OPINION: Proposed raises for county leaders were both preposterous and prophetic

Thank you, Bernalillo County Manager Cindy Chavez. We now have a clearer understanding of the type of professional-level salaries that members of our unsalaried Legislature have been coveting for years.

State lawmakers have been pretty generous to the executive and judicial branches in recent years, perhaps in an attempt to build a little quid pro quo among the elite and powerful.

Following the regular legislative session in 2023, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed into law Senate Bill 442, boosting the annual salaries for governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, state auditor, state treasurer, attorney general and land commissioner.

Lawmakers crowed that executive salaries hadn’t been increased in 21 years, and they trotted out the tired argument that New Mexico lags behind other states in salaries for top state officials, so they jacked the governor’s salary up 54% from $110,000 to $169,714; the lieutenant governor, secretary of state, state auditor and state treasurer salaries from $85,000 to $144,714; land commissioner from $90,000 to $149,714; and attorney general from $95,000 to $154,714.

“It was absolutely amazing to us over the years that these salaries were so incredibly low,” lamented state Rep. Patricia Lundstrom, D-Gallup.

Offering close to three times the state median individual income of $34,334 apparently wasn’t enough to attract top-tier candidates for land commissioner, for example. How did land commissioners get by for years on just a $90,000 annual salary? It must have been tough.

So everyone was happy on April 4, 2023, when the governor signed SB 442 into law. The salary increases for governor were delayed until Jan. 1, 2027, to avoid violating a provision in the state Constitution about mid-term compensation changes, but the others got their pay hikes in mid-June 2023.

Senate Bill 442, passed by the House and Senate along almost entirely partisan lines, also doubled the daily pay rate for a person acting as governor from $250 to $500. Legislative analysts estimated the lieutenant governor has historically acted as governor 10 to 50 days per year, so lawmakers even took care of acting governors.

A year earlier, in 2022, state lawmakers took care of the judiciary, passing legislation that would have boosted the pay of New Mexico justices and judges by 33%. The annual salaries of New Mexico Supreme Court justices and district court judges, respectively, would have jumped from about $154,000 a year and $138,000 to $205,500.

However, the governor poured a little cold water on the 33% judicial pay hikes and pocket vetoed Senate Bill 2 in March 2022, saying it circumvented the normal budget process used for large spending bills. She also noted that New Mexico judges and justices were already in line to receive 17% raises given to other state employees.

Lujan Grisham also pocket vetoed House Bill 219 following the regular session in 2022, which would have increased salaries for approximately 290 elected county officials in all 33 New Mexico counties by 15%.

Undeterred, state lawmakers in the 30-day regular session in 2024 approved without a dissenting vote Senate Joint Resolution 16, which proposed to amend Article 10, Section 1 of the state Constitution to remove the Legislature’s responsibility to set salaries for all county officers. In other words, it would allow county commissioners to set their own salaries and those of other elected officials in their counties.

Presented as Amendment 4 on Nov. 5 ballots, voters approved the proposed constitutional amendment by nearly a two-thirds vote, 65.67% to 34.33%.

Proponents of Amendment 4, such as Bernalillo County Clerk Linda Stover, framed the constitutional amendment as an opportunity for county governments to enjoy the same authority New Mexico cities have in setting salaries for their elected officials.

“(C)ounties are forced to navigate a one-size-fits-all model imposed by state lawmakers, who may not know the distinct challenges faced by rural or less populated areas,” Stover wrote in an Oct. 27 Journal op-ed. “By shifting the responsibility of setting salaries for county elected officials to local boards of commissioners, county leaders will gain the flexibility to align compensation with their financial capabilities, ensuring that they can attract and retain dedicated public servants while being fiscally responsible.”

Big government playbook

Back to Bernalillo County Manager Chavez, one of our newest transplants from California, who has apparently brought her big government playbook with her from the Golden State.

Before new pocket-sized state Constitutions have been amended and printed, Chavez, a former Santa Clara County supervisor in California who started her new job here on Nov. 13, proposed preposterous pay raises for Bernalillo County elected leaders last month.

