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Governor delivers first State of the State address of her second term

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SANTA FE – Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham issued her fifth State of the State address, the first of her second term as governor, on Jan. 17, laying out her legislative priorities for the 2023 legislative session.

Continuing strategic and meaningful investments in the FY24 Executive Budget Recommendation, the governor’s legislative priorities encompass initiatives in housing and homelessness, health care and behavioral health, education and child wellbeing, public safety, economic development and relief, infrastructure, and tax reform.

Lujan Grisham’s legislative agenda for the 2023 session of the New Mexico Legislature includes:

Health Care & Behavioral Health

Expanding and improving rural health care delivery: Establishing the Rural Health Care Delivery Fund, created with a $200 million investment, to provide support for rural health care delivery in parts of New Mexico often underserved by available health care options by providing funds for the establishment of new or expanded services.

Protecting abortion access for New Mexicans: Codifying abortion rights protections in state statute to ensure access to reproductive health services is safeguarded.

Expanding access to reproductive health services: Investing $10 million in capital outlay funding for a full-spectrum reproductive health clinic in southern New Mexico.

Improving access to affordable, high-quality health care: Creating the New Mexico Health Care Authority, a comprehensive entity that will expand access to affordable health care and streamline the government’s efforts to support families and their health care needs while more effectively holding insurers accountable.

Providing transparency for prescription drug pricing: Requiring licensed drug wholesalers to disclose prices and require Pharmacy Benefit Managers to disclose any increases of more than 40% over a five-year period, or more than 10% in the prior year, as well as the reasons for the increase.

Education & Child Wellbeing

Extending in-classroom learning time: Requiring and providing the resources needed for increased educational hours during the school year.

Supporting special education: Providing extended learning time for students with disabilities, ensuring special education services are data-driven and effective, and increasing support for special education educators.

Ensuring teachers keep more of their salaries in their pockets: Covering the individual cost share for health care premium costs for school personnel, a first-of-its-kind initiative for New Mexico.

Kids Kitchens – Establishing healthy universal free meals for students: Eliminating school meal costs for every New Mexico child. An additional $20 million capital outlay investment will fund school kitchen infrastructure improvements to enable schools to provide healthy and fresh foods for students.

Attendance interventions: Requiring data-informed school attendance interventions aligned with student needs and expanding drop-out prevention and recovery efforts.

Public Safety

Keeping repeat violent offenders off New Mexico streets: Establishing a “rebuttable presumption” to ensure that those accused of murder, gun crimes, rape or other sex crimes do not pose a danger to the community before being released pending trial.

Addressing the scourge of gun violence: Keeping New Mexico families, communities and businesses safer through a robust tranche of gun legislation, including a ban on the sale of assault weapons, an end to the state loophole on straw purchases of guns, safe storage reforms, and a law allowing victims of gun violence to bring civil suits against firearm manufacturers.

Tackling organized retail crime: Targeting offenders who fund organized crime through retail theft by creating the crime of organized retail crime in state statute, amending statutory language on robbery and shoplifting to encompass aggregated crimes of theft, and better enabling prosecution of commercial theft.

Getting more police officers on the streets: Investing an additional $100 million in the Law Enforcement Recruitment Fund to continue supporting the hiring of law enforcement officers to forces across the state.

Establishing parity in survivors benefits for first responders: Establishing a state fund for survivors benefits for the families of firefighters killed in the line of duty.

Supporting public safety and government staffing: Amending PERA regulations to 1) allow for PERA retirees to return to work for no more than three additional years after having been retired for a minimum of one year and 2) raise the pension salary maximum to 100% in order to retain qualified personnel.

Preventing wildfires caused by fireworks: Providing the executive with the authority to ban the sale and use of fireworks during drought emergencies.

Economic Development & Tax Reform

Putting more money in New Mexicans’ pockets: Delivering economic relief through one-time rebates of $750 to each individual taxpayer or $1,500 to couples filing jointly.

Reforming the state tax code: Supporting New Mexico working families and businesses by enacting tax policy reform, including reducing the gross receipts tax rate by an additional quarter of a percent, implementing anti-pyramiding for professional services in the gross receipts tax rate, and delivering personal income tax progression for middle class New Mexicans.

Continuing to support New Mexico’s booming film industry: Updating the New Mexico Film Tax Credit to further incentivize the hiring of more New Mexico residents, promote New Mexico’s diverse locations and cultures, expand productions to additional rural communities, and sustain robust investments in workforce development and job training.

Protecting and preserving lands for generations to come: Establishing the Land of Enchantment Legacy Fund to create sustained funding for state programs that protect and preserve our environment. Programs that will be supported over the next three to five years through this funding include the River Stewardship Program, Healthy Soils Program and Outdoor Equity Fund.

The governor will also seek $100 million for communities affected by the Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon Fire to begin rebuilding their lives and livelihoods.

Staff Reports

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