Dist. 43 Rep. Christine Chandler
By KIRSTEN LASKEY
Los Alamos Daily Post
kirsten@ladailypost.com
Despite having to reduce the state’s FY 2021 budget, Dist. 43 Rep. Christine Chandler of Los Alamos reported to Los Alamos County Council that she felt the work to get the New Mexico budget adopted was “relatively successful”.
Chandler updated the council on the recent special legislative session Tuesday night during its regular meeting.
“I feel pretty good to very good in terms of the substance of what we were able accomplish,” she said. “If you think in terms of how many days we had and how many bills we had, I think we did very well. We accomplished our main objective of adopting revisions to the budget that we hope position us well for the next session.”
Chandler pointed out that the state did have to “sand” the budget, which means legislators had to lower the level of increases between FY2020 and FY2021. She added the governor did sign the budget just a few hours prior to the County Council meeting and she noted Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham did veto a few items.
As a result, Lujan Grisham eliminated some of the decreases and increased the amount of the budget, Chandler said, adding that she believes this increased the state’s budget by $40-50 million.
Another thing the governor did, Chandler said, was veto the legislature’s allocation of CARES Act money. Chandler said that was an issue between the governor and the legislature – Lujan Grisham believes she has the authority to allocate CARES Act funds while legislators believe they have the authority.
Still, Chandler said she is optimistic about the budget.
“We’re in a good spot,” she said. “We tried to preserve education to extent we could. The sanding was less in the area of education than in healthcare and in some areas. On the whole, I think it was 4 percent sanding in most other areas. That sets us up for next year and we are anticipating a very hard budget session next year in 2021. We know that, we recognize that, and we believe if we do this incrementally, we’ll have better information to act on rather than simply slash budgets without knowing where we are at financially.”
There were a few highlights during the special sessions including the passage of several economic packages, Chandler said. For instance, she said $400 million was pulled from the severance tax permanent fund to set up an easy-to-access low interest loan program for small businesses in the state.
“I think it very important to support our businesses and start infusing money into the economy,” she said.
Additionally, Chandler was the lead sponsor on the house side for a tax relief bill. It waives penalties and interest for people who pay their taxes late.
She explained people need to file their taxes timely but in terms of paying their taxes, they won’t be penalized for paying late. Chandler said people will have approximately a year to pay. The last piece that was added on, at the request of healthcare providers, was to not apply gross receipt tax to CARES Act money that would otherwise be subject to gross receipt tax.
Other significant legislation, she said, include the civil rights commission that will look ways to increase opportunities for citizens for redress when their civil rights may have been violated. She also touched on the body cam bill and the election bill, about which Chandler said she had a few concerns.
Chandler said she was disappointed that a limited open primary provision was tacked onto the election bill. She said the election bill is described as temporary for the 2020 general election, but the Senate floor amendment will be in perpetuity until legislators decide to change it.
Additionally, the bill gives discretion to the clerks on whether to mail absentee ballots to all registered voters in their county, she said. The provision for all mail-in ballots was removed and Chandler said she felt election policy should be made at the state level rather than on a County-by-County basis.
There are some benefits to the bill, Chandler said. She said many county clerks said the bill supports them and it offers tribal areas more control of convenience centers and preventing nonmembers from coming into tribe lands.
Council Chair Sara Scott commended Chandler for her work.
“Thank you for your service … I really like what you say and I agree, we are all in this together and we look forward supporting you, supporting the County and the state, please let us know what we can do in any of those respects,” Scott said. “This is unprecedented, challenging and I think everybody is working hard to do their best … let us know what we can do to help.”
