development and planning to the final expenditure and project completion.”

In a recent op ed he wrote that he doesn’t think the capital outlay process is broken or dysfunctional.

“Since 2019, we have put $10 billion to work for New Mexico to construct or improve our roads, museums, schools, parks, water systems and public buildings. Historic revenue is helping the state put more money toward capital projects than ever before.”

He said it’s a common misconception that $5 billion is sitting unspent.

“The timing for disbursing these funds depends on the type of project, funding source and if it needs to go through the bond process,” he explains. “Many pending projects must be completed within four years.” Capital outlay monies are never spent all at once but at an average rate of about 25% per year.

At a time when distrust of government is rampant in political rhetoric, it’s encouraging that lawmakers can see a problem, agree on a solution and join the administration to make it happen.

A better way to run a railroad

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

There’s nothing like a road trip to make you appreciate another mode of transportation – trains. They keep motorists company along many a New Mexico highway.

Before we left the federal Department of Transportation unveiled a new railroad rule, so I was paying more attention to trains.

On April 2 DOT’s Federal Railroad Administration began requiring trains to have at least two crew members. The feds cited “troubling trends that point toward a need for heightened caution and awareness in railroad safety.”

The number of human-caused accidents has edged up from less than one accident per million train miles in 2013 to 1.34 in 2022, a 41% increase.

Aside from numbers, we’re still troubled by East Palestine, Ohio, where a Norfolk-Southern train carrying toxic chemicals derailed and burned in 2023. Every New Mexico community with railroad tracks – and that’s a great many – wondered if they might be next.

“Common sense tells us that large freight trains, some of which can be over three miles long, should have at least two crew members on board,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

“A second crewmember performs important safety functions that could be lost when reducing crew size to a single person,” explained the Railroad Administration.

Traveling U.S. 60-84 between Fort Sumner and Clovis, we marveled at the length of trains paralleling the road. Sitting in my living room, I had wondered what a two- or three-mile long train would look like, but on the road, we often couldn’t see the end. I had to admit that the thought of just one engineer overseeing the endless metallic snake made me uneasy.

In New Mexico, five freight railroads carry 5.8 million carloads a year across 1,835 miles, according to the Association of American Railroads. We have accidents regularly, like the derailment in March that dumped tons of corn in Socorro.

More serious incidents included a 2021 train wreck near Laguna Pueblo where smoke forced residents to evacuate. The same year sabotage caused a train to leave the rails near Vado, injuring the engineer and conductor. In 2019 high winds blew a train off a high trestle near Tucumcari. In 2015 a fatigued conductor failed to properly set a switch, leading to a collision of two freight trains near Roswell; an engineer died, and the conductor was seriously injured.

Freight railroads and Amtrak opposed the new rule. The Association of American Railroads insisted that there is no evidence that rail safety is tied to crew size. Collective bargaining has historically managed crew size, the group said, and carriers would rather invest in employee training and new technology.

During the 1980s I covered railroads when they were losing money, and there was some doubt about the industry’s viability. Through deregulation, mergers, increased business and reduced employment, railroads survived. Crews shrank from five or more to one or two. So when the hand of regulation tightened again, they hollered.

However, the Railroad Administration’s action had been building for some time. Rail unions in 2022 demanded two-person crews and were so adamant that Congress had to force an agreement between unions and rail operators.

States were moving their own legislation. In Congress, Ohio Sens. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, and J.D. Vance, a Republican, who agree on little else, co-sponsored rail safety legislation.

Feds received more than 13,500 written comments from railroad workers and their families and the public along with public testimony.

Arguments kept returning to East Palestine. The wreck and its toxic spill were caused by an overheated bearing, and the train had two workers. But environmentalists, unions and Ohio legislators questioned the wisdom of letting railroads determine their own safety measures, according to The Hill.

Railroads want to operate safely, but they must improve their numbers and earn back the public trust.

Calling the governor

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

People who live in cities need to get away from each other and enjoy a bit of nature. The public park, a leafy green space in the urban landscape, has provided relief for centuries. We love our parks so much that proposing changes can become heated.

But not so heated that one individual, former Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, becomes the subject of a personal attack in a newspaper editorial that was so vicious I thought a response was in order. Diane is a colleague in this syndicate and a friend.

