By Karen Wentworth
League of Women Voters

Two of the four constitutional amendments voters will see on the ballot this fall are property tax exemptions for veterans. Currently all 100% disabled veterans are exempt from property taxes in New Mexico.

Amendment 1 would offer partial exemptions to veterans who are partially disabled. A veteran who has a 30% service-related disability would receive a 30% exemption.

Amendment 2 would offer a total property tax exemption to all honorably discharged veterans and their widows or widowers.

The impact of the amendments is significant.

Counties with the greatest number of veteran property owners will be affected the most. The impact will be greatest in Bernalillo, Sandoval, Otero and Doña Ana counties. The property tax burden veterans now pay would essentially be shifted to non-veteran property owners in the community. The county-by-county breakdowns produced for the Legislature can be found at https://www.lwvcnm.org.

Counties themselves will see part of their personal property tax base evaporate because state law limits the amount of property tax that can be shifted from one group to another. Commercial properties are exempt from these amendments.

County governments are not the only public entities that will be affected if the two amendments pass. Public schools and municipal government will also see their income shrink, although it is not clear just how much that will be.

It is clear that most counties in the state will face some financial repercussions if the amendments pass. Twenty-two of the thirty-three counties in New Mexico have reached the state constitutional cap for property tax. Those counties cannot raise property taxes to make up for lost revenue. Their only options are to find other revenues sources or cut budgets.

These two amendments are unusual in the way they embed property tax law in the state constitution. That’s something that has not been done before. Lawmakers usually prefer to use state statutes to handle taxes because state tax laws can easily be amended to reflect changing economic conditions. Placing the veteran exemptions in the state constitution is akin to setting them in concrete.

There are two more amendments to consider.

Constitutional Amendment 3 would allow the dean of the University of New Mexico Law School to appoint a designee to the Judicial Nominating Commission. Legislators have handed the law school dean several jobs over the years in addition to his formal position at the university. This would allow the dean to share some of the complex work of chairing the commission that determines which attorneys should be nominated for judicial positions when vacancies occur.

Constitutional Amendment 4 would allow county commissioners to set their own salaries, in addition to the salaries of the county treasurer, county clerk, county assessor and sheriff. Currently the state sets parameters for how much commissioners and other public officials can be paid. But commissioners in Bernalillo County deal in a much more complex environment than commissioners in some rural counties and there is an argument that current pay scales don’t reflect that reality.

For information on the New Mexico General Obligation Bond issues, you can go to the League of Women Voters of New Mexico website at https://www.lwvcnm.org. There is a link to a complete county by county list of projects the bonds will fund.

Please remember to vote this year. There are important questions on the ballot and voters will be making decisions that will directly affect everyone in the state.

Journalist Karen Wentworth volunteers with the League of Women Voters