Lottery scholarship, texting bills among those passed during Legislative session

Within the 30-day state legislative session, the New Mexico Legislature passed 10 bills including the compromised $6.2 billion budget.

Here are a few of the bills that will affect the local communities:

Lottery scholarships

The Legislature combined several ideas to save the state’s lottery-funded scholarship program, which pays full tuition for about 15,000 students statewide.

The gap between the money provided by the fund and the cost is about $40 million a year.

The bill allows the state to set the awards students receive at a uniformed percentage on a yearly basis based on the money the fund rakes in.

Other cost savers for the fund include the required hours students have to be enrolled, 15 hours for four-year institutions and 12 for two-year institutions, and the amount of semesters students can receive the scholarship from eight to seven, which Rep. Dennis Roch, R-Logan, said will act as an incentive for students to graduate on time.

Roch said legislators agreed to redistribute money from the general fund as well as alcohol excise tax money for the next two years to keep the fund solvent for students already in the program to cover the 100 percent of their tuition promised.

“We want to make sure we keep our commitment to this year’s high school seniors,” Roch said. “The lottery proceeds will still fund the bulk of the award but this will help (the program) through the rough patch, then it will go back to solely relying on the lottery fund.”

Roch believes the Legislature came up with a sound solution for the scholarship fund.

“Because that tuition percentage will float, we should never have to come back and fix the system again,” Roch said. “We feel it’s a permanent solution.”

Eastern New Mexico University President Steve Gamble said about 25 percent of the school’s undergraduates receive the lottery scholarship as of the spring 2013 semester. Gamble said the scholarship fund fix was a good solution considering the state it was in.

“The legislators worked hard on this to come up with additional funding and to make sure the purpose of the lottery scholarship was met, and that is to fund tuition as much as possible for students,” Gamble said.

Clovis Community College President Becky Rowley said she’s concerned the solution is not a permanent one but it’s a start.

“At least our students in the fall and spring will be able to continue as they were,” Rowley said of the 75 students at CCC on the scholarship. “It was getting so close to the end of the session, I was really concerned.”

Texting while drivinglink Stock Image: Texting while driving

A bill to go into effect July 1 will ban texting while driving in the state. The bill would allow police to issue tickets to drivers they see typing on cellphones or reading messages while driving or stopped in traffic.

Violators would face a $25 fine for a first offense and a $50 fine for subsequent tickets.

Portales Police Chief Pat Gallegos said police can currently ticket drivers that are texting if they’re driving poorly but he feels the passing of this bill would make drivers more aware of they’re driving.

Though he can’t estimate how many drivers his officers see texting at the wheel now, he said it’s something they see daily.

“I believe it’s good,” Gallegos said. “Any law that let’s us help drivers keep focused on driving is good.”

Emergency meds in school

A bill will allow public schools across the state to stock and provide emergency medications, such as EpiPens for allergic reactions to insect and food allergies, as well as inhalers.

Clovis schools Superintendent Terry Myers said there have been situations where children have come to the schools with life-threatening problems.

“Some parents can’t provide us with EpiPens,” Myers said. “To be able to have some of those things on hand is good. Those would be certainly things our nurses would like to have if a threatening situation were to occur.”

Myers said the schools would the emergency medication sparingly and under a doctor’s advice.

“It’s certainly a good thing to have,” he said.

The Santa Fe New Mexican contributed to this story.