SANTA FE - Public-school classrooms would get more money, but the education administration in New Mexico would take a significant cut under Gov. Susana Martinez's proposed budget.

She made public her $5.4 billion spending plan on Monday, saying it would not raise any taxes or force the state to borrow any money.

To make ends meet, she said, she would undo part of the movie-industry subsidy that New Mexico offers. This would amount to a cut of about $25 million a year for filmmakers who want to shoot in the state, she said.

Tight times mandate such cutbacks, she said.

Martinez said her style on managing taxpayers' money was a simple one that would correct what she said was the basic blunder of the past. "We overspend in New Mexico," she said of government.

She never mentioned former Gov. Bill Richardson by name, but said his fiscal practices had left her to start in a deep hole. Martinez, a Republican, said she inherited $37 million in deficit spending this year from Democrat Richardson and a projected $450 million deficit for the next cycle.

The gaps are closed under her proposed budget, even though certain programs would get significantly more state money.

Martinez said she wanted to appropriate more to Medicaid to help the state's most vulnerable residents. She would replenish all Medicaid funding that came from federal stimulus money and add $10 million more to the program.

Some $1 billion in federal taxpayers' money supplemented Medicaid and other government

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programs in New Mexico during the last three year. That money has run out.

Kindergarten-through-grade 12 public schools and teachers would be protected under her plan.

Classroom funding would be increased, as improving schools is the highest priority of her administration.

Teachers would get a break too. Martinez would spare them from having to divert 2 percent of their salaries to their pension fund.

Martinez said taking money from teachers' paychecks would amount to a classroom cut, something she was not willing to do given the fact that state schools are underachieving.

But she proposed cutting 1.5 percent from the education "bureaucracy." She said only 61 cents of every dollar spent on public schools goes to classrooms. However, her formula counts principals, assistant principals and guidance counselors as part of the administrative system that has no influence on classroom performance.

Martinez said she would send a directive to school districts, telling them to cut their administrative budgets, which she repeatedly called "the bureaucracy."

She would reduce funding for colleges and universities. In her written budget message, she described New Mexico's higher education system as overbuilt. New Mexico has one more college than Arizona, even though it has only one-third the population of its more urbanized neighbor.

Unlike teachers, other state employees would not fare as well under Martinez's plan. Two percent of their wages would be shifted to employee pension funds to shore them up.

The size of Martinez's proposed budget is about $41 million more than the one proposed last week by the Legislative Finance Committee.

One part of the committee's proposed cutbacks, a reduction of more than $10 million for prisons, especially bothered her. Martinez said the committee's plan would open the door to early releases of criminals.

She said she would fight to keep funding for the corrections system, but was open to friendly negotiations with legislators on other details of the budget.

Santa Fe Bureau Chief Milan Simonich can be reached at msimonich@tnmnp.com or (505) 820-6898.

Highlights of Gov. Susana Martinez's proposed budget

• More money for kindergarten-through-grade 12 public school classroom programs. She said improving public schools is her highest priority.

• More money for Medicaid, which in one way or another serves a quarter of the state's population.

• Less money for filmmakers interested in New Mexico. A subsidy for the industry would be cut by about $25 million annually.

• Less for public-school administration. She said she would direct every school district to cut 1.5 percent from its "bureaucracy."

• Less money for colleges and universities.