This afternoon, Governor Bill Richardson announced he would postpone the start of the special session until Monday.  The Governor says he granted lawmakers the extra time at the request of legislative leaders, who are working hard to come up with a solution to the state’s roughly $600 million budget shortfall.  “Since the end of the regular session last week, lawmakers have been working on a budget compromise and have seen progress.  However, the legislative leadership has requested that I give them a few more days of negotiation ahead of a Special Session and I am granting their request.  I believe giving lawmakers this extra time to build consensus is the best thing for all New Mexicans.”

Not all legislative leaders are happy about the March 1st start to the Special Session, though.  Shortly after the announcement from the Governor, Senate Minority Leader Stuart Ingle criticized the decision, saying “it would be wiser to have a Special Session after the state’s first quarter revenue is known in April”.  Ingle went on to say that any work done on a Special Session before April would just be a “guessing game”.  The Senator says “The revenue information we are dealing with is very optimistic, too optimistic.  If we base a nudget on the projected 6% growth in revenue we will be in trouble again if the revenue does not come in.  By April we will have a better idea of what we are dealing with”.

The Public Affairs Team

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010 at 4:11 pm and is filed under nmif. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.