{"id":53450,"date":"2020-06-09T18:50:46","date_gmt":"2020-06-10T00:50:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/financial-crisis-looms-over-new-mexico-cities-counties\/"},"modified":"2020-06-10T00:50:46","modified_gmt":"2020-06-10T00:50:46","slug":"financial-crisis-looms-over-new-mexico-cities-counties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/financial-crisis-looms-over-new-mexico-cities-counties\/","title":{"rendered":"Financial crisis looms over New Mexico cities, counties"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=31f54087-0d58-425b-910a-4840e36a28ec&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1269\" alt=\"New Mexico state Sens. Bobby Gonzaels, D-Taos, and John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, listen to a presentation by Public Education Secretary Ryan Stewart on spending priorities for public schools in Santa Fe in January.\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">New Mexico state Sens. Bobby Gonzaels, D-Taos, and John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, listen to a presentation by Public Education Secretary Ryan Stewart on spending priorities for public schools in Santa Fe in January.<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Morgan Lee\/Associated Press file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Sen. John Arthur Smith, chairman of the lead state budget-writing committee, said gross receipt taxes on sales and services that support municipal and county governments are drying up, as cities such as Santa Fe reel from the collapse of the state\u2019s tourism sector.<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, he says the U.S. government has limited the options for states to funnel federal recovery dollars toward local governments.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGiven its own financial crisis, New Mexico state government will be hard-pressed to find the resources to help,\u201d Smith wrote in a committee newsletter. \u201cBut it must.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He suggests the state can address its own likely budget hole by sweeping money from idle accounts, delaying construction projects, suspending pay raises and shifting the way it pays for some services.<\/p>\n<p>The Legislature is gathering June 18 for a special session to rewrite the general fund budget and conserve spending during the fiscal year starting July 1. Smith lost the June 2 Democratic primary to run for re-election, but still will oversee state Senate budget negotiations during the special session.<\/p>\n<p>In other budget matters, financial analysts are warning that the trust fund that underwrites New Mexico unemployment benefits could be depleted by October if spending continues at the current rate.<\/p>\n<p>The fund\u2019s balance fell from $458 million in mid-March to $322 in mid-May as the state\u2019s unemployment rate surged past 11%, according to staff at the nonpartisan Legislative Finance Committee.<\/p>\n<p>The unemployment insurance trust fund is sustained by contributions from employers. The federal government offers loans to depleted unemployment funds at zero interest to sustain benefit payments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mexico state Sens. Bobby Gonzaels, D-Taos, and John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, listen to a presentation by Public Education Secretary Ryan Stewart on spending priorities for public schools in Santa Fe in January.Morgan Lee\/Associated Press file Sen. John Arthur Smith, chairman of the lead state budget-writing committee, said gross receipt taxes on sales and services [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":53451,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[815,138],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-53450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-associated-press-new-mexico","tag-new-mexico"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53450"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=53450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}