What happened is residents of an Albuquerque neighborhood debated whether to add playground equipment to Netherwood Park, described by an online reviewer as a “very large picturesque park… easily one of the biggest parks in Albuquerque,” and “a destination park for lots of pet owners and families.”

The neighborhood association polled residents about tucking in a play area. The results were 61 for and 22 against. That’s a healthy majority but not a consensus, and it was an informal survey. The association itself didn’t take a position, which is significant.

Sen. Jerry Ortiz y Pino got $200,000 in capital outlay approved in the legislative session for playground equipment. Denish made a call to the governor, who line-item vetoed the funding.

In her coverage of these events, KRQE anchor Jessica Garate constructed a story of the neighborhood vs. one cranky but well connected old lady. Garate has her own connections as wife of Ryan Cangiolosi, former executive director of the state’s Republican Party and former deputy chief of staff of Gov. Susana Martinez.

Interviewing playground supporters, Garate made a show of asking them if they had the governor’s phone number. They didn’t. She was warm and generous with them. Denish didn’t get the same treatment but managed to say, “This is a very unique open, unobstructed park, and it has been for 75 years.”

Next the Albuquerque Journal’s editorial page piled on in a venomous, petty personal attack that’s become the new norm in editorials since a management change last year. According to the editorial, Denish is, among other things, “a grumpy old woman” and “an Ebenezer Scrooge” who’s “had a chip on her shoulder ever since” losing her campaign for governor 14 years ago.

That’s not the Diane her friends know. Smart, gracious and level-headed, she’s spent years advocating for children and early childhood education. She has a full and busy life with friends and family. She cares about her neighborhood.

Denish isn’t wrong to defend an “open, unobstructed park.”

Public parks were originally semi-open, landscaped areas intended to allow city dwellers, especially workers, to relax in nature, according to “The Politics of Park Design: A History of Urban Parks in America.” In time, parks were used for zoos and other attractions. Then they included swimming pools, playgrounds, ball fields and buildings. While all these parks still flourish, the large, less developed parks are seeing new popularity with urbanites who want to experience the outdoors. They’re also at risk of being chipped away for other uses.

Should Denish have made the call? We haven’t heard the whole story here, but Ortiz y Pino may have jumped the gun, funding equipment without real neighborhood consensus.

Denish could have refused to be interviewed, knowing exactly whose spouse she was talking to. She looked downright uncomfortable, but she tried to answer Garate’s questions. She explained her call to the governor by citing her long public service, which has given her friends in high places. Contrary to the Journal’s opinion that “her time in the sun has long passed,” she’s still active in politics and the community.

It's bad journalism and shabby treatment of someone who spent years in the fishbowl and earned the trust and friendship of people all over the state.

War veterans join the public debate over monuments

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

On Indigenous Peoples Day 2020 in broad daylight, a mob of vandals tore down the 154-year-old Soldier’s Monument in the center of Santa Fe Plaza because it was offensive to some Native Americans. Now veterans groups are demanding it be restored.

The destruction followed months of controversy that was notable for its absence of historical fact. Nobody seemed to know the obelisk honored Union soldiers, many of them Hispanic, who died in New Mexico’s two Civil War battles. But there was plenty of vitriol directed at one word that’s been absent from the monument for 50 years.

Recently Hispanic activist Daniel Ortiz stood before an ugly wooden box covering what’s left of the monument on its 162nd anniversary. He reminded a small crowd that the missing obelisk commemorated battles at Valverde and Glorieta Pass in 1862. While Union forces lost at Valverde, the Union victory at Glorieta Pass changed the course of the war by denying the Confederacy access to western gold and silver mines.

When legislators erected the monument in 1868 they also honored soldiers who fought in the Indian wars and on a plaque used the word “savage,” which someone chiseled out in 1974.

Standing before the ugly box, historian Thomas Chavez told the crowd: “Never have I ever had a background so disgusting as this. I’m happy to be here, but I’m also a little angry.”

He observed that “people tore this monument down in a moment of emotion,” but he didn’t gloss over New Mexico’s bloody history – the Pueblo Revolt in 1680, the Spanish Reconquest in 1692, the invasion by Texas confederates during the Civil War. “We’ve had our conflicts,” he said, but we can get over it. “I say to the mayor, get over it. Put the obelisk back up. It commemorates the fall of men defending this territory.”

Many of the fallen were Hispanic soldiers, hence the pronounced presence of Hispanics in the crowd.

