SB 225 STATE AIRPLANE FLEET PILOTS

Sen Pete Campos

Actions: [4] SCC/STBTC/SFC-SCC-germane-STBTC

Scheduled: Not Scheduled

  Senate Bill 225 (SB 225) appropriates three hundred thousand dollars ($300,000) to the General Services Department to provide salaries for two pilots for the state airplane fleet.
 

 Senate Bill 225 (SB 225) appropriates three hundred thousand dollars ($300,000) from the General Fund (GF) to the General Services Department (GSD) for expenditure in Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 and subsequent FYs for use by the Transportation Services of GSD to provide salaries for two pilots for the state airplane fleet.
 
Any unexpended or unencumbered balance remaining at the end of a FY will not revert to the GF.
 

 During last session in 2023, there was a proposed $9 million dollar capital outlay appropriation for a second state airplane. The state previously had four aircraft — along with an executive jet purchased in 2005 by then-Gov. Bill Richardson — but is currently down to just one, a six-passenger, turboprop Beechcraft King Air C90. That plane is out of service for about three months per year for inspection and maintenance, according to a state GSD spokesman. Specifically, the state GSD provides about 50 airplane trips per year for medical providers with the Children's Medical Services program and about 75 trips per year for students with lengthy commutes to the School for the Blind and Visually Impaired in Alamogordo. The plane can also be used by Cabinet secretaries and other public officials to better access rural areas in the state with the fifth-largest land mass in the nation.
https://www.abqjournal.com/news/local/nms-state-airplane-fleet-would-double-in-size-under-plan-to-spend-9-million-to/article_5472aa7c-092f-54f2-a17c-ebaa058084ac.html