Enchantment State News

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s recent withholding of unemployment funds despite a Presidential Memoranda giving more financial assistance to the unemployed due to the COVID-19 pandemic has added to House Republicans’ criticisms of what they describe as Grisham’s unethical spending.

New Mexico State Rep. David Gallegos (R-Eunice) accused Grisham and the New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions (DWS) of rejecting President Donald Trump’s Presidential Memoranda that seeks to provide the unemployed $400 a week to supplement their unemployment payments, the House GOP said.

Gallegos said Grisham and the Department of Workforce Solutions refuses to match the federal assistance with an extra $100-a-week match, the House GOP said.

“The governor and DWS effectively rejected the president’s executive order that would deliver $400 a week to supplement unemployment payments, by refusing to provide New Mexicans with the extra $100-a-week match,” the House GOP stated. “This refusal to match the federal assistance follows two years of overspending by the Lujan Grisham administration.”

Grisham, a Democrat, is currently under a bipartisan investigation for illegally taking $30 million from the state treasury without legislative authorization during the coronavirus pandemic, the House GOP said.

On Aug. 8 Trump issued a Presidential Memoranda that said in part that the Federal Emergency Management Agency can “approve a lost wages assistance program that authorizes the governor to provide a $400 payment per week, which shall reflect a $300 federal contribution, to eligible claimants from the week of unemployment ending Aug. 1,” the White House said.

The memoranda called on states to use their federal Coronavirus Relief Fund allocations “to bring continued financial relief to Americans who are suffering from unemployment due to the COVID-19 outbreak.” The federal government would provide 75% of the cost of unemployment benefits of $400 “to supplement state expenditures in providing these payments.”

The website of the New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions tells visitors about Trump’s memoranda “to offer ‘lost wages assistance’ to enhance unemployment insurance benefits.”

“There is no need for claimants to contact the Department of Workforce Solutions at this time. We will announce more information once it becomes available,” the Department of Workforce Solutions' website said.

In a July 27 statement, Grisham criticized the New Mexico Senate Republicans’ reported plan to cut by two-thirds direct unemployment aid to workers, according to Grisham's Office's website.

“But the federal government and Trump administration must do their part as well. They must not turn their backs on workers who need assistance now as much as they did in March, April, May and June,” Grisham said in the statement.