Dec. 23—SANTA FE — New Mexico county commissioners are wasting little time moving ahead with salary increases for county officials after statewide votes gave them the authority to do so last month.
At least 16 counties, including Bernalillo, Santa Fe and Doña Ana, have approved salary increases for county officials this month. And more counties could follow suit in the coming weeks.
“I think almost all of them are planning to do something by the end of the year,” said Joy Esparsen, the executive director of the New Mexico Association of Counties.
Why the rush to approve pay raises?
Esparsen said any salary increases must be approved before Jan. 1 in order to be applied to officials beginning new terms, as state law bars elected officials from getting mid-term raises.
County officials who have already begun their terms would have to wait until they’re elected to a new term to get the salary bump.
However, the push to approve salary increases before January has put some county commissioners in the politically awkward predicament of voting on whether to increase their own salaries.
Bernalillo County commissioners voted 3-2 this month to boost their own pay by 15%, as well as that of the county’s clerk, treasurer, sheriff, assessor and probate judge.
But Commission Chairwoman Barbara Baca said an independent commission should be tasked with the job of determining pay rates for county officers. At least some cities, including Albuquerque, have established such bodies.
“I think that it should be an objective commission that takes into consideration all of these questions, that does the comparison to other similar positions and makes a good recommendation with public discourse, rather than a jump to increase our own salaries,” Baca said. “That doesn’t feel right to me.”
Sen. Joseph Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, who was among the sponsors of the legislative resolution allowing county commissions to set county officers’ salaries, acknowledged commissioners could face public criticism for voting to increase their own pay levels.
“It’s fraught with scrutiny, but at the same time there has to be some mechanism to do that,” Cervantes told the Journal.
He also pointed out it’s been years since the last time county officials’ salaries were adjusted. A 2022 bill that would have increased their salary levels was pocket vetoed by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, meaning county officials have not gotten a pay raise since 2018.
“It has been a very long time since some of these salaries were adjusted,” Cervantes said. “The Legislature felt confident that local officials should have the authority to set these salaries.”
Voter approval and legal concerns
The constitutional amendment shifting the authority for setting county officials’ salaries was approved by the Legislature during this year’s 30-day session without a single vote in opposition.
It then appeared on the November general election ballot and was approved with the support of roughly 66% of voters.
After voters ratified the constitutional amendment, some counties reached out to state’s central budget agency to make sure they could proceed with approving salary increases.
A legal review determined counties could, in fact, move forward without the involvement of the Legislature or the state agency, according to a state Department of Finance and Administration spokesperson.
A tangled salary structure
The constitutional change approved this year applies to elected county officers, including commissioners, treasurers, assessors, clerks and sheriffs.
It does not apply to other county employees, as those employees have not been subject to the statutory salary caps that were occasionally adjusted by the Legislature.
That has led, in many counties, to chief deputies making higher salaries than their bosses, according to the New Mexico Association of Counties.
“Why run for office when you’re going to take a huge pay cut?” Esparsen said.
However, at least some counties have, by ordinance, set the pay of certain employees to a certain percentage of elected officials’ salary levels.
That means that an increase in officials’ salaries would also lead to pay raises for other employees, unless those ordinances are amended.