When you filed your tax return this year, you may have noticed some changes. Maybe you got a smaller refund than usual or you owed more in state taxes. So what happened to the big fairness measures that the state Legislature just passed?
When you filed your tax return this year, you may have noticed some changes. Maybe you got a smaller refund than usual or you owed more in state taxes. So what happened to the big fairness measures that the state Legislature just passed?
“The Working Families Tax Relief Act would have lasting benefits for millions of children,” said Amber Wallin, deputy director of NM Voices. “Kids whose families receive working family tax credits do better in school, are likelier to attend college, and are likely to earn more as adults.” That’s important not only for the children themselves but for our state, nation, and economy,”
"Children do best in families, and being part of a family is a human need and essential to well-being," she said. "So, we'll be really prioritizing finding foster homes, both relative and non-relative, for these youths that are still being sent to group homes or institutions."
The nonprofit New Mexico Voices For Children recently issued a news release that cites an estimate that the feds will have as much as a $1 billion shortfall to pay for the count, along with the dire prediction that “Trump’s underfunding … is likely to hurt NM.”
Children who are removed by the state from an unhealthy or potentially dangerous situation do better when they are placed in a foster family than in a group or institutional setting. This is one child well-being indicator on which New Mexico does well above the national average.
More than 100,000 New Mexicans will see their pay increase starting in January now that Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has signed legislation to raise the state minimum wage. “This is going to give hope and improve the quality of life” for New Mexicans at the bottom of the pay scale, the governor said Monday during a news conference at the Capitol.
First and foremost, we need to do what’s best for our children. Spending money and time on aggressive litigation against a court order that simply requires us to educate our children at the standard set forth in our own constitution is not what’s best for our children. Our K-12 education system needs fundamental change, and that will not occur unless we place a relentless focus on improving what’s happening in the classroom, not “winning” in the courtroom.
Amber Wallin, deputy director for New Mexico Voices for Children, called the new Early Childhood department “big,” creating opportunity for the state to coordinate programs and ensure children who need them get all the services they are qualified for.
“This report makes it clear that while the Legislature and Governor were wise to invest some of the state’s oil-boom revenue surplus in building our infrastructure, we still have a long way to go,” said James Jimenez, executive director of New Mexico Voices for Children. “New Mexico must find a way to significantly increase stable, sustainable revenues in order to make the long-term infrastructure investments that supports a 21st century economy.”