Mayor Alan Webber tried to placate critics, promising to remove the monument. It didn’t happen. He tried to negotiate with protesters, described in media reports as the Three Sisters Collective and “non-native allies.” After the obelisk fell Webber condemned the vandalism: "We need to address the past. We don't need to tear down the past. We need to work together. We don't need to fight against each other."

In 2021 the city paid a consultant $300,000 to study the issue and propose a solution. A year later came the recommendations: rebuild the monument or remove it. According to a survey, a majority of residents condemned the monument’s destruction, 33% wanted to remove the monument, and nearly 32% wanted to restore it. The Union Protectiva de Santa Fe sued to replace the monument.

Last year city councilors proposed redesigning and repairing the monument with new signage and interpretation to recognize the original Pueblo inhabitants of Santa Fe and tell the monument’s story. Ortiz, who can trace his New Mexican ancestry back 14 generations, sees the removal of his culture from public spaces. The word “entrada” is gone from the Santa Fe Fiestas. Schools once named De Vargas have new names.

“We are in a culture war,” said Ortiz. “They’re trying to erase us.” On a recent podcast to publicize the plaza event he complained about the “woke left.” It pains me that squabbles over statues and obelisks could get dragged into the far uglier confrontations between the political left and right.

As an Anglo historian, I repeat what I’ve said before: First, history isn’t pretty. These past events shaped New Mexico and its people. Removing an obelisk doesn’t change anything, and denying recognition of war veterans is hurtful. Second, like them or not, Don Diego de Vargas and Kit Carson left their mark. Third, the monuments belong to everyone. One little group shouldn’t get to decide.

That said, Native American activists have been heard. Hispanic activists not so much. The two peoples have lived side by side for centuries. Balance is possible.

Remembering Linda Davis, best cowboy on the place

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

If ranchers had royalty, Linda Davis would have worn a crown. She grew up on legendary ranches in northeastern New Mexico, began riding a horse as a toddler, and operated the historic CS Ranch with husband Les. He said she was the best cowboy on the place.

Linda died at home on her beloved land on Feb. 18. She was 93.Born to Albert and Julia Mitchell on July 11, 1930, Linda was the fourth generation to grow up on the Tequesquite Ranch near Mosquero in Harding County. In 1931, Albert, a well known cattleman, became manager of the massive Bell Ranch in San Miguel County.

"I've always known how to ride," she said. As a tot, she sat in front of her grandfather on the saddle. "I remember vividly getting my own horse at three years old."

Her mother died in 1934. Linda told me in an interview in 1991, “I was basically raised by cowboys.” When she became a mother later on, and her daughters wanted to wear ruffles, it was unfamiliar territory.

Linda could cook, but mainly she worked on the ranch with the men until 1947. "I would say my dad was probably ahead of his time. My dad hadthis attitude I was going to grow up on a ranch and learn to do everything," she said.

Linda studied agricultural science at Cornell University and in 1953 married Les Davis. His grandfather, Frank Springer, started the CS Ranch in 1873 when he became a lawyer for the Maxwell Land Grant Co. Frank named the ranch near Cimarron for his brother, Charles Springer. In 1881, Frank bought Hereford cattle, the ranch’s foundation stock.

Les had grown up in Philadelphia. As a Dartmouth College student he was curious about his mother's family ranch. Frank, who had no children, urged Les to come out. Les stayed.

“When she arrived at the ranch with her gear, the CS turned for the better,” he once said. Linda and Les raised six children, who grew up working on the ranch. "All of them are deeply rooted in agriculture," said Linda.

When I visited the Davises, the CS was still a far-flung operation with deeded and leased lands from Springer to Raton. (It’s bad manners to ask ranchers how much land they own.) It included both cow-calf and yearling operations. In the former, a mother cow produces one calf a year for sale. In the latter, ranchers buy calves, graze them for three to six months, and sell them. The CS also had hay farming, hunting licenses, quarter horses and racehorses, and leased fishing on Eagle Nest Lake, built by the Springer brothers, to the state. The family sold the lake to the state in 2002.

Like many ranchers, Linda had great respect for Hereford cattle. They're smart and hardy and know how to act in big country, Linda explained. "They get out and cover the country and utilize the grass. They're not that fond of being close to their neighbor. You can mix them up in a herd, and they'll pick out their own calves. They're good mothers, very protective. They have a seventh sense about weather."

