Opinion: When public money moves, the public should benefit

My parents came to New Mexico in search of a better future for their family. They worked hard, both of them, the way a lot of Albuquerque families work hard, and they still had months where they didn’t know if they were going to be able to pay our bills. I ran for office because I believe government should work for working people, not just the ultra wealthy or for corporations. 

Before I was a legislator, I spent years as a community organizer in the South Valley.  The people there worked hard, showed up, and built their communities. They just never saw the jobs and contracts follow when new development came to town.

Commissioner Barbara Baca’s Community Benefits Resolution is a serious attempt to break that pattern, and Bernalillo County should adopt it.

What the proposal does is honest and uncomplicated. When the county offers public incentives like Industrial Revenue Bonds to private companies, the property becomes tax-exempt for the duration of the financing, up to 30 years. That is money that does not go to schools, roads, or public safety. It is a real cost, and right now counties absorb it with almost no strings attached. Companies can take the break, hire from outside the region, contract with out-of-state firms, and leave without building anything lasting here. Commissioner Baca’s resolution changes the terms. Companies would need to show what they are giving back through local hiring, support for small businesses, and environmental protections. 

The more a company commits, the more it gets back. A portion of the tax savings, at least five percent, would flow into a Community Benefits Fund for workforce training, small business support and environmental protections. Residents would gain a permanent advisory role in economic development projects, not as a courtesy, but as a structural feature of the process.

Some critics say this will make Bernalillo County less competitive and push businesses to look elsewhere. The record elsewhere tells a different story. Harris County, Texas requires local hiring commitments in its tax abatement program. Arizona ties its Quality Jobs incentives to job creation and wage benchmarks. These are not experiments. They are standard practice in places that take economic development seriously, and neither has struggled to attract investment. Community Benefits Requirements do not slow projects down. Done right, they reduce risk for developers, move approvals faster, and help communities compete for federal dollars. That is not a burden on business. That is a stronger pitch to investors.

At the state level, we have spent several sessions proving that accountability and economic growth are not enemies. We expanded the Working Families Tax Credit and opened it up to ITIN filers and young workers who had been shut out for no good reason, putting real money back into the hands of families who need it most. We passed legislation making sure no one gets turned away from county indigent care because of their immigration status. We secured a constitutional right for every child in New Mexico to access quality early childhood education, funded through the Land Grant Permanent Fund, a fight that took a decade and won with 70 percent of the vote. 

Last week, we closed out a session that expanded healthcare access, made childcare more affordable, and delivered pay raises to public workers across the state.

Those were not easy fights. But they were the right ones, and New Mexico is stronger for them.

Commissioner Baca’s resolution also came out of a yearlong process, a steering committee, public meetings, voter input, polling, focus groups and expert consultation. The community did its homework. What residents deserve now is a fair  shot.

The question this commission has to answer is a simple one. When public dollars go to private development, who benefits? Right now the answer is too often not the people who live here, work here, and pay taxes here. Commissioner Baca’s resolution changes that.