Veto override fails on New Mexico teacher sick leave

SANTA FE — An unusual legislative revolt against a veto from New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez failed on Friday to revive a bill allowing teachers to take more than three days of annual sick leave without being hurt on performance evaluations.

A veto-override vote in the New Mexico House of Representatives failed to garner the necessary two-thirds supermajority. Democrats backed the override in a 36-31 party-line vote in favor of the override.

Martinez said the bill threatened to reverse recent reductions in teacher absentee rates and to increase the use of substitutes in classrooms, compromising school budgets and academic performance.

The override attempt was initiated in the Senate by Republican Sen. Craig Brandt, who insisted that teachers should not be pressured to work while sick and that local school boards should set sick-leave policy. He rallied a successful 34-7 override vote in the Senate.

The veto standoff takes place amid broader discord over a teacher evaluation system implemented by the Public Education Department under Martinez and New Mexico Education Secretary Hanna Skandera that links teacher performance closely to student test scores.

Teachers unions have challenged the evaluation system in court, as the Martinez administration has negotiated unsuccessfully with lawmakers to move its evaluation rules into state statute, offering a variety of compromises on school attendance and student test scores in return.

Republican Rep. James Smith, a retired teacher from Sandia Park, noted that compromises on sick-leave rules and attendance have been offered repeatedly, and that attendance accounts toward a small portion of evaluations — 5 percent.

“Overriding a veto is an extraordinary action and it should be taken when all other efforts to resolve a problem have been exhausted,” Smith said.

Rep. Roberto Gonzales, D-Taos, a former school superintendent said sick leave should be taken out of the broader debate on evaluations.

“We’re mixing two things here: One of them is sick leave, one of them is evaluations,” said. “It should have never even been mixed up in evaluation.”

Other Democrats expressed greater frustration and indignation.

They included Rep. Bill McCamley, D-Mesilla Park, who urged Republican not to give up on a bill that initially cleared the House on a 64-3 vote and gave important consideration to teachers.

“It said to them, if you are sick we are going to give you some leeway,” he said. “We’re not to ask you to come to school and throw up in a bucket and wear an adult diaper.”