State Appropriations -- Bad News and Good News
Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2012 7:50 amThe only disturbing news at the Commission meeting was that, once again, the long-standing customs used by the NM Legislature in specifying appropriations language bagged the C&TS. Specific items in the Capital Outlays bill always associate a capital outlay with a NM County, and Rio Arriba County has always been specified for the C&TS But nobody paid any attention to this until some gimlet-eyed bond counsel said no way the appropriations could be spent beyond Rio Arriba (like in Colorado). 
Once again, the C&TS, although an Interstate Compact subject to different laws, got victimized by an process that doesn't comprehend the Compact's difference from a NM state entity. Grrr!
On the other hand, one of the most important takeaways from the Commission meeting was that Commissioner Dan Love, et al, have for the first time ever gotten the Colorado legislature to move the railroad's funding requests (this year for a million dollars) into the General Fund budget requests.
No longer does the C&TS have to compete (and lose) the fight to get into the select group of Colorado higher education capital projects each year (bizarre, but that's the way the budget rules worked). Once the C&TS is a line-item in the General Fund, this becomes a recurring appropriation that might move up or down a little each year (e.g., let's cut state spending 10%) but gone is the old situation which meant having an unpredictable zero to 20% chance of getting anything. This is direct evidence of the impact of the change that occured five years ago when the governors of the two states agreed that the C&TS emphatically needed to have Commissioners of a higher caliber than previously. 
Once again, the C&TS, although an Interstate Compact subject to different laws, got victimized by an process that doesn't comprehend the Compact's difference from a NM state entity. Grrr!On the other hand, one of the most important takeaways from the Commission meeting was that Commissioner Dan Love, et al, have for the first time ever gotten the Colorado legislature to move the railroad's funding requests (this year for a million dollars) into the General Fund budget requests.
No longer does the C&TS have to compete (and lose) the fight to get into the select group of Colorado higher education capital projects each year (bizarre, but that's the way the budget rules worked). Once the C&TS is a line-item in the General Fund, this becomes a recurring appropriation that might move up or down a little each year (e.g., let's cut state spending 10%) but gone is the old situation which meant having an unpredictable zero to 20% chance of getting anything. This is direct evidence of the impact of the change that occured five years ago when the governors of the two states agreed that the C&TS emphatically needed to have Commissioners of a higher caliber than previously.