New Mexico budge deficit (Santa Fe: sales, unemployment, closing)

[mortimer]

I was curious how our situation compares with other states. Relatively speaking,
not so bad, actually. Crappy, but relatively not crappy, so to speak.
STATES WITH FY2010 BUDGET GAPS
You want to see Table 2.

New Mexico has the 36th worse absolute deficit
and the 35th worse in percentage terms.

Top 5 ( $ millions ):
1 ... CA ....52,000 .... 56.50% ( percent of budget )
2 ... NY ....21,000 ..... 38.00%
3 ... IL ......14,000 .... 40.90%
4 ... NJ ..... 11,000 ... 37.30%
5 ... WA .... 6,200 .... 26.70%
...
36 ... NM ...... 995 ... 18.1%

When sorted by percent, you have

1 ... CA ....52,000 .... 56.50%
2 ... AZ .... 5,100 ..... 52.20%
3 ... NV .... 1,500 ..... 50.30%
4 ... IL ......14,000 .... 40.90%
5 ... NY ....21,000 ..... 38.00%
6 ... NJ ..... 11,000 ... 37.30%

I cut these sorts out of the alphabetical list given on the site. I'll work up the
numbers per capita later on to see how that works out. It doesn't look like it
will change things by much as I take a quick look at things.

For some perspective on the numbers, note that the Greeks
have a deficit of 12.7% with total dollar amount of $1,200 million.

Anyone who believes we are actually in a recovery raise your hand.

If you are like me and say we are not, then we are not in a recession.
Four quarters in a row == depression.

If any comments, please refrain from degrading MY thread with blanket
generalizations of conservatives, liberals, democrats or republicans or
I'll put the smack down on you before Poncho_NM locks it up.

[JDTH]

Here in Arizona where I spend most of my time there is rumor that will not be getting income tax returns this year. They say AZ does not have the money to pay us back for the money we already paid them. I belive it. We are in really bad shape over here. They will owe me approximatly $3000 to $4000 dollars this year and there is a very good chance I will not receive it this year.

I do wish I could spend more of my time in NM.

[mrgoodwx]

Some of those state are the same ones in Gregor MacDonald's (seeking Alpha) list of the 7 states to NOT retire to. He lists: California, North Carolina, Florida, New Jersey, Illinois, Michigan, and Ohio. This is all based four factors (large population of at least 8 million people, 15% or greater underemployment rate, heavy borrowing of at least $1 billion to pay unemployment claims, and net importers of energy). He would have had Texas on the list too if they were not net exporters of energy. If he had used a ranking of more than 7, I would think Arizona, Nevada and New York might be among those.

I wish I could find an article I read a month or so ago, where the author listed the states most likely to be left standing in 5 years. It included New Mexico, Louisiana and Colorado among the top 10, but I can't remember the others. A couple of the factors included smaller populations and adequate energy production to take care of the population.

[GregW]

I suggest considering the fact that New Mexico receives, due to the Federal presence, more than twice as much money from the Feds as it pays to the Feds. New Mexico will be in some difficulty if Federal military spending is ever cut back.

[jiminnm]

The major reason that NM has a budget deficit is that the state spends too much money, mainly because it has far too many employees. According to census data, these are the number of state employees per 10,000 residents for our area:

NM - 241
UT - 204
OK - 195
CO - 138
TX - 117
AZ - 111

[mortimer]

It's too bad I can't correct the spelling on this thread. It looks like the thread's
about the New Mexico parakeet ( Budgerigar ) deficit. How embarassing.

