Appropriations committee approves LFC recommendations for AOC, courts and judicial districts; committee schedules follow-up work

The House Appropriations & Finance Committee on Feb. 1 voted to adopt the Legislative Finance Committee (LFC) recommendations for a series of judicial branch budgets, including the Administrative Office of the Courts, Supreme Court, Court of Appeals, Metro Court and multiple judicial districts. Committee members also directed follow‑up work on several cross‑cutting implementation items such as the LFC proposal to transfer pretrial services into AOC, cost details for courtroom transcription modernization, and quarterly reporting on behavioral health pilot programs.

Votes at a glance (each motion was presented and adopted by voice vote unless noted):
- Administrative Office of the Courts — Motion to adopt LFC recommendation: moved by Vice Chair Dixon, second by Ranking Member Chatfield; outcome: adopted.
- Court of Appeals — Motion to adopt LFC recommendation: moved by Vice Chair Dixon; outcome: adopted.
- New Mexico Supreme Court — Motion to adopt LFC recommendation: moved by Vice Chair Dixon; outcome: adopted.
- Judicial districts (multiple): The committee adopted LFC recommendations or LFC recommendations with committee follow‑up for the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 10th, 11th, 12th and 13th Judicial Districts (motions made and carried during the hearing; committee requested additional follow‑up on pretrial transfer implementation and local operations for some districts).
- Bernalillo County Metro Court — Motion to adopt LFC recommendation: moved by committee member; outcome: adopted.

What the motions mean
Adopting the LFC recommendation means the committee endorsed the LFC’s fiscal notes and recommended appropriations as the starting point for each agency’s FY26 funding. In several cases the LFC narrative included transferring existing pretrial services funding to the AOC base; committee members repeatedly asked legislative staff and AOC for implementation details to avoid disrupting locally supervised staff and services.

Follow-up directions from committee members
- Staff were asked to prepare a short series of work groups to: (1) review court employee compensation options and distribution between pay bands; (2) review courthouse security hardware and operating models; (3) compile cost breakdowns for the courtroom transcription/hardware modernization ask; (4) collect quarterly performance and spending reports for behavioral health pilots, AOT and competency diversion.

Formal actions recorded (summary)
Each action below is recorded as a committee motion to adopt the LFC recommendation for the named entity. The motions were moved and seconded on the record during the hearing and were carried without recorded roll‑call tallies in the publicly posted transcript.

Ending note
The committee repeatedly signaled it intends further staff and member work on compensation and courthouse security and asked for regular updates on pilot programs before approving any significant recurring expansions beyond the LFC recommendations.