One of the more convoluted pieces of legislation winding its way through the Roundhouse is the plan to reform the Public Employee Retirement Fund (PERA). This bill--SB 72--with its many moving parts--has passed the Senate and now awaits House action. But how much action should there be?

Is there anywhere else in the USA where government workers can get a retirement check in their late 40's or early fifties? Not that we can find. So we queried a spokesman for the Governor's Pension Solvency Task Force. Why, instead of the complicated reform plan, doesn't the state simply doesn't raise the retirement age for everyone--public safety personnel included--to the mid 50's for public safety and near 60 for others?  That's a common plan across the nation. The answer was: "We looked at that but nothing came of it."

Raising the retirement age is a lightning rod for the politicos, but doesn't it make more sense than fiddling with retired workers' cost of living adjustments and making them and current employees pay even more into PERA? And coming back time and again for another fix and more contributions?

Often the most effective solution is the simplest. It's astonishing that none of the major players, the Governor, the legislators or the media, are not pounding the table over this biggest of holes in PERA.

As long as the retirement age stays artificially low--no required age as long as you have either 25 or 30 years on the job--the PERA reformers will continue to demand more contributions from workers and retirees, even as their health insurance costs climb.

The House could resolve this by approving the $76 million cash infusion into PERA that is included in the Senate bill, strip out everything else and mandate a new task force to study a minimum retirement age. 

The best solution in this case may be simple, but it requires courage. That's about as bountiful around this issue as Lobo basketball wins.

EDUCATION WEEDS

This is a bit in the weeds but if the state is ever going to reverse its poor standing in education achievement it's going to have to make much more headway in Indian Country where dismal stats have a disproportionate impact on that standing. From the House Dems:

House Bill 4, a bill to provide the equivalent amount of the full federal Impact Aid to schools and school districts that serve Native American students, passed the House floor. . . House Bill 4 seeks to address decades of imbalance in the distribution of federal education funding.

Currently, instead of distributing Impact Aid funds to the neediest districts in full, 75% of federal Impact Aid funding is credited to the State Equalization Guarantee, a formula used to calculate and administer public education dollars across each school district. With House Bill 4, an equivalent amount in funding awards will go directly to tribal and other federally impacted school districts. . .An estimated $65 million a year is diverted away from New Mexico’s tribal schools and school districts. 
House Bill 4 passed the House floor by a vote of 54-2 and now goes to the Senate for consideration.

WHERE'S THE NET?

So they can get super high speed Internet in the booming SE NM oilfields but can't get it in Indian Country in NW New Mexico or on the Rez?

Businesses and residents in the southern end of a southeast NM county likely will have high-speed internet by the end of the year. The Hobbs News-Sun reports the New Mexico Department of Information Technology announced a new public-private partnership expected to build much-needed broadband infrastructure in Lea County. Officials say the move will accommodate the current economic expansion occurring in the Permian Basin.

How about one of those partnerships in rural McKinley, San Juan and Cibola counties and on the section of the Rez in NM? The state and the state's congressional delegation are losing credibility when they argue they are trying when the rich boom county of Lea gets it in what seems like a snap of their fingers. Come on, guys--that would be you Martin, Tom and Ben Ray.

This is the home of New Mexico politics.

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(c)NM POLITICS WITH JOE MONAHAN 2020