Capital outlay update: These are some of the projects currently listed in House Bill 285

Farmington Daily Times

AZTEC — With approximately two weeks left in the Legislative session, one of the questions that remains is what projects will receive capital outlay funding.

This year, Rep. Javier Martinez, D-Albuquerque, has sponsored the Capital Outlay Projects bill, or House Bill 285.

The legislative session ends at noon on March 20.

During the first half of the session, legislators worked with their aides or secretaries to review the capital outlay requests various entities made and to select projects to sponsor.

The second half of the 60-day session is when legislators are notified about how much funding is available to each of them, and they receive guidelines for project funding and a deadline for submitting the funding requests.

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House Bill 285 includes several capital outlay projects for San Juan County.

The most recent text of the capital outlay bill that is posted on nmlegis.gov includes a little more than $4 million of funding for San Juan County-area entities. This is in addition to funding for projects statewide that could also be spent in San Juan County.

The bill has been referred to the House Taxation and Revenue Department.

Here’s a list of projects currently in the bill for San Juan County entities:

$125,737 for a telecommunications system upgrade at the 11th Judicial District Court
$25,500 for renovations at Bloomfield Senior Center
$1.1 million Improvements at Dine College Agricultural Multipurpose Center
$700,000 Fire lane construction at Dine College’s Shiprock Campus
$1.5 million infrastructure improvements at the Harriet Sammons building in Farmington
$650,000 for San Juan College welding facility construction

Some of the statewide projects in the bill include:

$1.5 million for fisheries and wildlife riparian habitat restoration
$10 million for statewide upgrades to security systems at correctional facilities
$5 million for dam restoration
$10 million for broadband improvements
$12 million for improvements of New Mexico Department of Health infrastructure and equipment
$2 million for abandoned oil and gas well remediation
$3 million to the New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department for watershed restoration
$9 million for Indian water rights settlement

Hannah Grover covers government for The Daily Times. She can be reached at 505-564-4652 or via email at hgrover@daily-times.com.

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