By Rob Nikolewski │ New Mexico Watchdog
SANTA FE — Regardless how it eventually ends, the partial government shutdown has highlighted how much New Mexico is dependent on the federal government.
And that leads to the next question: what can New Mexico do to diversify its economy so it will be less vulnerable to political bickering on [...]

By Rob Nikolewski │ New Mexico Watchdog
It’s been a full week since the Affordable Care Act went into effect, yet New Mexico Watchdog — like millions of Americans and doubtless thousands in New Mexico— is still unable to create an account on www.healthcare.gov.
Tuesday morning, for the third time since the rollout began Oct. 1, N.M. [...]

By Rob Nikolewski │ New Mexico Watchdog
SANTA FE — Too many of New Mexico’s child care centers are rife with sloppy and lax record-keeping, potentially costing taxpayers millions of dollars. On at least three occasions, registered sex offenders were living at the same address as child care locations, a state government report found.
In a 75-page [...]

By Rob Nikolewski │ New Mexico Watchdog
SANTA FE – If you want to know how your local high school is doing on things like enrollment, test scores and graduation rates, you can find the data in seconds on the Public Education Department website.
But if you want to find out how two of the state’s three [...]

By Rob Nikolewski │ New Mexico Watchdog
SANTA FE – New Mexico has one of the highest rates in the country for people receiving food stamps, but how accurately those benefits are distributed is decidedly mixed.
A look by New Mexico Watchdog at the latest national statistics from the federal government shows both good news and bad.
On [...]

A bitter fight between the New Mexico Military Institute and the school’s erstwhile alumni association has been left to the courts.
Who knows how they will rule, but it will be a costly battle. That much is certain.
And the fact that NMMI is a state-supported entity leads to a host of questions, as does the fact [...]

During the Civil War, U.S. Grant famously wrote, “I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer.”
Today, a similar sentiment is expressed by two sides locked in a bitter fight at the New Mexico Military Institute, which is experiencing a civil war of its own, pitting the school’s administration against a group of alumni in [...]

The disability story isn’t going away.
Last month, New Mexico Watchdog reported how the number of people in New Mexico receiving Social Security disability benefits has skyrocketed nearly 60 percent in the last nine years.
Now, we’ve learned that by the Social Security Administration’s own figures, the national Disability Insurance Trust Fund is on a path to [...]

New Mexico’s public school consistently rank at or near the bottom in national surveys, often leading to calls for more spending.
But in the most recent national study by the National Education Association, New Mexico ranks 25th in the nation — smack dab in the middle — in state expenditures per student.
“It doesn’t really surprise me,” said [...]

It appears the former Secretary of the New Mexico Environment Department who is now an administrator for the federal government’s Environmental Protection Agency will not be making the decision as to whether the state must  return nearly $6 million to the EPA.
In an e-mail to New Mexico Watchdog, a spokesman for the EPA’s Office of [...]