LFC economist shows parcel-level property dataset could reshape how New Mexico evaluates property tax reform

Jennifer Fabian, an economist at the Legislative Finance Committee, told the Revenue Stabilization & Tax Policy Subcommittee that the committee’s new parcel-level dataset lets analysts map assessor market values, assessed values, exemptions and owner mailing addresses to census block groups to reveal neighborhood-level tax burdens.

Fabian said the data—received so far from nine counties including Bernalillo, Santa Fe and Los Alamos—contains assessor market value (a field not routinely shared with the state), assessed value, exemption amounts and owner mailing addresses, which let analysts identify likely in-state versus out-of-state owners and link parcels to American Community Survey demographic estimates. “We’ve never had data like this before where we could run a simulation,” Fabian said, framing her presentation as an exploratory, mid-project update rather than a set of policy prescriptions.

Why it matters: Fabian argued that effective tax rates—the tax owed divided by a property’s market value after assessment limits and exemptions—give a clearer picture of tax burden than statutory mill rates. She showed county-level contrasts: in Bernalillo County, effective rates tended to fall as market value rose (driven by assessment limits and value freezes), while Santa Fe displayed the opposite pattern, underscoring that identical statewide reforms can have uneven local effects.

Exemptions and ownership patterns: Fabian highlighted several drivers of disparity. Flat-dollar exemptions such as the head-of-household credit (approximately $2,000) tend to benefit lower-value homes proportionally; a flat veterans exemption (now shown in the data at $10,000 in some places) likewise has larger percentage effects on lower-value properties. Fabian also flagged a coming expansion of the disabled-veteran exemption (the result of a recent constitutional amendment and enabling legislation) that will phase in and is expected to affect bills beginning in 2026–2027.

She noted out-of-state ownership concentrates in high-value brackets—Bernalillo showed under 5% out-of-state owners until about $1.5 million, then rising; Santa Fe saw roughly 40% out-of-state mailing addresses above $1–2 million—adding that owners who hold properties longer can benefit from assessment caps.

Policy simulations and limits: As a demonstration, Fabian modeled a repeal of assessment limits in Bernalillo County, valuing properties at current market rates and calculating an aggregate revenue increase of about $265,000,000 in her scenario. She then ran an illustrative, revenue-neutral redistribution—a tiered circuit breaker keyed to household income (example tiers: 100% relief under $30,000; 70% under $60,000; 35% at $80,000; 20% at $100,000; 10% at $150,000; 0% above $150,000)—and showed how that design would distribute relief in Bernalillo but would not be revenue-neutral in Santa Fe because of different county structures. Fabian emphasized the scenarios were examples to show how the data can be used, not recommended legislation: “I’m not recommending this policy. I was doing it as an example,” she said.

Committee concerns and next steps: Lawmakers questioned capacity and consequences. Several members asked whether smaller assessor offices can extract and deliver the data; Fabian said capacity varies and that LFC is cleaning and standardizing submissions. Members urged outreach beyond assessors—to county managers and county commissions—because local governments set mill levies and could respond to valuation changes by adjusting rates. Senator Munoz warned that valuation increases without constraints could let counties raise rates and shift burdens onto low-income and fixed-income residents, and voiced skepticism that reforms would not produce unintended harms; he framed the political fear as that the state is “trying to **** more blood out of the homeowner,” language echoed from the transcript and raised by multiple members as a caution about reform design. Fabian acknowledged the concern and the administrative complexity of circuit breakers and other designs.

Procedural and administrative items: The subcommittee voted to adopt the minutes from Sept. 30; the chair announced schedule adjustments and a lunch briefing by Pacific Fusion, which the chair said has announced a $1 billion investment at Mesa Del Sol and a Los Lunas build facility.

What’s next: Fabian said she plans to expand the dataset to all counties, work with the assessors’ affiliate and stakeholders to refine variables (for example housing-occupation measures and federal land shares), and use the model to test targeted reforms and local revenue impacts. The committee suggested discussing, at a future meeting, a possible letter encouraging county participation and capacity support.

Sources and caveats: All numbers and quotations in this report come from Fabian’s presentation and the committee Q&A. Model outputs cited were hypothetical scenario results produced by LFC’s simulations and are not legislative proposals; county-level fiscal responses (for example changes in mill levies) were raised as uncertainties by committee members and not modeled in the LFC example.