At least, that's what Sen. Sue Wilson Beffort, R-Sandia Park, hopes to accomplish in the special legislative session, which starts Saturday.

"One of the things I think we're going to need to do is make some hard decisions about recurring expenses," she said.

This year's budget has already dipped into the state's reserves and has committed money to the 2010 budget, while looking at a deficit exceeding $650 million when lawmakers convene for a special budget-balancing session this week. Beffort said that oil and gas revenues have been down for some time and the deficit is a moving target.

"We're pretty much in freefall right now," she said.

Meanwhile, New Mexico's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate climbed to 7.5 percent in August 2009 — a 12-year high, according to a Sept. 24 news release from the New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions. That's still better than the national unemployment rate, which increased to 9.7 percent.

Another important indicator, job growth, is at a 65-year low in the state, while government and private health care "appear to offer the best employment."

With fewer jobs in the state, Beffort said now is not the time to increase taxes in an attempt to prop up the state government.

"Private industry is what pays taxes … and private industry has lost jobs," she said. "Those that are staying afloat are doing so by laying people off or cutting salaries. … There's not any indication of new jobs. People are going to have to get practical."

She said that government has grown quite a bit during Gov. Bill Richardson's tenure, including a group of appointments to state jobs he made. She said the state has 509 political appointees who each cost the state about $106,000 to employ, on average, or nearly $54 million a year.

She also said she wants to see those employees, Richardson's capital outlay money and possible cuts to everyone's pay — from top to bottom — to be on the table.

"When we're going to have to make decisions on who gets cut," she said, "everybody needs to take the cuts."

She added that that includes cuts to the education budget, from kindergarten through high school, as well as higher education. Education accounts for about 60 percent of the roughly $5.5 billion state budget, she said.

"If we don't cut (education), do we cut state government and have them take the only hit?" she said. "That is, in my opinion, extreme."

The three legislative proposals for balancing the state's budget include:

An across-the-board 3.5 percent cut to state agencies, including K-12 education spending, in addition to a 2.5 percent salary cut for state employees that would go into effect Oct. 31.

An across-the-board 4.7 cut to state agencies and public education with no decrease in salaries.

A 16.3 percent cut to state agencies excluding K-12 public schools and higher education, which would be held harmless.