In recent years, there has been a big push for transparency in government throughout New Mexico. The Rio Grande Foundation and the Foundation for Open Government, along with a large and bi-partisan group of legislators, have generated some major successes.

This initiative has been driven in part by new technologies that make information more accessible to the average citizen and easier for governments to disseminate. It has gathered particular support in New Mexico because of rampant corruption and the realization that "sunshine is the best disinfectant."

(Albuquerque) – The Rio Grande Foundation is launching a new web site today to track government spending in New Mexico. The site, www.newmexicospending.com,  aims to bring more accountability and transparency to how state and local governments spend taxpayer money.

“We believe the taxpayers have a right to know where their money is going,” says Paul Gessing, president of the Rio Grande Foundation. “We are launching this site as a tool to help give them more insight into how their government officials spend the money New Mexicans work so hard to earn for their families.”

At launch the site has payroll and other spending information for the state’s largest school districts for the last couple years: Artesia, Alamogordo, Carlsbad, Clovis, Farmington, Hobbs, Rio Rancho, Roswell and Santa Fe.

The Rio Grande Foundation has done a great deal of work analyzing the size of New Mexico's state and local government bureaucracies. As a means of further exploring the situation, I decided to have our summer interns do some research to find out which city and county bureaucracies have the most employees per capita. Check out the city chart ranked from most employees per capita to least:

The county employment chart can be found below:

The Rio Grande Foundation recently analyzed New Mexico's higher education system and found that taxpayers could save $80 million annually just by making the least efficient institutions as efficient as the most efficient institutes in their category (4 year or community college). Paul Gessing was invited to come on KNAT TV's "Joy in Our Town" show in Albuquerque to discuss the study's findings.

RGF President Paul Gessing recently presented to a few dozen legislators and prospective legislators. Two of my presentations on Medicaid and growing the New Mexico economy might be of particular interest, so I am posting them here.

The Medicaid presentation is here. This presentation includes information and slides from Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute (thanks Michael). 

The economic growth presentation is here. 

On July 28, 29, and 30, the Rio Grande Foundation hosted a series of lunch discussions on education policy with Dr. Matthew Ladner of the Arizona-based Goldwater Institute. Ladner is an expert on K-12 education policy and has extensively researched the successful, market-based reforms adopted in Florida under Jeb Bush. The PowerPoint slides from his presentation can be downloaded here.

These reforms have led to dramatic improvement in results on the respected National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test across the board, but with quite striking improvement by Hispanic and minority students as seen in the chart below.

Is demography destiny?

If so, say some experts, states with growing Hispanic populations seem doomed to fail, weighed down with ineffective school systems and abysmal test scores.

One academic recently predicted states like New Mexico will become the "Appalachia of the 21st Century." He based his prediction on well-known statistics concerning the dropout and low achievement scores of Hispanic students. Nationwide, Hispanics drop out of high school at appalling rates. When they do graduate, they have achievement test scores roughly equivalent on average to eighth grade Anglo students.