Legislative Finance Committee

This week's meeting of the Legislative Finance Committee looks to be boring, at least for the large block of us who go into brain freeze mode at the appearance of even the slightest hint of financial complexity. The importance of the meeting looms as large as the speed with which may eyes may glaze. Topic A will be the Retiree Health Care Authority and its solvency, which is eroding rapidly as such things erode. Tomas Rodriguez, acting executive director of the Authority opens the meeting at 9:00 A.M. The Authority is one of several state agencies with large negative numbers looming in its future and few prospects about where to get the money.

In the LFC's newsletter, released this morning, committee chair Sen. John Arthur Smith explains, "Without intervention, the authority fund could be bankrupt could be bankrupt in five or six years." The authority pays for the health care of "tens of thousands of New Mexicans," Smith says.

A legislative fix was proposed during the 2008 legislature but failed "in the wake of vociferous objections of the retirees now receiving care under the plan.

Other agenda items cover the effects of the credit crunch on state borrowing and investment. The agenda is at http://legis.state.nm.us/lcs/agendas/lfcageapr22.08.pdf.

The meeting is tomorrow, April 21, through April 24 in the Capitol in Santa Fe, room 322.