A Blank Check With No Oversight: New Mexico’s Emergency Spending Problem

Since 2023, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has issued 811 executive orders authorizing nearly $554 million in state spending without a single vote from the Legislature.

That figure does not come from a political organization. It comes from New Mexico’s own Legislative Finance Committee—the nonpartisan entity legislators rely on to track how the executive branch spends taxpayer money.

Let me be clear: I am not opposed to emergency spending. When wildfires, floods, or other disasters threaten New Mexicans, government must act quickly. Lives, homes, and communities cannot wait for a lengthy bureaucratic process.

But there is a difference between responding to an emergency and using “emergency” authority as a way to bypass the Legislature for extended periods of time.

The LFC’s independent review found that the governor’s administration has stretched the definition of an emergency far beyond what was originally intended. Her orders have included “emergency” public benefits during a temporary federal government shutdown and “emergency” National Guard deployments to Albuquerque and Española to address crime and drug activity—actions that were, in some cases, hundreds of miles and years removed from an immediate disaster.

Here is how the system works.

When the governor issues an executive order, the administration can draw from the Appropriation Contingency Fund, a pool of money the Legislature establishes for emergencies and disaster response. State law limits spending to $750,000 per individual order.

But when more money is needed—or wanted—the administration can issue multiple executive orders. In some instances, as many as 40 orders have been issued in a single batch.

And when the contingency fund runs out, the administration has repeatedly turned to the state’s Operating Reserve—essentially New Mexico’s savings account—without the legislative approval that should accompany spending from those reserves.

The numbers are alarming.

Since July 1, 2024, the governor has spent roughly $380 million through emergency orders, while the Legislature appropriated only $150 million into the contingency fund during that same period.

So where did the additional money come from?

That question deserves a clear answer.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman George Muñoz, a fellow Democrat, told colleagues that he did not believe the practice was legal. The director of the Legislative Finance Committee likewise indicated that the governor lacks a clear legal basis to spend outside the fund controlled by the Legislature.

This is not about whether New Mexico should respond to disasters.

It is about who has the authority to decide how much taxpayer money is spent, where it goes, and how long that spending continues.

That authority cannot rest indefinitely with one office.

The procurement side of this problem is equally troubling.

A separate LFC program evaluation released in June 2026 examined emergency contracts connected to the 2024 South Fork and Salt fires in Lincoln County. It found that one contractor, DRC Emergency Services, received more than $132 million—approximately 76.8 percent of the Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management’s fire-response spending.

The same contractor received another $12.75 million, or 79.1 percent, of spending related to the flooding that followed in Lincoln County.

Across the emergency orders reviewed by the committee, just two out-of-state contractors accounted for 57 percent of disaster response and recovery spending statewide between 2022 and 2026.

That should concern every taxpayer, regardless of political party.

The LFC also found that 81 percent of post-fire spending occurred through emergency procurement rather than competitive bidding. Some of those payments were made one to two years after the fires—long after the immediate emergency had passed and normal competitive procurement should have been possible.

The committee also compared state equipment rates with FEMA benchmarks and recommended that New Mexico negotiate those rates before the next disaster—not after the money has already been spent.

New Mexicans expect government to move quickly when disaster strikes. They do not expect an emergency declaration to become a blank check.

When emergency powers are stretched beyond their intended purpose, taxpayers lose their voice, competition suffers, and a small number of contractors can receive enormous amounts of public money without the safeguards normally required for government spending.

My colleagues and I tried to address this problem.

Earlier this year, the Legislature unanimously passed House Bill 180, a bipartisan measure that would have established clearer definitions and limits on the governor’s emergency spending authority.

The governor vetoed the bill, even though its provisions would not have taken effect until after she left office. Her stated concern was that the legislation could slow down disaster response.

But accountability does not have to mean slowing down emergency response.

We can protect the governor’s ability to act quickly when lives and property are at risk while also establishing reasonable safeguards once the immediate emergency has passed.

The fixes are not complicated.

New Mexico should:

Government exists to serve taxpayers—not to give one office an open-ended checkbook and not to keep the same well-connected contractors on permanent retainer.

New Mexicans deserve a government that can respond quickly when disaster strikes and remain accountable after the immediate danger has passed.

Emergency powers should be temporary.

Taxpayer money should be subject to oversight.

And government contracts should be awarded based on competition, transparency, and value—not convenience.

The Legislative Finance Committee has identified serious concerns and offered practical solutions.

What is missing is the political will to put those solutions into law.

New Mexico can do better.

Our taxpayers deserve nothing less.