he New Mexico Public Education Department shared its initial $5 billion budget request for Fiscal Year 2027 with lawmakers this week during the Legislative Education Study Interim Committee in Gallup. The $5.09 billion request marks a 1.7% decrease from the previous year, according to Public Education Secretary Mariana Padilla’s presentation.
However, Padilla noted several missing elements in the request, including compensation bumps; insurance costs; and all of the components of the court-ordered remedial action plan for the long-running Yazzie/Martinez education equity lawsuit, as it’s not due until October.
She asked the committee and LESC staff to take this information into account as they develop their own budget requests for public education over the next several months.“This budget has been submitted by the department about three months sooner than we typically do,” Padilla told lawmakers. “A lot of hours go into looking at our programs, looking at the needs. Deep discussions with our staff, as well as our stakeholders.”
Padilla said the budget also does not include an increase in K-12 Plus Program funding due to enrollment declines and shorter calendar years. The K-12 Plus Program provides schools with additional funding for days added to the calendar above the legislatively required 180 days for five-day learning weeks.
The average school calendars statewide have been reduced by two school days,” she said. “Schools, as they set their own calendars — as they do every year — we’re seeing on average two fewer days. We’ll be able to finalize our K-12 Plus numbers in October when we go through that reporting period.”
Padilla’s presentation highlighted several areas of priority, including educator recruitment and quality; literacy; student nutrition; accountability; academic interventions and supports; math and STEAM; special education; graduation; and school safety. The budget includes $37.3 million for educator and leadership training and teacher pipeline programs.
The secretary pointed out that New Mexico public schools had about 681 teacher vacancies last academic year, or a 3% statewide vacancy rate. The request for training funds also includes money for implementing and growing the newly required school board training requirement, to ensure school leaders are knowledgeable in state law and their responsibilities to the schools, educators and students.
The department’s budget also includes $57 million for literacy, including implementing structured literacy and training, as well as summer reading programs. Padilla told lawmakers that she hopes to include math in the summer programs next year to expand interventions for students struggling in the subject.
A separate $9.8 million is included in the budget specifically for math and STEAM subjects and introducing a method for teaching the topics that is similar to the structured literacy approach.
LESC Chair Sen. Bill Soules (D-Las Cruces), a former math educator, told committee members that the PED’s budget request is a good place to start the conversation for the committee’s budget and possible bills to introduce in the 2026 lLegislative session that begins on Jan. 20, 2026. He also said the LESC might look at boosting funding in its budget proposal for several areas, including math and science.
“I’ve been around long enough to know that we ought to ask for what we want and not negotiate against ourselves as educators, and make somebody else have to make the cuts rather than think what they’re going cut and do it for them, and then they’re going to cut more anyhow,” Soules said during the meeting. He added that the state is in a good financial position and should be looking at devoting more funds to education rather than allocating so much to the permanent fund for investment.
“We’re a wealthy state, we are sending billions of dollars a year into the permanent fund,” Soules said. “We need to be taking care of New Mexico, New Mexicans and the investments we make in our kids will have bigger dividends than the 5 or 7% that’s going to be churned out by putting the money into the permanent fund.”