Her obituary said, “She was always happiest on the back of a good sorrel horse working Hereford cattle.”

Linda was honored many times, including New Mexico Cattleman of the Year, 1990; National Golden Spur Award, 1992; National Cowgirl Hall of Fame,1995; and with Les (who died in 2001), Hall of Great Westerners, 2000. She was New Mexico’s first representative on the National Beef Board. For decades, her license plate read MRSBEEF.

At 70 she became an EMT and served with the Cimarron Volunteer Ambulance.

Pause a moment now and remember Linda Davis, a great lady of the West.

Feds, state fund wildland fire management, firefighters and Smokey Bear

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

Drought maps colored in cheerful red, orange and gold are anything but cheerful in their meaning. They confirm what ranchers already know, that it’s painfully dry here. Devastating wildfires in West Texas add an exclamation point.

If there’s any good news it’s that Congress and the Legislature are more attuned to the reality of fire.

The spending bill that just passed Congress includes more for wildland fire management. In fact, the online Source New Mexico reported it was a priority in the bill, according to summaries from both Senate Democrats and House Republicans.

The Wildland Fire Management program of the U.S. Forest Service will receive $2.3 billion, a $1.37 billion increase. And wildland firefighters will keep the pay increase that passed in the 2021 infrastructure law.

State lawmakers this year approved funding for firefighter recruiting and training and new facilities.

New Mexico has upwards of 300 fire departments, and more than half of them operate with volunteers, according to the Department of Finance and Administration. We don’t have enough permanent firefighters or volunteers.

The fund will help convert volunteer positions to full-time positions, strengthening fire departments in rural areas and reducing the need for volunteers.

“Right now we’re losing volunteers throughout the state and at a rapid pace,” State Fire Marshal Randy Varela told the online NM Political Report. “So, what we’re trying to do is not push the volunteers off, but we’re trying to bring up paid personnel in the rural areas.” He explained that volunteer firefighters, who have day jobs and families, can’t always respond quickly.

DFA says that increasing the number of certified firefighters would reduce response times and improve public safety in rural areas.

Capital outlay this year tells a similar story. Fire departments usually get their share of public project money, but this year I see a lot of money devoted to training. This year’s bill includes $3 million for a regional fire training academy and firefighter memorial in northern New Mexico. There’s $14 million for hotshot crew facilities in San Miguel and Socorro counties, as well as vehicles and equipment for wildland firefighting, and $5 million for watershed restoration and wildfire protection improvements, including forest thinning, statewide.

Hobbs will receive $1,424,000 for training facilities, including a fire training tower and public safety center. Money will also flow for fire training in Farmington, Ruidoso, Deming, El Rito, Española and Corrales.

Finally, our home-grown hero Smokey Bear will get his own license plate after the governor, who vetoed the bill last year, and certain members of the press carped about legislators wasting time. Maybe it wasn’t as compelling as crime or education, but nowhere in legislative news coverage did we learn this year is Smokey’s 80th anniversary.

The Albuquerque Journal carried a story after the session explaining that the Forest Service began using a bear mascot in 1944. In 1950 firefighters found a tiny cub with scorched feet clinging to a tree in Lincoln County. When it was clear the little bruin would survive, state Game and Fish Department employees started calling him Smokey. He became a popular attraction at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. On his death he was returned to Capitan for burial. The town is home to the state Smokey Bear Historical Park.

I have some personal history with Smokey. When El Malpais Conservation Area Visitors Center held its opening celebration in 1991, my role was to wear a Smokey costume and greet visitors. Kids didn’t just want to see Smokey, they wanted to hug him, so Smokey dispensed hugs. I’d grown up with the baritone “Only YOU can prevent forest fires” but hadn’t appreciated how much Smokey is loved.

A tip of the iconic felt Smokey hat to sponsor Rep. Harlan Vincent, R-Glencoe, for seeing the bill through.

Ukraine can prevail in this David and Goliath fight

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

As we enter the third year of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, House Speaker Mike Johnson and congressional Republicans are dithering on aid as if the United States will never need allies again. As if Russia is our new best friend. As if he’ll be Speaker forever.

Johnson, a politician and not a military man, has said Ukraine can’t win this war. Gen. Philip Breedlove, former NATO supreme allied commander in Europe, says: "If the West chooses to give Ukraine what they need to win, Ukraine will win this war. This war is going to end exactly how Western policymakers want and desire it to end."

