Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883

Legislative Report: January 30, 2023

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 available online. After much input from our local newspapers, the bill did get amended back to its original intent and passed the committee. It has yet to come to the Senate floor.

Another issue hitting our state is the need for more workforce, especially in our hospitals and nursing homes. It was brought to our attention that 50 percent of nursing facilities stopped admissions in 2022 because of a lack of staff. There is a proposal to create an office of immigration for health care to see if we can address that problem. We have found that some of our large healthcare facilities are hiring immigration recruiters to fill some of their medical employee needs. It costs a lot of money. The question has been asked, “Can we provide this outside recruitment for all our employees?” We know agriculture has been recruiting workers for many years. Much work needs to be done, but legal immigration may be necessary to fill all those vacancies. Still not sure how we get there.

There is going to be some sort of income and property tax reduction. There are at least three income tax ideas and five property tax proposals. There will be a lot of work getting these proposals to fit together. It’s early yet, but I know there will be some tax relief. Stay tuned.