Pub. 14 2017 Issue 1

O V E R A C E N T U R Y : B U I L D I N G B E T T E R B A N K S - H E L P I N G N E W M E X I C O R E A L I Z E D R E A M S Issue 1 • 2017 9 state’s gasoline tax rate by 10 cents a gallon-from 17 cents to 27 cents-and delay a scheduled cut in the state’s corpo- rate income tax. Without the tax increases, spending levels prescribed in the budget bill would be $164 million more than is expected to be collected in state revenue. The Gov- ernor threatened to veto the budget and tax package and to call the Legislature back into a special session. True to her word, the Governor, on the last day for executive re- view of legislation, vetoed the $350 million tax package and signed the budget bill, but line-item vetoed $774.8 million from the budget-including the higher education funding as well as all funding for the Legislature. The Governor has indicated that she is likely to call the Legislature back into special session in May. Certain bills followed by the NMBA which were enacted by the Legislature include: SB 60: Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (Wirth). The bill enacts the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Access Act. Collectively, a per- son’s digital property and electronic communications are referred to as digital assets and the companies that store those assets on their servers are called custodians. The act extends the traditional power of a fiduciary to manage tan- gible property to include management of a person’s digital assets. The act allows fiduciaries to manage digital proper- ty such as computer files, web domains, and virtual curren- cy, but restricts a fiduciary’s access to electronic commu- nications such as e-mail, text messages, and social medial accounts unless the original user consented in a will, trust, power of attorney, or other record. Signed by the Governor. SB 386: Raise Minimum Wage and Allow Trainee Wage (Sanchez). The bill would raise the minimum wage to $9.00 an hour. It would also allow employers to pay workers a $8.00 training wage for up to 60 days. Vetoed by the Governor. SB 478: Bioscience Development Act (Munoz). The bill enacts the Bioscience Development Act and create the Bioscience Authority Fund. The authority is a public-pri- vate partnership representing a collaborative among state government, research institutions, national laboratories and private industry in New Mexico. The authority is ad- ministratively attached to and shall be considered an affili- ated supporting organization of the University of New Mex- ico Health Sciences Center. The purpose of the Bioscience Act is to: • Create avenues of communication between New Mexico and representatives of bioscience industries; • Identify science and technology trends that are significant to bioscience enterprises and act as a clearinghouse for biosci- ence enterprise issues and information; • Coordinate and expedite the involvement of the state execu- tive branch’s bioscience-related development effort; • Perform or cause to be performed environmental, transpor- tation, communication, land use and other technical studies necessary or advisable for bioscience projects or programs; and • Actively recruit industries and establish programs that will result in the location and relocation of new bioscience in- dustries in the state; HB 15: Data Breach Notification Act (Rehm). The pro- visions of the Data Breach Notification Act do NOT apply to persons (banks) subject to the federal Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. Signed by the Governor. HB 181: Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act (Cook). The Uniform of Heirs Property Act helps preserve fam- ily wealth passed to the next generation in the form of real prop- erty. If the landowner dies intestate, the real estate passes to the landowner’s heirs as tenants-in-common under state law. Ten- ants-in-common are vulnerable because any individual tenant can force a partition. Too often, real estate speculators acquire a small share of heirs’ property in order to file a partition action and force a sale. Using this tactic, an investor can acquire the entire parcel for a price well below its fair market value and de- plete a family’s inherited wealth in the process. The Act provides a series of simple due process protections: notice, appraisal, right of first refusal, and if the other co-tenants choose not to exer- cise their right and a sale is required, a commercially reasonable sale supervised by the court to ensure all parties receive their fair share of the proceeds. Signed by the Governor. Jon Hitchcock, Jay Jenkins, Lonnie Talbert, Congressman Ben Ray Lujan, John Anderson, Jason Wya� and John Gulas