04/05/2022
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Saturday, April 2nd, 2022
For More Information Contact: [email protected] / (505)315-3596
Albuquerque Interfaith Calls on New Mexico Governor and Legislature to Hold Public Schools Harmless from Devastating Cuts in a Time of Substantial Revenue Surpluses
(ALBUQUERQUE) - Albuquerque Interfaith (a growing coalition of 22 schools, congregations, and non-profit organizations) calls on New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham and the New Mexico State Legislature to hold public schools “harmless” during the upcoming special session from devastating budget cuts due to lost student enrollment during the pandemic.
“Throughout an international health crisis, our public schools held up as critical institutions helping families in some of our most vulnerable communities to connect to emergency aid, food distributions, eviction protections, and more,” noted Presbyterian Pastor Trey Hammond. “In the face of substantial revenue surpluses at the state level, it’s unconscionable that we’d be slashing school budgets and laying off educators critical to helping our children and families recover.”
With an annual state budget of $8.5 billion, New Mexico’s state leaders set the state’s reserves in the 30-day budget session at approximately 30%, or $2.5 billion for the 2022 fiscal year. At that point, the price of a barrel of oil was $67 and now hovers over $100 a barrel, meaning reserves for the year are on track to hit $4-5 billion this year. The estimated cost of holding public schools statewide harmless from budget cuts amounts to less than $100 million. In addition, with much of U.S. domestic production focused on New Mexico’s Permian Basin, production is projected to reach 500 million barrels of oil, or $50 billion of economic activity this year alone.
Still, in recent weeks, dozens of schools in Albuquerque Public School district have had to make shocking cuts to staffing due to a combination of factors: disenrollment of several thousand students during the pandemic, appropriations for $50k-60k-70k teacher raises that didn’t account for ancillary costs, and slowed population growth due to our state’s struggling economy in prior years. School district leaders are in a quagmire working to recruit and retain students in schools, but having to increase class sizes and cut programs that help kids overcome countless obstacles.
“Strategies like Community Schools, school social workers in schools, school counselors, and after school programming confront the root causes of why students struggle in school and surround them with wrap around supports to thrive,” noted Melanie Misquez-Telles, a career long public school educator now serving as an Assistant Principal in the South Valley. “Now is a time for vision, imagination, and urgency from our state elected officials – either continue to disinvest in our public schools, see enrollment continue to decline, and face the ongoing consequences of abandoning our families on the margins – or LEAD with some vision and investment in our most valuable asset – our young future leaders and their families.”
New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham is calling the New Mexico State Legislature into session on Tuesday, April 5th, 2022. Inaction on the crisis will mean hundreds of educator jobs will be lost in 2022 in schools serving communities of frontline workers that are already under tremendous stress with evictions, food access, and generational poverty.
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