Sen. Pete Campos discusses the federal matching fund at a bill-signing event Wednesday alongside the governor in Santa Fe. (Photo by Patrick Lohmann / Source NM)
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham kept her veto pen mostly sheathed this year when it came to signing off on the Legislature’s plan to spend $10.2 billion dollars and make infrastructure investments.
Wednesday at noon marked the deadline for the governor to approve, modify or reject the state budget and other legislation passed in the 30-day session that wrapped up last month. All told, she signed 69 bills, including the budget, capital outlay bill and tax package, with relatively minor revisions. She vetoed one bill outright and pocket-vetoed another.
The lack of vetoes this year is much different than last year’s veto deadline day. The governor gutted the tax package and vetoed 35 bills in 2023. Twenty-one of those vetoed bills were “pocket vetoed,” meaning they were sent to the desk, but not signed within 20 days.
“I want to thank New Mexicans for their input during the budget process, as well as state lawmakers for sending this carefully considered bill to my desk,” the governor said in a news release after she signed the budget and capital outlay bill, which funds long-term projects and is primarily for new construction and infrastructure.
Lawmakers and the governor have touted the record budget and new laws as historic due to their big investments in housing, shrewd use of an oil and gas revenue windfall and major spending on road maintenance and repairs, among other things.
Lujan Grisham also signed several bills aiming to improve public safety, increase criminal penalties and limit the spread of gun violence. She has said she’s still considering whether to call a special legislative session to do more to address crime, however.
Below are more details on what revisions, if any, the governor made to bills that spend money:
The governor signed the $10.21 billion budget on Wednesday. It’s a 6.8% increase over last year, a slight reduction in spending growth that lawmakers said takes heed of economists’ projections of a slowdown in oil and gas tax and royalty revenue in the Permian Basin.
The budget keeps reserves at 32.5%, a “near-record high,” according to the governor’s office. Lawmakers rolled out new programs this year that invest much of a $3 billion surplus into trust funds or endowments meant to keep revenues stable amid the boom-bust cycle of oil and gas.
The governor released 10 pages of line-item vetoes for the state’s spending plan, but there are few cuts to any particular expenses. The language the governor crossed out mostly relates to requirements that officials across state agencies report the results of programs funded in the budget or that adds additional restrictions.
“I have vetoed parts of the General Appropriations Act that impermissibly attempt to create substantive law,” the governor wrote in her veto message, as well as “reporting or other requirements that do not exist in substantive law.”
Those types of policies contained in the budget, she said, citing a 1988 state Supreme Court opinion , should be enacted via the legislative process, not in the budget.
One line item she removed on those grounds would have required money appropriated to the state public education department not be used to require school districts to meet for 180 days a year. That was a bipartisan amendment added to the budget on the House floor, and the Senate kept it in.
Some other reporting requirements the governor nixed related to 16 pilot projects that will cost taxpayers $216 million over the next three years. Those projects range in cost from $1.5 million, including for suicide prevention training, to $60 million, which will pay tuition and fees for students getting workforce training classes at some state colleges.
Rep. Nathan Small (D-Las Cruces), chair of the House Appropriations and Finance Committee, sponsored legislation creating the fund for these three-year pilot programs, saying the Legislature had a key role in evaluating whether those programs are successful and worthy of more funding later.
Reached Wednesday evening, Small said he did not think the governor’s vetoes threaten the Legislature’s oversight of the programs.
Lawmakers “are still going to be rigorously focused on transparency, accountability, and implementation for these programs, so that we can ensure they are effective and our taxpayer dollars are being well spent,” Small said in a text message.
The governor vetoed $557,000 – or .04% – of the Legislature’s $1.5 billion capital outlay spending bill, which funds construction projects, infrastructure, equipment, and other multi-year investments.
She said several of the projects lack proper planning or are not ready to move forward. She also vetoed projects cheaper than $10,000, saying those could be funded elsewhere.
The bill also spends $71 million on statewide colleges and universities, $45 million on local courts, $44 million on jails and prisons and $39 million on water projects, and more.
Some projects the governor vetoed include $80,000 for a pedestrian walkway in the Santa Fe botanical garden, $100,000 for a portable building at Guadalupe Montessori school in Silver City and $200,000 for parks in central Albuquerque.
This year, thanks to the influx of new money, the Legislature is paying the entire capital budget with cash, instead of borrowing for it.
Unlike last year’s veto frenzy, just two bills failed to get the governor’s signature this year, according to a Source New Mexico review of the governor ‘s and New Mexico Secretary of State websites.
One, Senate Bill 217 , would have added $82 million to the state’s severance tax permanent fund, a reserve fund financed with taxes on oil and gas extraction. Lujan Grisham said she was not convinced the bill, sponsored by retiring Sen. Nancy Rodriguez (D-Santa Fe), is “necessary” at this time.
“It is important we continue to save for the future; and we have been doing a lot of good work in this area, the results of which I would like to see more fully realized before making additional distributions,” the governor said in her veto message.
Another bill was pocket-vetoed. That bill, sponsored by Sen. Leo Jaramillo (D-Española) initially would have allocated $35 million for law enforcement training and recruitment. But it was introduced late in the session, and a Senate committee nixed the spending from the bill before sending it on.
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