We’re told the two sides are at a stalemate, but consider the sides. Russia is four times the size of Ukraine. Russia is a first-world economy. “Experts” predicted Russia would take Ukraine in three days. Two years later, Ukraine still holds most of its territory. As a Forbes writer put it recently: “Russia-aligned Republicans in the U.S. Congress continue to withhold U.S. funding for Ukraine.” While Ukrainians are desperately short of ammunition, “Russians—flush with shells from North Korea and Iran—are firing up as many as 10,000 shells a day.”

As a kid I remember seeing Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev on TV pounding with his shoe and shouting, “We will bury you.” Many are mystified at our former president’s embrace of Putin, who is another version of Khruschev – just better dressed.

What’s most stunning about the war today, some six months after Republicans began to hold up funding, is that Ukrainians are still fighting with whatever they’ve got left while the playground bully hemorrhages troops, tanks, planes and ships.

As I started this column, Ukraine had shot down 13 Russian planes in 13 days.

With sea drones and British missiles, Ukraine knocked out 20% of Russia’s Black Sea fleet in four months until Russian vessels ran for safer ports, according to British intelligence. This is what ended the Russian naval blockade and allowed Ukraine to begin shipping grain to feed the world again, reported The Hill.

On the battlefield, Russia doesn’t care how many men it loses. Ukrainian troops post on X (formerly Twitter), “Enemy’s fresh meat is thrown into the grinder” and show gory photos of dead Russians everywhere. In February alone Russia lost nearly 1,000 troops a day.

Breedlove observes, “So far, the Ukrainians have eliminated around 50% of Russian ground troops, perhaps even more.” Our cost? About 4% of the U.S. defense budget.

In fact, for the first two years of the war Americans have primarily given Ukraine weapons from U.S. stockpiles and then refilled stockpiles with newer stuff. And whatever we’ve spent, Europe has spent more.

Lately, the Netherlands said it would send another military aid package to include 22 fast, armored assault boats for Ukraine’s river flotilla. Denmark, the Netherlands and other countries have committed dozens of advanced planes. Back home in Ukraine, volunteers build smoke grenades and stitch camouflage netting.

As I write, a haunting image circulates on X of a small boy found in the rubble after Russian missiles struck an apartment block in Odessa. He will sleep forever in his Batman pajamas, along with an infant and his mother, three of a dozen dead that night and hundreds more while Johnson, or “Moscow Mike” as he’s known on X, plays politics.

Reporters find no Ukrainians willing to give up. Bandera Fella writes from the frontlines: “In the east’s gray zone, our clash with these invaders is relentless. They push from the south, recycling the same tired tactics, thinking we’ll break. Guess what? We’re still here, standing strong, turning their advances into their nightmares. War’s brutal truth: they throw waves, we build walls with their failures.”

Feel-good tax bill has much to like but stops short of solving bigger problems

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

Legislators passed a pretty good tax package this year, but instead of responding thoughtfully to the big picture, they simply rolled together a bunch of individual bills. They got in some pet tax credits while ignoring longstanding problems and creating one new irritant for businesses and economic development.

House Bill 252 “modernizes the tax code” and “enables working New Mexicans to hold on to more of what they earn,” said its sponsor, House Taxation and Revenue Committee Chair Derrick Lente, D-Sandia Pueblo.

There is much to like. Among other things, HB 252:

Adds more personal income tax brackets and decreases taxes for all taxpayers. Low earners get the biggest breaks.
Offers the Rural Healthcare Practitioner Tax Credit to more health professionals, including those working in underserved rural areas.
Creates a gross receipts tax deduction for childcare and pre-K providers.
Increases the Special Needs Adopted Child Tax Credit by $500.
Gives public school teachers a deduction up to $1,000 for buying classroom supplies.
Extends the qualification deadline for Angel Investment Tax Credits from 2025 to 2030. Because it encourages investment, this was a priority for business.
Offers wildfire victims rebuilding homes a new tax credit of up to $50,000 and a gross receipts tax deduction for legal services.

The bill is heavy on environment-related breaks for electric vehicles, geothermal and solar electricity, and solar and wind energy manufacturing.

On the down side, HB 252 creates a single corporate income tax rate to 5.9% instead of the current two-tiered structure of 4.8% for taxable income under $500,000 and $5.9% for more. Some 4,200 companies earned less than $500,000 but accounted for just 6.4% of corporate taxes paid, according to legislative analysis of tax data from 2021 to 2023, while 474 companies making more than $500,000 paid the rest.

