New Mexico
Paid family medical leave clears New Mexico Senate – Source New Mexico
After nearly five hours of debate from New Mexico Republican opponents, the Senate version of the paid family medical leave bill passed the Senate floor just before 11 p.m. Friday night.
Lawmakers passed Senate Bill 3 in a 25-15 vote. Its counterpart in the other chamber, House Bill 6, awaits its second committee hearing in the House Commerce and Economic Development Committee, where the proposal died last session.
Sen. George Muñoz (D-Gallup) was the only Democrat who voted against the bill Friday night.
Senate Bill 3 sets up a fund administered by the New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions for employers and employees to pay into, that could eventually pay employees for a maximum of 12 weeks while they’re on leave for their own medical needs or that of a family member.
Before it gets to that point the bill will allow nine weeks for an individual’s medical leave. During that time, the state will study how the program is doing before it makes a decision to implement the 12-week leave mandate. If signed into law, New Mexicans who need family leave will start with up to 12-weeks guaranteed during that period.
“It’s an insurance program for all those things that happen to us whether we like it or not,” said bill sponsor Senate Pro Tempore Mimi Stewart (D-Albuquerque).
Supporters of the bill say the fund needs $36 million in startup costs to develop.
Eligible employees would pay $272 a year into the fund through payroll deductions, and employers would pay $218 per mean wage employee per year to fund the program.
The legislation returned this year after sponsors said they worked with business owners to address concerns about potential harms to small businesses.
The 2024 bill promises protections for employers through measures like capping contribution increases, delaying implementation and employee eligibility requirements.
The Senate proposal also creates a temporary advisory committee with representation from a variety of organizations including those that work with small businesses, medical groups, women and the elderly.
The committee would be responsible for creating rules for how the fund will operate. It’s also responsible for creating educational materials for employers and employees.
Two amendments presented on the Senate floor Friday night by Stewart and Sen. Joseph Cervantes (D-Las Cruces) made additional changes to the makeup of the temporary advisory committee and employee eligibility, including eliminating certain types of leave by doubling the days an employee would have to work to be eligible for leave from 90 to 180 working days.
Both amendments were approved.
Still, the debate echoed previous arguments that stalled the bill last session.
“If you want to beat up the big box stores, have at it. Let’s bring back the small store, I’m good with that,” said Sen. William Sharer (R-Farmington). “But this isn’t beating up the big box store, it’s beating up Main Street.”
Stewart said in a previous debate that 66% of small businesses wouldn’t have to pay into the fund, as the bill narrowly escaped the Senate Rules Committee on Feb. 3 with a vote of 6-5.
Opponents of the bill expressed concern that there’s not enough safeguards in place to protect businesses from lawsuits and being squeezed by fund contributions, calling the bill in its current form “confusing” for business owners.
“I know in my heart and the emails that I get, the many concerns I have from my employers that this is a tough transition that this is going to make,” Sen. Pat Woods (R-Broadview) said. “We’re trying to get employers to grow in our state and prosper in our state … what my employers are telling me is that if this bill passes they’re going to have to remove the benefits they give their employees already.”
A survey by the Small Business Majority found that 85% of small business owners support a state-run paid family and medical leave insurance program. That same survey found that 61% of small businesses believed paid family medical leave made them more competitive with larger companies that offer better benefit packages to employees.
Stewart told lawmakers the state was committed to making the transition “as easy as possible” for employers.
“We’re taking our time with this,” Stewart said. “We’re going to have a robust interim rulemaking. We want businesses to feel good about this. We want it easy for them.”
The application period for leave is also deferred until Jan. 1, 2027, Stewart said.
Sharer called the bill “flawed” and said it would “break up the business family” because the government would be able to back up an employee who wanted to take leave and had a conflict, instead of allowing the issue to be resolved between an employee and their employer.
He also raised concern about opening up a potential for fraud.
Stewart pointed out that there is nothing in the bill language that compels an employee to take leave or bars either party from working out leave amongst themselves.
She said the bill was designed to help both workers and employers because there is a high threshold for obtaining leave, such as requiring an application and multiple sources of support for an employee’s claim. It also helps employees get back to work faster and allows employers to offset costs by hiring temporary workers to fill in and not have to pay for someone’s leave.
“It’s a high bar to get medical leave,” Stewart said. “If you have employees that you just want to let off for a while, nothing says you can’t do that. The whole idea behind the changes we make today is to ease that employee-employer relationship. This does not require you to do things different with your employees. It’s really just for these situations where people cannot work.”
The National Partnership for Women and Families, a nonprofit working on fairness in the workplace, says there’s very few instances of fraud and many of the few suspicions of fraud have not been proven.
Stewart said nearly half of women in New Mexico were not in the workforce, and that this bill would bring mothers, family caregivers and people with chronic health conditions back into the workforce
She cited the U.S. Department of Labor which states that New Mexico would experience an expansion of the labor force by 47,000 workers with paid family medical leave enacted. Stewart told lawmakers that a paid family medical leave program would ensure families in need had resources during difficult times.
New Mexico had the fourth highest poverty rate last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. It is also among the states with the highest Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program use in the country. It ranks 50th in child welfare.
