Gov. Bill Richardson signed off on an education funding bill that makes $90 million available to high-growth districts for school construction.
   “What we’re doing in New Mexico is investing in the future,” Richardson said in a news conference and bill signing ceremony in Jason Hilligoss’ 12th grade U.S. History class at Cibola High on Friday afternoon.
   “We’ve gone 30 years without a high school that deals specifically with population on the West Side,” Richardson said after quizzing the class — and adults in the room — on their history of Albuquerque high school construction facts.
   The governor had stopped at Cibola, the state’s largest high school, in December to pledge $115 million toward two West Side high schools as part of a $290 million two-year plan to help fastgrowing districts around the state.
   He acknowledged the $90 million was less than the $145 million he was seeking for the first year of funding he hoped to secure this year but it “allows us to make a start.” He blamed rural legislators for the shortfall.
   “In the end we had to compromise or get nothing,” Richardson said, later adding: “If I call a special session, we will put the highgrowth schools right up front.”
   Critics of the bill say the money is simply a loan the districts will have to pay off, in addition to the obligation Richardson had required of Albuquerque to build even more schools for the West Side on its own.
   “We were told here last time the governor was at Cibola High School (we would get) $115 million to build two high schools in 2008,” Albuquerque school board member Robert Lucero complained in a Cibola hallway after the news conference. “… It’s cut down to a $90 million loan.”
   State Sen. Joe Carraro, R-Albu- querque, later added “the kids are getting ripped off” and that voting senior citizens would have gotten more.
   “I support the bill,” Carraro said, even though “it doesn’t seem to be the best thing we can come up with. We need to do something else.”
   Carraro proposed that next year’s Legislature take all the money available for capital outlay and first address school needs “and maybe not do anything else.”
   “We are really going to be hurting here for many years.”
   Richardson said he’s had “several good meetings” with West Side residents and Albuquerque Public Schools over funding solutions, and a possible tax increase seems the most promising.
   “With additional local (funding), the community will be able to say to the Legislature ‘Let’s put more money in these high-growth schools.’ ’’
   The money in the bill is included in a separate capital funding bill, which Richardson plans to sign next week.
   Other bills Richardson signed on Friday were:
   Senate Bill 600, which gives charter school founders the option of being overseen by either their local school districts or the state Public Education Commission. The bill also increases funding to allow charter schools to participate in athletics and requires charter applicants to demonstrate fiscal responsibility.
   “This bill puts us one step closer to becoming integral to the educational fabric of New Mexico,” said Lisa Grover, executive director of the New Mexico Charter School Coalition.
   House Bill 43, providing $1 million to continue the state’s 2-year-old Kindergarten-Plus program, which extends the school year by four months for kindergartners.
   “You’ve got to get the kids at 4,” Richardson said. “’Cause at 5 their mind is made up.”
   Bill sponsor Rep. Mimi Stewart, D-Albuquerque, said New Mexico is the only state to have funded such a program and that schools in the Gallup-McKinley district have reported higher performance in first and second grade from students who completed the perkindergarten program than their peers who had not participated.
   Richardson also pledged to sign off on $800,000 in funding sponsored by two Albuquerque Republican senators — Carraro and Mark Boitano — to complete the 1.5-mile Paseo del Norte extension on the West Side as a four-lane road.
   “You’re going to get it, don’t worry,” Richardson assured Joe Valles, president of the West Side Coalition of Neighborhood Associations, at the news conference.