Have a look: Where your NM taxpayer money goes

New Mexico’s got a $5.9 billion annual budget.

Want to know where it’s spent?

Well, the majority of it goes to education.

The annual review of the past legislative session in Santa Fe shows that kindergarten-through-12th grade programs and the state’s higher education system receive well over half the money in the annual state budget.

The Legislative Council Service just released its highlights of the 2013 session – some 173 pages of facts, statistics and a narrative of what lawmakers passed in the 60-day session. If you’re a political nerd (like us), it’s a great reference book.

And there’s plenty of interesting charts and graphs, like this one:

Yes, when you combine the totals for higher education and public education, 56 percent of all appropriations went to education.

There have been complaints about spending cuts in public education but, as the LCS report points out, this year’s session saw a $112 million increase for public schools over last year and $8.7 million more for categorical spending for higher education as well as nearly $6 million for compensation increases for institutions and for research and public service projects.

That’s a lot but actually, by percentage of the state budget, it’s less than what had been spent in recent years.

Twenty years ago (when the state budget was just $2.3 billion), public school and higher ed funding combined to make up 65 percent of the state budget (47.96 for public schools and 17.01 for higher education).

And 10 years ago, that dropped to 59 percent (44.1 for public schools and 15.0 for higher ed) after the 2003 session, when the state budget totaled $4.3 billion.

Considering that numerous measures have consistently seen New Mexico students ranked near the bottom in national rankings for years, you can see why there’s been such a debate about what kind of effect spending has on performances.

And when it comes to capital outlay projects — in layman’s terms, spending projects that legislators are anxious to bring to their districts — education gets a large percentage as well:

Higher Education received the highest amount of capital outlay dollars — 22 percent — and together with Public Schools and “Other Education,” 48 percent went to educational projects.

And here’s the capital outlay spending broken down by category, where higher ed finished first in total dollars, followed by “public buildings” (you can click on the graphic to see it more clearly):

Finally, here’s a bar graph reflecting the bills introduced during the 60-day session and the number that passed.

Some words of caution though: First, these numbers include legislative memorials that breeze through the Roundhouse, commemorating the importance of ducks or sunscreen to New Mexico, etc.

More important, though: Don’t be confused into thinking the number of bills that passed translates into good governance.

As long-time state Sen. Stuart Ingle told us a couple years ago, “Sometimes the less we’re around here, the better it is for taxpayers.”