Office of the President
Monday Morning Memo | March 23, 2009
Dear NMSU Campus Community:
Good morning! After an eventful 60-day process, we are at the end of the 2009 session of the New Mexico Legislature. This legislative session was very complex largely due to the current economic state and the number of new bills that were introduced for consideration.
The session started with our legislators and governor having to deal with a $454 million shortfall for the current fiscal year and a large shortfall for the upcoming fiscal year. Our policymakers faced many tough challenges to balance a budget with fewer resources. I personally thank all of them for listening to our higher education institutions and providing us with a manageable budget. State colleges and universities received some cuts in the General and Instruction line item and it was not possible, as everybody intended, to allocate recurrent dollars for compensation. Even when we will face some challenging issues with a smaller budget in the future, I strongly believe NMSU is in position to handle this situation.
Two of our main goals for this legislative session were to fully fund enrollment workload and secure funding to complete the Center for the Arts. As you all know, through your hard work and dedication we are in a position to receive additional workload funding thanks to our growth in student enrollment. I am pleased to report that in spite of the difficult economic climate, our workload was fully funded. This was a success for NMSU, given that very few state institutions qualified for growth dollars. In addition, HB 154 provided $5.5 million of one-time funding to complete the state request for the Arts Complex. This was the largest allocation for a single project in higher education in the state and we are proud of this accomplishment.
With the session just ending we still have some work ahead of us in analyzing many of the funding and policy bills. We are also awaiting action by the governor on the budget and capital outlay bills as well as many other policy-related bills. There has been some discussion that we may have a special session to deal with the federal stimulus package, among other issues.
We will provide you with more information regarding the session as we complete our analysis. I thank all of you for your dedication, patience, and assistance during the legislative process. I particularly want to recognize the efforts of our team of NMSU employees and others who worked very hard and showed tremendous dedication to the university during the past 60 days. Leading our efforts at the session was Ricardo Rel, Assistant Vice President for Research and Senior Director for Government Relations.
The Santa Fe Team included Vicente Vargas and Cyndi Eager, Office of Government Affairs; Vice Provost for Outreach Paul Gutierrez; Secretary Miley Gonzalez, Rico Gonzales and Liz Holmes, from the New Mexico Department of Agriculture, who also helped cover Agricultural Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension Service budget- and policy-related issues, as did Extension Specialist Jon Boren.
The Las Cruces Support Team included Assistant Vice President for Advancement Riis Gonzales, who helped coordinate activities for the Arts Complex, and Lisa Ybarra, who helped track legislation and updated legislative schedules. Many others from campus helped answer questions, review bills and provide other assistance. Thank you also to our vice presidents Jennifer Taylor, Ben Woods, Carmen Gonzales, Nick Franklin, Vimal Chaitanya, Garrey Carruthers, and General Counsel Bruce Kite. To all of them: thank you. Finally, I want to convey my sincere gratitude to Interim Provost Bob Moulton for taking care of the day-to-day institutional operations, while I had to be in Santa Fe.
Have a great week!
Waded Cruzado
