It may be more than just a lean year for pork at the state capitol – it may be no year at all.
“I don’t think there’s gonna be any (capital outlay money),” Sen. Richard Martinez (D-Española) said.
Española Planning Director Cyrus Samii, who has been lobbying legislators on behalf of the city, was initially sent to Santa Fe with a list of priority projects the city was hoping to fund. Now Samii said he’s mainly focusing on getting reauthorization for two of the city’s previous awards worth $325,000.
“In terms of requests for new capital outlay, it’s really questionable whether funds will be available in this session,” Samii said.
In years past, millions of dollars have been set aside for capital outlay, or pork, that is distributed among local public agencies – counties, cities and schools, but also acequias, water associations and volunteer fire departments. First the governor skims off a portion for so-called statewide projects, and then the remainder is split evenly between the House, Senate and governor’s office.
Each legislative chamber has traditionally divvied its portion among members, who then pick and choose individual projects within their districts. It’s the task of many lobbyists to simply corner a portion of that money from legislators.
With the state facing a major budget shortfall, it had been rumored for months that each senator could receive as little as $200,000 this year. (Representatives would receive about two-thirds that much.) That’s a significant reduction from the $1.37 million senators received last year.
But Martinez said senators were polled recently on whether they would spend or relinquish their share if they were only allocated $200,000. Most of them said they’d relinquish it, he said.
“I told them I’d keep it,” Martinez said. “I have some small projects I’d like to get finished.”
Sen. Carlos Cisneros (D-Questa), who chairs the Senate subcommittee for capital outlay, said there’s an ongoing debate throughout the Roundhouse over what to do with the estimated $30 million that each chamber would receive if current estimates hold true.
“It’s not going to buy us a lot of projects,” Cisneros said.
Cisneros said in the current economy, simply banking that money is not a good option. He’s advocating that senators and representatives pool their allocations and fund regional projects that could actually break ground.
“We need to infuse whatever dollars we can into the local economies,” Cisneros said.
Under the old system, dozens of local agencies would each receive small grants, enough to curry political favor but not enough to complete a project.
Cisneros said for that and other reasons, roughly $1 billion in previously allocated funding is just sitting in the state treasury. The machinery is clogged and those dollars aren’t being put to work, he said. Martinez and Cisneros both said with the pinch on capital outlay, legislators and constituents are looking to the incoming $1.7 billion in federal stimulus money to help tackle the long wish list of local projects (See related story).