Author: KGFisher

Think New Mexico Hires Its First Ever Education Reform Director!

We are delighted to announce that we have hired Abenicio Baldonado as Think New Mexico’s first ever Education Reform Director! As this Santa Fe New Mexican column explains, we created this new position because we believe that nothing is more critical to the success of our state than improving the quality of our public schools. Yet because Think New Mexico takes on new issues every year, we have not been able to give education reform the consistent, intense focus that it needs every day of the year. The Education Reform Director position is designed to fix that, and we could not have found a better fit for the position than Abenicio. He is a proud graduate of Robertson High School in Las Vegas, NM, earned his BA and Masters from Highlands University, served as a public school teacher and charter school board member, and spent the last three years as the Legislative Liaison for the Public Education Department. Read Abenicio’s bio on our staff page.

Think New Mexico Welcomes Our 2021 Leadership Interns!

We are delighted to be joined this summer by Amelia Bierle, who grew up in Carlsbad and is now earning her Masters in Public Policy from UNM; Sophie Hare, who was raised in Santa Fe and and is now a junior studying Public Policy and Spanish at the University of Chicago; Ciara “Key” Macfarland, who grew up in Albuquerque and is now a senior majoring in political science at Colorado College; and Vedder “Rise” Miller, who grew up in Santa Fe and just graduated from Duke University with a degree in Public Policy Studies and History!

Amelia and Rise are working with us during the first half of the summer, and Key and Sophie will be here during the latter half. Read more about this year’s Leadership Interns.

Amelia Bierle Sophie Hare Key Macfarland RiseMiller

Think New Mexico Launches New Initiative to End Predatory Lending & Strengthen Financial Literacy in New Mexico!

In a report released October 4, 2020, Think New Mexico recommends that the legislature and governor cut the state’s maximum annual interest rate on small loans from 175% to 36% and make a course in financial literacy or personal finance a high school graduation requirement. Learn more about our recommended reforms and ask your legislators and the governor to support them!

Welcome to our 2020 Leadership Interns!

Think New Mexico is delighted to have six stellar students working with us (remotely) this summer!

Our 2020 Leadership Interns include Rohan Angadi, a former Valedictorian and Student Body President of Clovis High School who is now a junior at Yale studying economics and mathematics; Daniel Estupiñan, who grew up in Sunland Park, served on the Gadsden School Board while he was an undergraduate student at NMSU, and is now earning his Masters from the Harvard Kennedy School; Chloe Larkin, a junior at Wellesley College who was active in New Mexico Youth and Government and was elected Youth Governor for New Mexico in 2018; Kate Monahan, a Santa Fean who just graduated from the University of Southern California and previously interned with Senator Tom Udall and Fix It America; Raffaele Moore, an Albuquerque native who is a rising junior at Brown University and previously interned for Senator Martin Heinrich and Mayor Tim Keller; and Ariane Talou, a junior at UCLA who has interned with Emerge New Mexico and served as a Fellow on Representative Ben Ray Lujan’s 2018 congressional campaign. Read more about this year’s Leadership Interns.

Rohan Angadi Daniel Estupinan Chloe Larkin Raffaele Moore Kate Monahan Ariane Talou

We Are All In This Together

Kiva ladderThink New Mexico’s staff is currently working from home as we do our part to flatten the curve, but we are continuing our efforts to develop and advocate for policies that will improve New Mexico’s quality of life and help the state come back stronger than ever from this public health and financial crisis. If you are experiencing financial hardship or need information about coronavirus testing or the state’s public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we encourage you to visit NewMexico.gov.

Finally, if you’re able to able to support Think New Mexico’s work during these challenging times, we wanted to let you know that the federal government is offering an additional tax deduction incentive for up to $300 in charitable contributions made this year.

New Mexico Work & Save Act Signed Into Law!

The New Mexico Work and Save Act (House Bill 44, sponsored by Rep. Tomas Salazar, Rep. Gail Armstrong, Rep. Christine Chandler, Sen. Bill Tallman & Sen. Michael Padilla) passed the House 62-1, the Senate 40-0, and was signed into law by Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham! This law will dramatically expand access to retirement savings accounts for private sector workers in New Mexico. Read more about it here. 

Think New Mexico Field Director Othiamba Umi appointed to New Mexico Lottery Board!

Exciting news: Think New Mexico’s Field Director Othiamba Umi has been appointed to the board that oversees the New Mexico Lottery!

Think New Mexico has spent the past five years fighting to get the Lottery to focus on its mission of maximizing dollars for scholarships. Our biggest obstacle has been the Lottery’s leadership, which has repeatedly attempted to decrease the percentage of lottery revenues going to scholarships and has failed to put the interests of students first.

We saw yet another example of this behavior this past summer, when the Lottery board voted to raise the Lottery CEO’s salary by 26%, from $174,142 to $220,000, along with a car allowance and a golden parachute. (Othiamba learned of this development because for the past five years he has attended nearly all of the lottery’s public meetings to act as a watchdog for the public interest.) Every dollar spent on excessive administrative costs – like this extremely high salary – is a dollar less for student scholarships, as we explained to KRQE News.

Fortunately, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham shared our frustration with the Lottery board, and she just made a major upgrade, appointing five new members, including Othiamba!

Other new members include two Think New Mexico supporters: Leo Romero, former Dean of the University of New Mexico School of Law, and Nina Thayer, who retired from the Biosciences Division of Los Alamos National Lab and is active with the American Association of University Women (AAUW).

Think New Mexico applauds the governor for taking this essential step to improve the accountability of the lottery. The governor’s new appointees form a majority of the seven-member oversight board, and we are excited about the difference they can make in re-focusing the lottery on its mission of serving New Mexico’s college students.

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