52nd legislature - STATE OF NEW MEXICO - second session, 2016

CONGRATULATING FRANCES RAMIREZ-MAESTAS ON HER RETIREMENT FROM THE LEGISLATIVE EDUCATION STUDY COMMITTEE.

WHEREAS, Frances Ramirez-Maestas, director of the legislative education study committee, retired from state government at the end of 2015; and

WHEREAS, she has been a fixture as legislative staff for almost twenty years; in fact, she came the same year as Senators Leavell, Lopez and Payne; and

WHEREAS, Frances became the director of the legislative education study committee in 2008, after having served as deputy director for eight years; and

WHEREAS, as a boss, Frances expected high-quality, nonpartisan, objective work from her staff, and she expected her staff to be responsive to committee members and other legislators and legislative staff, regardless of party affiliation; and

WHEREAS, she also recognized that her staff had lives outside the office, and she tried whenever possible to give them the time they needed when major life events intruded; and

WHEREAS, she was always quick to defend her staff against disrespect or mistreatment by lobbyists, other staff members or even legislators; and

WHEREAS, anyone who knows Frances knows of her great passion for public education, as well as her very well-defined, deep-rooted sense of right and wrong; and

WHEREAS, Frances has always been eager to assist anyone even remotely interested in public education and has been just as eager to convert any nonbelievers; and

WHEREAS, Frances made it her mission, and her pleasure, to tout the New Mexico legislature's foresight in creating the only permanent joint legislative interim committee on public education, and she made other states aware of this legislative emphasis as well as the state's funding formula, which was one of the first in the nation to be an equalized state funding formula based on equity and fairness; and

WHEREAS, she was not just part of the staff of the 2005-2008 funding formula study task force, but a vital resource and source of institutional memory during that study of public school funding in New Mexico and the development of a new, simpler funding formula; and

WHEREAS, she served with distinction on several national education committees, including the national conference of state legislatures, where she served as chairwoman of the education staff section; and

WHEREAS, she was instrumental in setting up the legislative education staff network, a partnership between the national conference of state legislatures and the education commission of the states, that serves as a research tool through which any legislative staff member in any state can post a query and have it answered by counterparts throughout the country; and

WHEREAS, Frances' many years of dedication to public education and education policy has been recognized nationally by the national conference of state legislatures, the education commission of the states and the legislative education staff network and in-state by the New Mexico coalition of school administrators, which awarded her the Earl Nunn memorial award in 2012; and

WHEREAS, for one award, her staff noted as one of her accomplishments that she "consistently supports public education by insisting that schools, school districts and the public education department adhere to the requirements of law; opposes unfair or unwarranted assaults on schools, whether fiscal or programmatic; and reminds all involved that whatever is done must benefit children first"; and

WHEREAS, before those important awards, and others, came to her, it is important to note that Frances Ramirez was Las Cruces Junior LULAC Girl of the Year in 1966 and 1967, New Mexico-Texas State LULAC Girl of the Year in 1967 and, at the national convention in Phoenix, Arizona, was selected as the 1967 National LULAC Girl of the Year; and

WHEREAS, Frances is very proud of her Isleta-Hispanic familial roots, and she lives her life by the values she was taught by her family and her religion; and

WHEREAS, Frances is also justifiably proud of all she has accomplished for schoolchildren in New Mexico;

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE SENATE OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO that it notes its appreciation of the many years of service provided to the legislature by Frances Ramirez-Maestas in helping to shape New Mexico's public education funding and programmatic policy and working to ensure that the legislature's will was being implemented and enforced and that the fiscal playing field for public school funding was equitable and fair; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the senate extends its best wishes to Frances for an enjoyable retirement.