The change might appear to hurt smaller companies, but the Taxation and Revenue Department, quoting the Tax Foundation, says “the size of a corporation bears no necessary relation to the income levels of the owners.” In fact, a single rate “minimizes the effort by corporations to avoid the tax liability at the higher marginal tax rates.” Twenty-nine other states have enacted a single-rate.

The New Mexico Chamber of Commerce wasn’t crazy about the higher rate for smaller companies but hasn’t asked the governor to veto it. NMCC is, however, alarmed enough about two other provisions to circulate a petition and ask for a line-item veto. The provisions will harm multinational taxpayers with New Mexico operations because they “inappropriately broaden New Mexico taxation to include foreign income in the tax base” and “will make New Mexico less competitive for investment and growth by business entities that include international operations.”

In a letter to the governor, NMCC said lawmakers sneaked these provisions into the bill. They “had just one hearing in the Senate, with no vote and no public comment” before being added to HB 252 “at the eleventh hour without further discussion. A bill this technical and complex, which undermines some of the key provisions in the 2019 tax reform, should have included much more discussion and outreach prior to being included in this session’s tax package.”

Lente has said he thinks HB 252 is fortified against line-item vetoes. We’ll see.

Finally, despite complaints over too many years, the gross receipts tax was missing from the package, even though the interim tax committee heard testimony on it. Again. Only one lawmaker, Rep. Jason Harper, R-Rio Rancho, tried to reduce the hit from pyramiding of gross receipts taxes. Often referred to as a tax on a tax, the gross receipts tax is a much deeper problem, say experts, because the taxes embedded at each level raise base costs and make New Mexico businesses less competitive.

SB 252 was a bill long on feeling good and less on substance.

Lawmakers help small hospitals but medical malpractice lurks

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

New Mexico’s strained rural hospitals finally got some love this year. Two bills sitting on the governor’s desk could go far in relieving financial pressure on the state’s smallest hospitals.

But medical malpractice insurance, the subject of two compromises in recent years, is still a threat.

In New Mexico, where 26 of 33 counties meet the definitions of “rural” and even “frontier,” a dozen hospitals have fewer than 30 beds, and they’re usually far from other hospitals. They serve older, sicker, poorer populations who don’t have ready access to healthcare. Inflation, changes in Medicaid funding and spiraling malpractice premiums have hit them hard, and it’s difficult to recruit staff. They operate on a wing and a prayer, and some teeter on the brink of closing.

Rural hospital executives “feel like they’re so vulnerable; they’re in such a tight spot,” Stephen Stoddard, executive director of the New Mexico Rural Hospital Network, told the Santa Fe New Mexican. “A lot of them are barely making payroll or just getting by, and have had to do extraordinary things or close services … just to survive.”

SB 161, by Sen. George Muñoz, D-Gallup, and Sen. Pat Woods, R-Broadview, would appropriate $50 million for grants to a dozen hospitals in fiscal 2025 and 2026 to cover losses from unreimbursed services, such as emergency, maternal and child healthcare, as well as malpractice premiums and property insurance.

SB 17, the Healthcare Quality Delivery and Access Act, would increase Medicaid payments to hospitals by assessing a fee that can be used to unlock $1.3 billion in additional federal matching funds. Eight of the state’s 28 rural hospitals are at risk of closure, and two could close their doors imminently, said the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Liz Stefanics, D-Cerrillos. The New Mexico Hospital Association, the Health Care Authority and individual hospitals cooperated to develop the bill.

We can all applaud these two bills, but there’s more percolating beneath the surface. During the 2021 session lawmakers passed a controversial medical malpractice bill that’s come back to haunt us.

That bill, praised at the time as a compromise between the healthcare industry and trial lawyers, raises hospitals’ cap on damages to $6 million by 2026. This year the cap is $4.5 million. Originally, the sponsor intended to take hospitals’ cap away altogether. Before the compromise bill, New Mexico had a $600,000 cap on nonmedical damages to assure that doctors could afford malpractice premiums.

This three-year-old law has been disastrous for hospitals. Many insurers that provided malpractice coverage to hospitals stopped doing business in New Mexico, and the few remaining are demanding a king’s ransom in premiums.

