GOVERNOR TO CALL SPECIAL SESSION
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Monday announced she will call the New Mexico Legislature into special session beginning today, Tuesday Nov. 24, to take up a relief package for New Mexicans who have been affected by the economic devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The governor’s priorities for the session include direct unemployment assistance, supplementing the payments to New Mexicans whose employment has been impacted by the economic fallout of the pandemic; grants to New Mexico businesses, making meaningful funding assistance as accessible as possible for business-owners whose operations have been impacted by the public health emergency; emergency housing assistance; and emergency food bank services.
The proposed legislation the governor will ask lawmakers to take up and approve will include:
- $194 million in direct unemployment assistance, providing for a one-time supplemental benefit of $1,200 to each state unemployment claimant who is eligible for state or federal pandemic unemployment programs or was eligible but has exhausted their benefits under those programs since Sept. 12;
- $100 million for a grant program for New Mexico-owned small businesses;
- $15 million to provide for emergency housing assistance;
- $5 million for emergency food bank services;
- $5 million for direct economic assistance to low-income residents, in the form of a one-time $750 disbursement per household, who did not receive an “economic impact payment” from the federal government; and
- Other funding necessary to support the administrative organization and execution of these programs.
Funding for these programs will be made available through a transfer of previously received federal funds to the appropriation account of the state general fund.
The proposed legislation would also appropriate $10 million from the state general fund to the Department of Health to provide for COVID-19 testing, contact tracing and vaccine implementation support.
