Sandoval Flip Flops; Now 'Yes' on No. 2
By Barry Massey
The Associated Press
Voters have agreed to put Gov. Bill Richardson in charge of public schools and apparently have given him the the funding he sought for his educational agenda.
Sandoval County reported transposed results to the secretary of state Wednesday morning, which would have had the funding measure failing. The county later fixed the figures, putting the funding amendment in the yes column again.
"We reversed the numbers," County election official Eddie Gutierrez said Wednesday.
Before the county discovered the error, the proposal to boost the annual distribution rate from the so-called Land Grant Permanent Fund had been behind by nearly 1,800 votes with 99 percent of precincts reporting.
But after the county fixed its count, the proposal was again ahead by just over 900 votes.
The county was awaiting a court order to unlock two Rio Rancho precincts that have not been counted.
In the special election Tuesday, voters overwhelmingly adopted a constitutional amendment that Richardson pushed to overhaul the governing system for public schools and create a cabinet-level secretary of education.
But late Tuesday night, Sandoval County reported a major shift in returns that would have tilted the statewide tally against the proposal. Because of the major shift, The Associated Press did not include those end-of-night results until they could be confirmed.
Sandoval County confirmed those results Wednesday to the secretary of state's office — but Gutierrez and other county officials then reported the yes and no votes had been reversed.
For the other amendment on the education secretary, 55 percent of voters statewide favored the school governance change and 45 percent opposed it.
The special election represented the first test at the ballot box of Richardson and his policies since he took office in January. The Democratic governor succeeded in pushing a long list of initiatives through the Legislature earlier this year, highlighted by a $360 million income tax cut that he championed as a tool to recruit new high-wage industries.
Richardson and an ususual coalition of education and business groups and labor unions campaigned for the constitutional changes as a package to improve school performance in New Mexico. The pro-amendment alliance spent more than $1.2 million on a blitz of television and radio ads and an extensive get-out-the-vote drive.
"We have made huge advances to make our schools better in New Mexico," Richardson told supporters after declaring victory on the governing system change. He promised to use his new authority to streamline education policy-making and ensure that a greater share of state aid to schools went to classrooms rather than administration.
The closeness of the school financing proposal, Richardson said, showed voters "want us to be careful and prudent" with the $6.8 billion permanent fund.
"That message has been heard," the governor said.
The state Republican Party and Land Commissioner Pat Lyons led opposition to the permanent fund proposal. They likened the higher payouts to stealing money from future generations of New Mexicans. Historically, the fund has been operated like an endowment to provide a stable source of financing for decades to come.
In addition to its investment earnings, the permanent fund receives royalties from oil and natural gas production, mining and other income from land given to the state by the federal government.
GOP chairwoman Ramsay Gorham said opponents succeeded just by keeping the vote close. She estimated the GOP spent only about $120,000 in fighting the proposal, including statewide radio ads.
"Obviously, the voters have paid very close attention to this issue, and they want their children's savings account not to be destroyed," Gorham said.
The GOP supported the secretary of education, a proposal advanced by former GOP Gov. Gary Johnson during his two terms but opposed by the Democratic-led Legislature.
Opposition to both proposals was strongest in conservative-leaning counties in eastern and southern New Mexico.
Urban centers such as Bernalillo and Santa Fe counties and several Democratic strongholds in northern New Mexico favored the permanent fund measure.
The governance measure would turn over control of education policy and regulation of public schools to Richardson by creating a governor-appointed secretary of education to run the state Department of Education. The secretary would replace the elective state Board of Education, which sets statewide policies that locally elected school boards must follow.
Proponents of the permanent fund change estimated that higher distributions would deliver more than $600 million to public schools over 12 years. The extra money was intended to pay for newly enacted reforms, such as higher minimum teacher salaries — up to $50,000 a year for a so-called master teacher — tied to a new competency-based licensing system. However, the money also would help the governor and lawmakers plug a looming budget shortfall in the coming year.
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