ABQJOURNAL OPINION/GUEST_COLUMNS: N.M. Straits Are Dire, But There Are Ways Out

Friday, November 19, 2010

N.M. Straits Are Dire, But There Are Ways Out

By Doug Turner
CEO, DW Turner Inc.
          As the dust settles on the 2010 election cycle, lawmakers and our governor have a limited window of opportunity to get themselves ready for the 60-day session starting in mid-January. And the task could not be more daunting.
        Plumes of red ink loom as revenues dwindle while Medicaid costs rise. Education results for the $10,987 we spend per student in the state vary from mediocre to gawdawful. The job situation for nearly a fifth of the work-ready population that is un- or underemployed is bleak.
        And corruption's tentacles reach from Santa Fe to the borders of the state as well as festering in localities and school districts almost totally unaddressed.
        Fortunately, these problems are all interrelated and a serious coordinated attack on them all at once will have spillover benefits as each challenge becomes an opportunity for a fresh start in the Land of Enchantment.
        To begin with, you cannot fix New Mexico by cutting Medicaid. Even though the program is hamstrung by federal restrictions that make it unduly expensive and poorly directed at prevention/intervention, it draws such a healthy federal match (about 70 percent) that cutting our 30 percent share will push the state's already stretched provider networks into freefall.... In the end we will pay more, not less, by trying to "save" money in this budget item.
        So too, in the recent election we heard loud and clear that education cuts were off the table, which is a good thing if we can instead put greater accountability and innovation on the table in its place.
        Public charter school innovators are in the gun sights of the education monopoly this year not because they take money away from traditional public schools, but because they threaten to heighten accountability by giving us all something to compare.
        If the majority of the country's behemoth districts met or exceeded the average performance of their respective demographics, I'd suggest Albuquerque Public Schools also just needed a 2.0 reboot. But they don't. In fact, they are more about money and the status quo than they are about our kids and our future.
        Finally carving APS up into districts sized to the point that parents know who their school board members are will go a long way toward improving accountability and outcomes all by itself....
        As to corruption, all the rules and ethics commissions in the world won't really matter if you don't set the right tone at the very top.
        Susana Martinez has the singular opportunity to demonstrate that New Mexico's back door is not how business "is done" here anymore. But she's going to find it hard to fill an entire Cabinet with good people who will stay that way once the many agencies of state government are under their control.
        She needs to be ready to not only fire bad actors, but refer them over for prosecution. This will not be easy, because key positions are often filled with a leader's most loyal supporters.
        Agency consolidation will help some in this regard, as there would be fewer top posts to fill. It will also save some money along the way, as will some rollback on salaries.
        Which brings us to the $64,000 question of how to pay for these competing "top" priorities in a deep and enduring recession.
        While a corruption-free state with lean and rational regulations and a fully functional set of school districts will attract the employers to the state who will ultimately grow us out of our bind, the near-term must first be traversed.
        The only way to get this state through to better times without wrecking key institutions like schools and our health care network is to revisit our multi-billion dollar "permanent fund" endowments.
        These funds are supposed to remain largely untouched and even continue to grow while the state pays for much of its needs from the dividends, and I would agree that leaving them to grow has been one of the few really prudent things the state has ever done. But there is growing consensus in investment circles that the era of hefty returns is over at any rate, at least in the near to intermediate terms. And really, we do not need to start selling off the investments so much as to bond against some of the revenue flow to get us through the next two to four years.
        Of course it is not the kind of decision we can or should make in Santa Fe. But lawmakers can put the question to voters who would then have a chance to engage in a healthy dialogue about the proposal.
        My hunch is that if they see real education reforms and a pogrom against corruption that will lead to a healthy private sector job market, they would be willing to advance the state budget the money it needs to fund key government services while also getting leaner and more transparent.
        The alternative is too Draconian at this point to even discuss in a single essay, unless we want to begin by talking about the specter of being the first state to utterly go under. This is exactly what will happen if we trigger a mass exodus of health care providers and our educational institutions' straits become any more dire.
        Doug Turner is a recent GOP candidate for governor of New Mexico.

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