Here are the per-capita numbers ( top ten )
.................... population .. deficit .. per-capita deficit
-----------------------------------------------------
1 ..... Alaska .......... 0.70 .... 1,300 .... 1,861
2 ..... California ..... 36.96 ... 52,100 ... 1,410
3 ..... Connecticut .. 3.52 ..... 4,700 ... 1,336
4 ..... New Jersey ... 8.71 ... 11,000 .... 1,263
5 ..... Illinois ......... 12.91 ... 14,300 ... 1,108
6 ..... Oregon ......... 3.83 .... 4,200 .... 1,098
7 ..... New York ..... 19.54 ... 21,000 ... 1,075
8 ..... Rhode Island .. 1.05 ....... 990 ..... 940
9 ..... Washington ... 6.66 ..... 6,200 ..... 930
10 ... Hawaii .......... 1.30 ..... 1,200 ...... 927

----- New Mexico & neighbors -----

12 ... Arizona ......... 6.60 ..... 5,100 .... 773
17 ... Nevada ......... 2.64 ..... 1,500 .... 568
19 ... New Mexico ... 2.01 ........ 995 .... 495

The bottom ten have deficits of less than $250/person:
Missouri / New Hampshire / Indiana / Tennessee / Nebraska
West Virginia / Texas / Arkansas / South Dakota / Wyoming

North Dakota and Montana have no deficit, currently.

Say an average family has 3.14 people ( the US average ). That would take an
increase in taxes of about $3,000 ( to $6,000 ) for the top ten states and over
$1,550 for New Mexico to bring their deficits in balance at current spending rates.

Originally Posted by jiminnm

The major reason that NM has a budget deficit is that the state spends
too much money, mainly because it has far too many employees.

Comparing AZ to NM, it would seem that the spending per employee is more of
a factor than the total number of employees. I'm not saying that the payroll
couldn't be trimmed, but big projects would seem to be more of a factor.

Here is the deficit -> per capita lined up with your table:

NM - 241 ___ 495
UT - 204 ___ 359
OK - 195 ___ 434
CO - 138 ___ 318
TX - 117 ___ 141
AZ - 111 ___ 773

[Hombre57]

Personally, I believe New Mexico will be closing somewhat the budget problems within the next year or two with the new cigarette tax imposed, when it is signed into law.
I wonder why politicians always target cigarettes when they fail to manage taxpayer dollars properly? I would suppose it's the easiest way out?
Cigarette tax hike gets nod from public - The Santa Fe New Mexican

Why don't they just up the sales tax 1/2% ?

Only 2 states have no budget deficits, they are North Dakota and Montana. Wonder what they're doing correctly that other states cannot follow suit?

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=711

See the map on this link.

[jiminnm]

I'm not sure what, if anything, these numbers show - but I've added the average cost (labor only, no benefits) per state employee:

NM - 241 ___ 495 --- $43,100
UT - 204 ___ 359 --- $47,900
OK - 195 ___ 434 --- $37,600
CO - 138 ___ 318 --- $54,900
TX - 117 ___ 141 --- $47,600
AZ - 111 ___ 773 --- $35,600

NM's pay isn't out of line, so I would guess that the number of employees is driving the cost more than pay.

According to the Natl Assn of State Budget Officers, these are the 2009 total state expenditures (divided by the population, so per resident):

NM - $ 7,689
UT - 4,165
OK - 5,537
CO - 5,359
TX - 3,628
AZ - 4,104

This again demonstrates that NM is spending much more money than other states (and far too much IMHO).

[rwjoyak]

Originally Posted by JDTH

Here in Arizona where I spend most of my time there is rumor that will not be getting income tax returns this year. They say AZ does not have the money to pay us back for the money we already paid them.

Lots of states are supposedly considering holding onto tax refund money as long as possible this year to earn max interest off of it before sending it back to the taxpayers.

IMHO this will trigger an interesting example of the law of unintended consequences. Most smart folks in such states will react by reducing their withholdings to the minimum possible beginning this year (esp. if any states actually don't return tax refunds at all). This will lead to more folks having to pay extra taxes at year end, some of whom are likely to not have the money to do so. The end result will be a possible net benefit to such states this year, due to interest income on state-held refund money, followed by a net dis-benefit from next year on in overall tax revenues.

You would think the bright bulbs in state governments would realize this. But I guess that's just beyond them.

[Six Foot Three]

They should start by selling off the ''railrunner'' that runs from from belen to santa fe as we southern new mexico HATE that train and the money it's cost the state. Wasn't it $500 million when all said and done if im correct??