The Chairman of the New Mexico Legislative Education Study Committee says he’s about 80-percent comfortable with the proposed public school support funding package put forth last week by the State Public Education Department. Democratic Senator John Sapien of Corrales says the problems he has in the public education spending plan concern what he terms the P—E-D’s insistence on funding programs he says are too extremely targeted and controlled by the state’s education agency. *****122214-Sapien-3 :29***** Senator Sapien contends there are flaws with the teacher evaluation system and says the proposed PED budget puts additional money into programs that rely on the same model. Sapien also says he expects the new House Republican Majority to have little room for compromise on the public school support package.
Santa Fe officials plan to spend more than eight-million dollars overhauling the City’s water-meter-reading system. The New Mexican reports that the city's Water Division will replace 34-thousand water meters as well as install and maintain a new reading system over the next decade. Officials say the city will replace defective data-transmitting devices that were bought at cost for nearly five-million dollars in 2004. They say 13-thousand meters that are supposed to allow utility workers to read the devices while in their vehicles with a laptop no longer function. The city's complaint against the now bankrupt Texas manufacturer of the devices is pending. Meanwhile, the city council approved an eight-million dollar contract earlier this month with Badger Meter Inc.
Nearly a dozen New Mexico hospitals will lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in Medicare payments because of hospital-acquired infections. The Albuquerque Journal recently reported that 11 New Mexico hospitals are among more than 700 nationwide that have been hit with penalties for high rates of certain conditions brought on during hospitalization. According to Kaiser Health News and the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, hospitals will see a one-percent loss in reimbursements for the fiscal year that started in October. The penalized hospitals include Presbyterian and University of New Mexico hospitals in Albuquerque. Presbyterian Healthcare Services says it expects a payment loss of 900-thousand dollars. Under the Affordable Care Act, Medicare can cut payments based on issues such as frequency of infections caused by hospital equipment.
The Winter Solstice and ‘Tis the season for holiday parties…. And, as a consequence drunken driving. But, as we hear in this report from KSFR’s Joe Day, local law enforcement officials are fully-engaged in the battle to keep the state’s highways safe: *****122214-AM-DWI-RoadblockFeature Q: std 2:35*****
Meantime, a new report from the Legislative Finance Committee says New Mexico counties are not effectively spending funds from a DWI grant program to combat drunk driving. The New Mexican reported over the weekend that the L-F-C study says counties are wasting money from the Local DWI Grant program on strategies such as media campaigns and outreach. According to the study, officials should devote more funds to increased patrols and tougher prosecutions. Also, the study indicated that most counties are not funding treatment as required by state law. Committee members say there needs to be more accountability for how counties spend the 18-million dollars that annually comes from liquor excise taxes. However, some advocates disagree with the study and say there has been a sharp decrease in alcohol-related fatalities in the state in the last decade.
The management experiment at Valles Caldera National Preserve is coming to an end as the National Park Service prepares to take over the 140-square-mile property in northern New Mexico. The transition is among dozens of public lands measures squeezed into the half-trillion-dollar defense bill approved by Congress and signed by the president last week. The Park Service is taking on Valles Caldera and numerous other properties at a time when the agency is struggling with more than $11 billion in deferred maintenance at existing parks and monuments.The defense bill did not include any funding for the new parks, leaving the Park Service to find money within its existing budget. At Valles Caldera, there will be a six-month transition period. Officials expect the transition to lead to more public access.
Santa Fe Weather: partly sunny today with a 20-percent chance for showers after 11am with today’s high, 44. Tonight: Mostly cloudy with a 30-percent chance for snow with 1-2 inches possible. Tomorrow: mostly sunny with a slight chance for snow early, tomorrow’s high, 33.