Legislative Finance Committee

Strong state revenues and an influx of federal funds have contributed to historically large investments in capital projects at the same time supply chain, construction cost, and labor issues are slowing progress on projects, contributing to outstanding balances of $3.8 billion across about 4,600 active projects.

Home visits to new families is one of the state’s cornerstone programs to improving the well-being of young children, but efforts to expand services, specifically through the use of federal Medicaid revenues, has stalled.

New Mexico ranks low nationally on the prevalence of mental illness and substance use disorders, and while it does better on measures of access, services can be limited outside the Rio Grande corridor.

Over the long-term, child maltreatment causes physical, psychological, and behavioral consequences leading to increased costs to the child welfare, behavioral health, and physical health care systems. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate the lifetime cost of nonfatal child maltreatment at $831 thousand. Additionally, the consequences when children experience repeat maltreatment are potentially devastating.

High poverty among New Mexico families, and the associated unmet needs, contribute to stubbornly high rates of repeat child maltreatment, but expanding effective prevention and intervention programs, along with building the child welfare workforce, could make a difference.

The executive’s approach to distributing FY23 pay raises to state employees, which assumed pay for employees in “occupational” bands already reflected the job market, means child welfare workers and others in some of the state’s hardest-to-fill positions received the smallest raises.

In the nine months since the Legislature appropriated $345 million from the federal American Rescue Plan Act, just 25 percent of the funds have been spent on the transportation projects, economic development, rural jobs, natural resources and other projects authorized.

Estimated recurring revenues for FY24 are $10.859 billion, with “new money,” or projected recurring revenue less current year recurring appropriations, at $2.455 billion. The total projected for FY24 recurring revenues represents 29.2 percent growth from the FY23 recurring budget. The updated estimate for recurring revenues for FY23 is now $9.847 billion, up $1.002 billion from the December estimate.