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For the first time in more than four decades, House Bill 55 is poised to make New Mexicoâs public infrastructure funding process transparent. House Bill 55 is a bipartisan bill sponsored by Reps. Matthew McQueen (D-Galisteo), Kelly Fajardo (R-Los Lunas) and Natalie Figueroa (D-Albuquerque), Sens. Bill Tallman (D-Albuquerque) and Steven Neville (R-Aztec).
Just about every year since 1977, New Mexico has divided up its available funds for infrastructure projects, commonly known as âcapital outlay,â among the governor and all 112 legislators. In 2019, each senator was allocated about $3.6 million and each representative received about $2.1 million.
Every legislator has complete discretion to spend his or her portion of that funding in any way they choose, subject to the veto of the governor â and those choices are made in secret. Once the legislators turn in their confidential lists of capital outlay appropriations, they are rolled into a single massive bill that d