ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – From boarded up doors to broken windows, we’ve all seen vacant lots around town.

The county assessor has a list of all of nuisance properties and has a plan to clean things up.

“I quickly found out that many of the buildings that have been boarded up and sitting vacant now are actually owned by out-of-state corporations, holding companies or investment companies that are essentially using New Mexico as a write-off state to offset their real estate profits in other parts of the country,” said Damian Lara, a Bernalillo County assessor. 

In the middle of a housing crisis, Lara says vacant buildings are the last thing we need. For the last year, he has been reassessing properties on the nuisance list.

“We are assessing it as it was the highest and best use. That could be a restaurant, affordable hosing, a rental property, it could be retail stores, warehouses. We are assessing it at what it should be, not what it currently is,” said Lara.  

So, what does this mean for these out-of-state property owners?

“Normally, a higher evaluation for these specific properties will result in a higher tax bill,” Lara said. 

Lara says that isn’t always a bad thing when trying to turn vacant buildings into something.

“Reassessing vacant properties encourages and incentivizes these property owners to invest in their properties or to sell it to someone who will,” said Lara. 

There have also been some success stories, like the old Ramada Inn. 

“The property owners are coming in, working with us and saying’ you know ‘We have known that this property has been boarded up and neglected for many years, and now we are renovating it, here is the cost to cure it, will you give us credit for that,’ Absolutely,” said Lara. 

Lara says some business owners have protested their higher evaluations. But, for the most part, the program has been successful and there hasn’t been a lot of push back. 

QUESTA, N.M. — The teen accused of shooting and killing a 13-year-old girl in Questa is expected to take a plea deal Thursday.

Then-14-year-old Porfirio Brown is accused of shooting and killing Amber Archuleta at his father’s home last year.

According to court documents, the shooting happened while Brown was showing a group of friends a collection of guns that his father – William Brown – kept in the home.

The teen already went on trial for murder earlier this year. However, it ended in a hung jury.

Porfirio Brown was supposed to go back on trial next week. According to his attorney, though, he is taking a plea deal.

Prosecutors have agreed to drop the murder charge against him. He is expected to serve a year of probation for tampering with evidence.

His father, William Brown, was also charged in this case under Bennie’s Law. The law holds people accountable if they don’t properly store their firearms in a safe space away from children. A jury wasn’t able to convict him in June.

The hearing for Porfirio Brown will take place at 1:15 p.m. Thursday.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Thousands of New Mexico students are returning to the classroom with some extra reading skills under their belt.

The Public Education Department invited students all over the state to take part in a summer reading boot camp this year to help boost literacy rates.

PED leaders say they’re still reviewing the testing data to see just how much children improved.

They say the feedback from parents and teachers already shows there’s a lot of optimism for New Mexico’s students.

“When we all come together and we focus on, very intentionally, about what we want to do when it comes to instruction, we can see tremendous impact in a very short amount of time,” said NMPED Secretary Arsenio Romero. 

This summer, parents and teachers all over New Mexico focused on the startling number – 38%. That’s how many New Mexico students are considered proficient readers.

“We knew that this was important, because reading is the cornerstone for all learning. If we can create confident, proficient readers, they’re going to be able to be successful in all the other core areas,” said Romero. 

So state lawmakers chipped in $30 million to get more students back on track before the new school year.

PED leaders say more than 9,500 children participated in structured literacy programs across more than 100 sites this summer. That includes some non-traditional ones like a ranch up in Mora.

“We saw students from the age of 5 years old all the way to about 13, 14 years old, being able to work in very small, structured groups all around the science of reading and structured literacy,” Romero said. 

While the PED is still collecting the hard data, they say all signs point towards a glowing success.

“Talking with instructors, they were so excited and ecstatic with what they saw happening every single day, them telling me that they could see the learning happening right in front of them,” said Romero. “Another family said my student was reading alone at bedtime. They’ve never done that in the past. My child got quicker at reading and participated in the program. My student gained confidence in her reading. So it was just conversations like that, that really reiterated to me that we were doing the right thing, and this was an investment that we needed to make.”

PED leaders say they actually had a surplus of willing instructors this summer, which is a good sign the community wants to help boost those literacy scores.

Officials say they plan on asking state lawmakers for another $30 million for next year, and there’s already conversations about summer boot camps in other subjects like math.

MORE: