NM Legislative Update for Jan. 25

The House is work­ing today, sched­ul­ing a 10 a.m. floor ses­sion. The Sen­ate will recon­vene again on Mon­day at 11 a.m. How­ever, Sen­ate Edu­ca­tion will meet in joint ses­sion with House Edu­ca­tion at 8 a.m. on Fri­day to learn about the ERB sol­vency pro­posal. They will meet in Rm. 317.

Next Thurs­day,  Jan. 31, House Labor will con­sider H167, Teacher Licen­sure Con­tent Knowl­edge, in Rm. 305 at 1:30 p.m. or thereabouts.

Next Mon­day, House Tax­a­tion and Rev­enue, meet­ing in 317, will hear H211, Sev­er­ance Tax Bond Projects. Also next Mon­day, Sen­ate Finance will hear about issues fac­ing the ERB at 1:30 p.m. in 322.

The sol­vency pro­posal for edu­ca­tion retire­ment that was crafted over many months by Edu­ca­tion Retire­ment Board stake­holder groups has passed its first com­mit­tee hear­ing of the 2013 leg­isla­tive ses­sion by a 5–4 vote. HB 64, spon­sored by Rep. Mimi Stew­art (D-Albuquerque), calls for  an increase in employee con­tri­bu­tions to 10.7 per­cent and estab­lishes a min­i­mum retire­ment age and new COLA require­ments for future employees. On the same 5–4 vote the House Labor and Human Rela­tions com­mit­tee rejected an amend­ment from Rep. Candy Spence Ezzell (R-Roswell) that would tie the COLA to sol­vency suc­cess as well as the CPI. There was also con­cern, expressed by Reps. Young­blood and Pacheco, both Albu­querque R’s, that the rate of return on invest­ment built into the pro­posal is too high.

Bills of inter­est intro­duced today include:
H227 — Move Brain Injury Advi­sory Coun­cil Func­tions, Rep. Gail Chasey
H228 — UNM Law School South­west Indian Law Clinic, Rep. Deb­bie Rodella
S266  - Archi­tec­ture Mul­ti­ple Source Con­tracts, Sen. Phil Griego
S285  - Local Govt Higher Ed Facil­ity Prop­erty Tax, Sen. Richard Martinez

Watch for bill progress on the 2013 Bill Tracker.

Susan McK­in­sey, Office of Gov­ern­ment and Com­mu­nity Relations