With a four-year contract and base salary of $230,000, Chavez, the highest paid Bernalillo County employee, was making nearly six times the $39,106 annual salary of the five county commissioners, whose salaries were much more in line with Bernalillo County’s median individual income of $39,234.

Perhaps feeling a bit embarrassed about the county’s income inequality, Chavez gave the Bernalillo County commissioners four pay options: one not to change the salaries of county officers, which stood no chance; one that would give county officers a 10% raise; one that would give them a 15% raise; and one that would bring their salaries up to “market value.”

The proposed market rate would have given each of the five county commissioners an $111,837 annual raise, up from $39,106 to $150,943, calculating to a 286% pay spike.

The immodest proposal also would have dramatically raised the salaries of the county clerk, treasurer, assessor, sheriff and probate judge.

Fortunately, the preposterous raises ran into opposition from County Commissioner Eric Olivas, who noted the proposal lacked an elected official sponsoring it. It was instead placed on the Dec. 10 county commission agenda by “county administration.”

“We’re making more than most people in our community, and granted, it’s not a lot, but I think that’s important to state from the outset,” Olivas told the Journal shortly before the Dec. 10 meeting. “We’re still talking about giving the community three days, two of which are on the weekend, to know and understand what we’re considering with regards to pay for elected officials.”

Ultimately, the Bernalillo County Commission voted 3-2 on Dec. 10 to boost their pay, and that of county clerk, treasurer, sheriff, assessor and probate judge, by 15%. The prospect of going “full market value” was thankfully too indecent for at least a couple of commissioners.

Commissioner Olivas and County Commission Chair Barbara Baca voted against the 15% raises, rightfully noting the rushed process and the untoward appearance of commissioners approving their own salaries, as opposed to creating an independent committee to review and recommend appropriate salary levels.

Olivas, who correctly objects to county commissioners making more than most other county residents, proposed an amendment that would have raised pay rates for elected officials other than county commissioners by 25%. But nobody seconded his motion, so they all get 15% — for now, until next time.

The other three county commissioners, who made the same tired and insufferable arguments that so many legislators parrot about enticing better candidates through higher pay, must have felt 10% was too little, a 286% raise was too audacious, and no raise wasn’t really a viable option.

So, Bernalillo County commissioners elected or reelected in November now make $44,970 instead of $39,106; and the county clerk and treasurer make $99,627 instead of $86,632. The sheriff, probate judge and county assessor, respectively, will make $103,884 instead of $90,334; $43,869 instead of $38,147 and $99,626 instead of $86,632, when new terms for those offices begin in 2027.

The race is on

At least 15 other counties raced to approve salary increases for county officials before year’s end, but none of them were as lavish and self-indulgent as Bernalillo County’s proposed 286% pay hikes.

Sandoval County commissioners approved 20% increases to 2018 salaries for county commissioners and county officials. San Juan County set the sheriff’s salary at $150,000 and boosted the salaries for clerk, assessor and treasurer to $115,000 per year. The Santa Fe County commissioners increased the salaries of county clerk and county treasurer to $142,500 and raised county commissioner salaries by an amount corresponding to cost-of-living increases other county employees received over the past five years.

The pay raises approved in at least 16 counties will reverberate down the flowchart because many counties by ordinance set the pay levels of other employees based on a certain percentage of elected officials’ salaries.

All of this does not bode well for county taxpayers, and signals an ominous trend in Santa Fe. If the county manager of the state’s most populou s county proposes “market rate” salaries of $150,943 for county commissioners, how long before state lawmakers give themselves annual salaries of $150,000 or more?

We’ve heard a lot of talk in recent years, from both Democratic and Republican state lawmakers, about “professional-level” salaries for all 112 state lawmakers. Thanks to Bernalillo County Manager Chavez, we now have a better idea how much that “public service” from our citizen-legislators could cost us.

Jeff Tucker is Opinion editor of the Albuquerque Journal.