By Deborah Baker/
Associated Press
SANTA FE — Gov. Bill Richardson on Thursday signed into law part of the winter energy assistance package just approved by the Legislature, providing help with heating bills for the poorest New Mexicans.
The new law provides $23 million in state funds to shore up the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, a federally funded program that pays bills for gas or electric heating or for firewood.
The law also allocates money to a home weatherization program, and to schools, police and firefighters to offset higher fuel costs.
Richardson said he plans to sign a separate measure to provide rebates ranging from $64 to $289 to all New Mexico tax filers, with checks going out in three weeks.
But he hasn't decided whether to go along with another part of that package, which speeds up personal income tax rate reductions that were enacted in 2003 but delayed by the Legislature this year.
The governor said he will make the veto decision on that matter after he sees updated revenue projections for the state in another two weeks.
Richardson, in an apparent reference to senators who insisted on the speeded-up tax cuts, said that "for some, it's politically convenient — and frankly very easy — to try to promise all things to all people.''
But the state has an array of needs — education and health care among them — that must be adequately funded, he said at a news conference.
"I also want to look at the overall budget situation for the state — our tax policy, what are we going to do with these extra revenues we have,'' he said. That kind of discussion belongs in a regular legislative session, not a brief special session, he said.
Finance and Administration Secretary James Jimenez also said the administration wants to figure out whether the state will take a hit in gross receipts taxes because residents spend so much on gasoline and fuel that they don't buy other items.
The package lawmakers approved would cost more than $250 million, in contrast to the $100 million in spending the governor proposed, and Richardson said he felt it was "substantially more than what we should do.''
But he also struck a conciliatory note, saying the Senate — which he had harshly criticized a few days earlier — had "acted responsibly.''
Richardson said he would revive in January two proposals that didn't make it out of the Legislature — another tax holiday that exempts shoppers from having to pay gross receipts taxes, and a bill outlawing price gouging after disasters. The first tax holiday was in August.
The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program will help more residents and pay higher benefits because of the state appropriation, the Human Services Department said.
In the federal budget year that ended Oct. 1, the program served 55,626 households with benefits ranging from $40 to $240. This winter, more than 60,000 households can get benefits ranging from $130 to $780, officials said.
The program is available to New Mexicans with incomes less than 150 percent of the federal poverty level. That's less than $14,355 annually for a single person, for example, and $29,025 for a family of four.
Other spending in the bill signed Thursday:
_$2.5 million to weatherize homes.
_$5 million to public schools for higher gasoline and heating costs.
_$3.5 million to colleges and universities for higher energy costs.
_$3.5 million to the Department of Public Safety and volunteer firefighters.
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