Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
Sorted by date Results 1 - 11 of 11
It's day 70. We are down to the last few days. We are hoping that we will be done by day 75. A lot of committees were working this past Saturday toward compromises both on policy and appropriations. Our budget, as of today, is still a couple of hundred million in the red. There are several what I would call earmarks still in some of these bills. Much discussion will be about what is genuinely a need versus what may be a want. We will see. As of today, there is an agreement on a tax package. It includes lowering all the income tax brackets, r...
It’s day 61. We continue to work through all the bills that have been heard in committee. Of the 397 bills introduced in the Senate, we still have 38 to take action on in our chamber, and the House has 81. This week the conference committee process began. As the House looks at Senate bills and the Senate looks at House bills, if there were any changes on either side, a conference committee could be formed to air out those differences. There are three members from the House Committee and three members from the Senate Committee. Usually c...
It’s day 52. The Senate still has 180 House bills to hear on the floor, while the House has 137 Senate bills remaining to be heard. Conference committees (three members from each chamber) should begin work by the end of the week. The goal, at least in the Senate, is to finish no later than day 77. This allows the Legislative Branch to call itself back without the Governor’s approval. The most likely reason would be to override the Governor’s veto should he do that right after we leave town. We are working hard to get anything that we belie...
It’s day 46. The Senate still has 234 bills to act on, and the House is still looking at 203. The committees have been hearing a lot of bills and have been listening to a lot of testimony. This week the Legislature heard from two different economic forecasts group. Each had a similar picture of where our state is going financially over the next two years. The appropriations committees took that information and took a middle of the road outlook. There are assumptions that show additional sales tax, motor vehicle tax, and income tax being greater...
It’s day 41. As of today’s writing, we still have 298 bills in the Senate to act on, and the House is looking to work on 240. The committees have been busy hearing the bills and taking action. We are currently $1.1 billion over budget in the general fund and $446 million underwater in the Strategic Investment and Infrastructure Fund (SIIF). Much work is left in the Appropriations Committee to get us back on track. Everyone knows that we need to cut some spending and even slow down some of the tax exemptions, as long as it’s not something they l...
It’s day 35, and we are just returning from crossover, when all Senate bills must be heard, voted on, and sent to the House. It’s the same procedure for the House bills. The Senate will be passing 307 bills over to the House this session compared to the last session when we sent 252 bills to the House. The House is sending us 315 this session compared to 242 last session. I did sponsor a variety of bills that are now in the House with hearings scheduled. One deals with the cost of audits for our commodity groups. The prices of the audit had...
It’s day 32. We are just a couple of days ahead of crossover. We have acted on 312 bills so far and have 79 to go. The House has already sent 272 to the Senate, which we will get started on after crossover. The House still has 118 to act on before crossover. This week we did pass two bills related to tax relief. One was the Homestead Tax Credit. This bill has $165 million to be distributed through the Homestead Tax process. Another property tax bill passed by the Senate will buy another 20 mills from our school levy. This will cost around $...
It’s day 27. The Senate is working hard to make our crossover deadline. Almost all the Senate bills have been heard and are awaiting action from the committees. We have 154 bills still left in committee and waiting for Senate action. Most are in the Appropriations committee which has 74 left to act on. There have been a whole lot of asks for state money. The State has a healthy reserve, indicating that our economy is doing fine. The committee will have to look hard at what is a need and one-time spending, or something that will burden t...
It’s day 22. The committees are all very busy. There are still 237 bills in various committees here in the Senate that either need to be heard or acted on. Unlike some other states, every bill gets a hearing, a vote in committee, and then finally, a vote on the Senate floor. There are some states where issues don’t even get heard in committee. We have a very open and transparent system. One issue being heard today in the Senate Energy & Natural Resources committee deals with the Red River Water Supply. As this major project plows its way across...
It’s day 16 here at the Legislature. The deadline for bill introduction has now passed. A total of 951 bills and resolutions have been introduced. Although not a record, it is 78 more than last session. One of the bills which passed in the committee that I serve on provides for our fire departments to get the insurance premium rebate in full. Over the years, that amount has varied depending on if the state was short of funds. Our fire departments have had to come to each session and ask for the full amount that was intended to go to them. T...
It’s Day 11. The stack of bills continues to grow. As of today’s writing, the Senate has introduced 346 bills. That’s compared to 275 last session. The House has 538 bills introduced compared to 500 last session. One issue that has come before our committee would be eliminating the printing of those insurance company abstracts that appear in our weekly papers. The bill was intended to exempt only our mutual insurance companies in our state. The insurance commissioner had advocated for all insurance companies not having to print, as it is availa...
