With the New Mexico legislative session over, the three women representing Socorro County, Gail Armstong, Tara Jaramillo and Siah Hemphill, reflected on their month in Santa Fe.

Gail Armstrong

Representative Armstrong said that although the session had good and bad moments, the leadership teams worked well together, ultimately, and she felt there were several great accomplishments made.

“First and foremost, thanks to oil and gas for tremendous revenue for the state, we passed the largest budget in history, over 10 billion dollars. Not that I agreed with it all, but we made great strides in creating funds for the future, while also creating a grant fund to help access federal dollars. Funding for rural hospitals, prescription reimbursement parity to keep drug prices down. Best of all, we passed the New Mexico Meat and Poultry Inspection act, this will help New Mexicans to feed New Mexicans and create jobs. Also, apprenticeship funding in our schools,” Armstrong said.

Armstrong said she was disappointed by the lack of any type of CYFD reform and the four-day school week threat.

“Our children are not okay; we have answers and MLG is not listening,” Armstrong said. “I will continue to do as much as I can working in conjunction with our county commissioners and villages to help the community…believe me when I say I wish I could do more representing four counties.”

Armstrong serves the largest house district in the state and said it’s hard to spread it around.

“All I can say is that I want to listen to my constituents, and you all elect us to represent you to the best of our ability. I hope you all think I did that; we are a very diverse community with a lot of issues,” Armstrong said.

Tara Jaramillo

Tara Jaramillo

Tara Jaramillo, State House Representative, said as a member of the House Appropriations and Finance Committee, she focused on budget.

“In addition, the Governor had placed public safety on the call list. The House was polarized on seven-gun bills, two of which made it to the floor for a vote and the paid family leave act, which failed to gain a majority vote on the floor,” Jaramillo said.

She felt the biggest accomplishment was House Bill 2, which invested 10.19 billion in New Mexico, while maintaining a reserve of 31%. She was happy with the funding of universal meals for students, CTE, food banks, veteran suicide prevention, rural access to health care and local law enforcement.

She said she received bipartisan support, “without working across the aisle, bills that addressed public safety such as HB316, rural access to healthcare, HB165 or infrastructure and water issues such as SB95, would not have come to fruition.”

“I was able to bring 2.5 million dollars in capital outlay to district 38. This funded projects for the city, county, NM Tech, Cottonwood Valley Charter School and Socorro High School.”

However, she was disappointed that bills she ran to address sex trafficking and exploitation of children and a children’s advocacy bill didn’t go through.

“All too often, we believe bad things happen in other communities or are perpetrated by individuals outside our communities. Daily, children in our communities are victimized and exploited,” Jaramillo said. “We have to recognize the problem and have courageous conversations about the solutions.”

She said that although the work is nowhere near done, they were able to invest in health care for rural areas, childhood education, mental health, infrastructure and housing.

“For far too long, New Mexico has trailed behind other states, and it will take continued focus on growth and investments to move New Mexico forward,” Jaramillo said.

Siah Correa Hemphill

28th District Senator Siah Correa Hemphill

Senator Siah Correa Hemphill said she felt the session was successful, “We focused on the most pressing needs of today, while creating a new framework that will ensure more fiscal stability and certainty to meet future needs.”

“In addition to the budget, we passed a comprehensive tax package that will lower the tax rate for many working families, extend important exemptions to veterans, include new deductions benefiting teachers, healthcare and childcare providers, and introduced a number of incentives that will lead to a cleaner, greener, healthier state,” Hemphill said.

She believes they were able to support community safety with supporting law enforcement, fire departments, gun measures and “creating laws that give judges the ability to keep dangerous criminals off the streets.”

She cosponsored Bill SB175, which gave additional funding to recruit state and local enforcement, which would address the critical staffing shortage, along with a companion effort to recruit state and local firefighters, she said.

Hemphill said she felt proud for securing 1.5 million in funding to CYFD so that all employees and foster families can receive trauma- informed training. She believes it’s critical that those who are working with the most vulnerable, have the skills and knowledge.

“Additionally, I sponsored several successful bills targeting the well-being of our children, including increased investments in childcare assistance, doula and lactation supports, home visiting rate increases, and prekindergarten expansion- SB153, and SB152, which allow CYFD and ECECD to perform background checks on individuals who are providing care for New Mexico’s most vulnerable children,” Hemphill said.

Her only disappointment was one of the bills she sponsored to provide mental health initiatives in higher education, didn’t get fully funded but she said that she plans on reintroducing the bill in the next session.

 

 

 

 

Jessica Carranza | Editor