When Roosevelt General Hospital in Portales tried to renew its malpractice insurance last year, the premium jumped from $330,000 to $820,000, according to the Eastern New Mexico News. Union County General Hospital paid $180,000 a year. Then the premium vaulted to $487,000, but that company stopped writing policies in New Mexico. The CEO could find only two companies willing to cover her hospital. One wanted $800,000; the other, $1.8 million – for a little 25-bed hospital.

A second problem is that New Mexico has a big Medicaid population, but Medicaid reimbursements are low. So doctors’ incomes are lower, but their medical malpractice premiums are higher. An attorney for the New Mexico Medical Society told The New Mexican, “From 2017 to 2021, 711 primary care providers left New Mexico. That’s 30% of the health care workforce.” And for all hospitals, it’s harder to recruit doctors. He called it “a major crisis.”

This year two bills would have amended the Medical Malpractice Act to reduce the maximum recoverable amount against a hospital or hospital-controlled outpatient facility. But during the too-short, 30-day session they weren’t heard.

This is not going away. And small hospitals will continue to need the Legislature’s attention.

A better way to govern

By Sherry Robinson

All She Wrote

One of the most important bills this legislative session has tiptoed through the House with scant publicity and no controversy.

House Bill 232, to create the Infrastructure Planning and Development Division within the Department of Finance and Administration, sounds a dry and bureaucratic, but it could transform the state’s dysfunctional capital outlay system.

Communities need public works, such as senior centers or libraries, and their legislators secure capital outlay money to get them built. However, small entities – towns, counties, tribes, water districts, school districts – often don’t have the expertise or personnel to meet state requirements for planning, auditing or reporting, so the projects enter capital-outlay limbo, with funding committed but action suspended.

Currently, some 4,900 projects and nearly $5 billion are stuck in the pipeline.

“There’s a better way to govern. It’s not good government the way we’ve been doing it,” said Rep. Dayan Hochman-Vigil, chair of the House Transportation, Public Works and Capital Improvements Committee. She joined Rep. Gail Armstrong, R-Magdalena, and fellow Albuquerque Democrat, Rep. Meredith Dixon, to sponsor HB 232. “We can’t fix all the problems, but this is a beginning.”

The new division would have some of DFA’s existing programs and personnel, plus some new ones, to provide expert guidance and hand-holding to chase funding, evaluate and advise on proposed plans, and leverage state funding to obtain federal grants.

Currently, no state agency is clearly responsible for riding herd on capital outlay projects, making sure the money is spent and seeing that projects reach the finish line.

HB 232 passed the House unanimously on Feb. 9, and the budget bill has money to stand up the new division.

The bill is mostly the work of Cally Carswell, a legislative capital outlay analyst. Hochman-Vigil calls her “the capital outlay queen.”

“Over time we’re trying to create a one-stop shop to help develop projects and see them through,” Carswell told the committee. The new division will provide services to communities that want and need them. Knowing how touchy lawmakers are about their capital outlay allocation, she assured them that the bill “does nothing to infringe on the appropriations process.” It assures that the projects they want actually get finished.

Rep. Jason Harper, R-Rio Rancho, observed that New Mexico’s capital outlay process is the butt of criticism because unlike other states, where capital outlay is allocated by priorities, New Mexico simply hands money to the governor and legislators to spend.

“The biggest problem is not allocating but how we get the money out the door,” Harper said. “School districts say they have a hard time getting through the process. This is an incredible idea. Why didn’t we do this two decades ago? This will really make a huge difference.”

Rep. Cathrynn Brown, R-Carlsbad, saw another advantage in helping communities identify other funding sources.

Hochman-Vigil said that long term, the division could help coordinate all funding sources. HB 232 gets a thumbs-up from business. The New Mexico Chamber of Commerce wrote: “Historic federal infrastructure funds will expire in a few years. This strategy supports New Mexico’s aging infrastructure and strategically ensures that local communities statewide are able to bring new economic development into their communities.”

DFA itself is enthusiastic, writing: “The capital outlay process in New Mexico is due for a much-needed system (overhaul) and reorganization. HB 232 will accomplish this and over time will streamline the process… Without the passing of HB232, the state will continue to see the same systemic obstacles with the infrastructure and capital outlay process.”

The biggest obstacle now is the clock. HB 232 is now before the Senate Finance Committee. Agendas grow longer. The session ends on Feb. 15.

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