Is Senator Jennings Stacking the Deck Against Public Education?

As I said yesterday I have written some of the state senators to ask them the questions I put in yesterdays blog entry. I received this answer back from State Senator Jerry Ortiz y Pino today.

“Thanks, Mary, for your very apt questions. Senator Jennings is only one of 42 Senators, one of 112 legislators. However as president pro tem he is in a position to steer the debate in certain directions. Since the Governor is also talking about the special session being devoted to cutting the budget, not finding new revenue sources, I'm afraid we are going to be playing with a stacked deck when we sit down in October.

I can only pledge that I will do everything I can to prevent cutting the K-12 education budget. That means heavy cuts in capital outlay, eliminating unnecessary patronage positions throughout state government and finding tax loopholes to close. Long term (i.e., by next year) we have to find additional revenue. Oil and gas will not be dependable sources of tax revenue for operating schools...though they can provide a good way to finance buildings. I personally want us to rollback the last stage of the Governor's income tax cuts for the upper 10% of NM taxpayers. And other senators are proposing changes to our very liberal tax credits as incentives to businesses or to end tax dodging by big companies with headquarters elsewhere. We'll have to look at everything, since the days of being flush with petrol bucks are over, probably for good.

State Senator Jerry Ortiz y Pino”

With State Senator Jennings who is the president pro tem of the state senate steering the direction of budget cuts toward public education what hope does low paid educators have of protecting our public system for the good of our children? Why does it have to be all about cuts without any hope of new revenue sources in his view? Where is our future workforce coming from if Senator Jennings and Senator Smith are allowed to get their way in this state? Senator Ortiz y Pino is right that petrol dollars are going away and we sorely need to find new sources of revenues if we want a public school system in this state for the future well being of our children and the state’s economy.