While New Mexico’s colleges and universities are hoping today’s special legislative session restores hundreds of million worth of funding, the Secretary of State’s office is yearning for something more modest. That’s $950,000 for a new online reporting system. New Mexico In Depth reported last week on lobbying records that revealed nearly $318,000 in advertising spending in 2016 and 2017 that was undisclosed because the reports exist only in paper form. The Secretary of State’s online system isn’t set up to receive and post the advertising-only filings online and the agency has requested the software upgrades the past two years. The upgrades would allow filers to submit such reports online, rather than on paper forms.
But for now, data downloads for lobbyists don’t include all the available information.