August 13, 2010

A 3.2 percent budget cut to New Mexico schools was delayed by the governor Wednesday pending the arrival of federal funds the state will receive as part of a $26 billion jobs bill President Barack Obama signed Tuesday.

New Mexico likely will receive about $65 million for the state’s school system, said Gilbert Gallegos, the deputy chief of staff for Gov. Bill Richardson.

The budget cut announced earlier this month was for about $75 million statewide.

New Mexico has 45 days to apply for the money to the U.S. Department of Education.

"There were a lot of strings and conditions attached to the bill and we think we can meet them," Gallegos said. "Hopefully that money will be flowing very quickly, which I think was the intent."

The money may arrive just as school districts across the state were faced with substantially trimming their budgets. The Farmington School District initiated a hiring freeze as it contemplated $2.1 million worth of cuts, said D’rese Sutherland, the assistant superintendent of finance.

New Mexico will allocate the money to districts around the state using the school funding formula. The Farmington School District still would be looking at a $658,000 budget cut.

In July, the district put $800,000 into a separate account because it was anticipating future cuts, Sutherland said.

The hiring freeze will remain intact for at least another 10 days until the district has of ficial enrollment numbers, she said.

The federal money "would drop the cut to school districts," said Janel Ryan, the Farmington superintendent. "But we don’t know that yet, and until we know that I’m hesitant to get excited."

Since initiating a hiring freeze, six full-time teachers resigned along with 13 staff members from schools within the district, Ryan said. Some of those positions will be filled thanks to the federal money, and there likely will be some restructuring of teachers within the district once the school year starts.

"Right now, there are a number of balls in the air," Ryan said. "How much is the budget going to be cut, what are the needs of our staff to meet the needs of kids and the transferring, so I have to wait until the start of school before I can make any decisions on that."

If the money makes it from the federal government to Farmington, school officials will call it a pleasant surprise.

"I think it was a nice surprise for all of education in the United States," Sutherland said. "We were looking at drastic cuts in New Mexico."

The bill was $26 billion with $10 billion designated for education. The rest of the money will go to Medicaid and public safety agencies throughout the country. After signing the bill, Obama said "If America’s children and the safety of our communities are your special interests, then it is a special-interest bill."

The governor’s office said it was not anticipating federal money to offset the cuts to education.

"It was nothing we were expecting. We were very hopeful for the Medicaid money and we were pushing hard for that, but the education money was a nice surprise they included in there," Gallegos said. "I think they recognized … that we really need that money."