Governor Susana Martinez will help some employees at the New Mexico National Guard stay on the job for one more week.
Monday afternoon the state announced that Governor Martinez approved an emergency appropriation to pay 55 federal employees at the National Guard for their work this week.
The 55 civilian employees being helped by the state would otherwise be furloughed beginning today because of the federal government shutdown.
Enrique Knell, a spokesman for the governor, says it’s critical to life and property throughout New Mexico to keep support personnel on duty.
“Lets say it’s a search and rescue mission for somebody who was lost in the wilderness, and you need a National Guard aircraft to go out and need to do a search or do a rescue. Without these civilian personnel in place, those types of responses would be delayed,“ said Knell.
A spokesman for the National Guard said Monday that the 55 employees maintain guard facilities across the state and include staff responsible for computer security and construction management.
The state will pay about $53,500 to maintain the workers at work this week. Payments from the state to federal employees will be assessed on a week-to-week basis there after.