“We’re talking human dignity and social justice. Because right now these workers are just fired or they lose their jobs,” Stewart said. “I believe this will answer a lot of the issues that are economically disadvantaging New Mexico.”
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NEW MEXICO (KRQE) – Some call the multi-million-dollar El Camino Real Heritage Center an architectural masterpiece. Others, however, call it one of New Mexico’s most expensive blunders. In 2021, former Speaker of the House Don Tripp weighed in on the project, “As far as benefit, it really didn’t have any benefit to anybody.”
Taxpayers paid more than $4,000,000 to build it, a few million dollars more to operate it and, now, a half million to tear it down.
The El Camino Real Heritage Center is a history museum dedicated to the historic ‘Royal Road of the Interior’. Established by Spanish conquistadores in 1598, the historic byway extended from Mexico City to north of Santa Fe. Armed with $4,000,000 from the state legislature and the Bureau of Land Management, consultants were hired to find the best place to build the new museum. After studying various locations, they chose a remote spot on the prairie 37 miles south of Socorro.
The experts said, ‘build halfway between Socorro and Truth or Consequences,’ and the museum will draw 100,000 visitors a year, bring in $10,000,000 to the region, and create 174 new jobs. Back in 2004, no one raised a red flag about putting a tourist attraction in an out-of-the-way location. It was only after construction was complete that officials learned the so-called experts were dead wrong. The project was doomed to fail before it even opened its doors. “Who the heck thought it was a good idea to build it where they built it?” State Rep. Gail Armstrong told KRQE News 13 last year.
The state’s newest museum opened in 2005. An estimated crowd of 2000 turned out for the dedication ceremony. Socorro Mayor Ravi Bhasker was there. “We had Bill Richardson out there cutting the ribbon, and then we had the Vice President of Spain come down here with his beautiful wife, and we had dignitaries everywhere. It was exciting,” Mayor Bhasker said.
But the excitement was short-lived. Where the historic El Camino Real trail was in use for three centuries, the museum with its namesake lasted just eleven years. The remote location meant few visitors, meager revenue, inadequate staffing, expensive utilities, and maintenance.
In 2016, New Mexico’s Cultural Affairs Department pulled the plug on the El Camino Real Heritage Center, padlocked the doors, and permanently closed the museum. The parking lot is deserted, tourists are gone, artifacts are packed away, display cases vacant, exhibits dismantled, interpretive panels removed, and the gift shop is bare. All there is to show for millions of tax dollars is an abandoned building on the prairie.
“Eleven years is disgraceful. There was a real failure in this particular project,” the late State Senator John Arthur Smith said in a 2021 interview. We asked the retired Senate Finance Committee Chair, when the history of this project is written, what will it say? “They’re going to shake their head and (use this as) another example of government waste,” the retired Senator Smith said in 2021.
So what do you do with a $4,000,000 deserted building in the middle of nowhere? Time and vandals have taken a toll. The museum was closed and boarded up in 2016, and then state officials abandoned the site. Because little effort was made to secure the empty building, it is no longer habitable. Copper wiring has been stolen. There is significant structural damage, mold, a rodent infestation, and no electricity or lights. Most of the HVAC, electrical, plumbing, water, and septic systems are either obsolete or inoperable.
Faced with a whopping $3.5 million repair bill, the Museum of New Mexico’s Board of Regents made the difficult decision last year to demolish the building. Board of Regent’s President, Dr. George Goldstein, calls the building, “A loss, a huge loss.”
“What a complete waste of taxpayer dollars,” says State Rep. Gail Armstrong who’s District 49 includes the museum site. And what did taxpayers get for their $4,000,000 investment? “Nothing. It just cost them a ton of money. Nothing,” Representative Armstrong said.
This week, a state-hired demolition crew began the task of tearing down the museum complex. Tons of concrete, steel, and glass will be hauled away. The parking lot and nearby caretaker’s house will also be ripped out. The prairie will be graded, reseeded with native plants, and returned to the Bureau of Land Management in restored, pristine condition. The demolition project is expected to take four months.
The El Camino Real museum was planned and built during the Governor Bill Richardson administration. All of the State Legislators involved in the funding of the museum project have since left government service.
Soon, the El Camino Real International Heritage Center will be just a bitter memory. All clues to the existence of a pricey government blunder will have been erased. Pay a visit to the remote spot south of Socorro later this fall, and all you will find will be desert creosote, prairie dogs, and a few rattlesnakes.
CLOVIS, New Mexico (KVII) — A baby giraffe was born at the Hillcrest Park Zoo in Clovis.
The city announced a male calf was born around 1 a.m. Thursday to Jerrica, a Rothschild giraffe who has lived at the zoo since she was born there in January 2012.
Zoo officials said Jerrica, a first-time mother, and her calf are doing well.
Baby giraffe born at the Hillcrest Park Zoo in Clovis, New Mexico on July 9, 2026 (Credit: Hillcrest Park Zoo )
The calf will make his public debut from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime moment you won’t want to miss! Bring your family, your camera, and your excitement as we welcome the zoo’s newest (and tallest!) superstar!” said the zoo.
Because the calf is male, he will eventually be moved from Hillcrest Park Zoo to another zoo or facility, according to the city.
The zoo plans to ask the public to help name the calf in the coming weeks.
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