2019 New Mexico Statutes
Chapter 6 - Public Finances
Article 10 - Public Money
Section 6-10-57 - Cancellation of warrants.

A. Whenever any warrant issued by the state, county, municipality, school district or special district is unpaid for one year after it becomes payable, the fiscal officer shall cancel it.

B. The fiscal officer shall keep a register of all canceled warrants. The register shall show the number, date and amount of each warrant, the name of the person in whose favor it was drawn, the fund out of which it was payable and the date of cancellation.

C. The face amount of each warrant canceled shall revert and be credited to the fund against which the warrant was drawn.

D. Warrants canceled under Subsection A of this section are void and the indebtedness evidenced thereby is extinguished, which is hereby declared to be an express condition of every contract under which state warrants are issued except that:

(1) the department of finance and administration may issue a new warrant on a voucher issued by the commissioner of revenue [director of the revenue division of the taxation and revenue department] if a claim for refund was approved under Section 7-1-26 NMSA 1978, and if a warrant was issued and that warrant canceled under Subsection A of this section on or after January 1, 1970; and

(2) any fiscal officer may issue a new warrant for a canceled payroll warrant upon a voucher issued by the responsible employing authority certifying that the services for which the canceled payroll warrant had been issued were in fact rendered and that payment therefor had not been made, if:

(a) there is sufficient money in the fund from which the original payroll warrant was drawn to cover the new warrant; or

(b) if a suspense fund has been established in accordance with the provisions of Subsection E of this section and there is sufficient money in the suspense fund to cover the new warrant.

E. If any payroll warrant payable from an account which reverts at the end of a fiscal year to a general fund is canceled, the fiscal officer shall create a suspense fund in the amount of the total canceled payroll warrants and withhold that amount from reversion. Canceled payroll warrants shall be paid from the suspense fund.

F. Each warrant issued by the state, county, municipality or school district shall have printed on its face the words, "void after one year from date."

History: 1953 Comp., § 11-2-43.3, enacted by Laws 1963, ch. 233, § 3; 1971, ch. 29, § 1; 1977, ch. 123, § 1.

Bracketed material. — The bracketed material was inserted by the compiler and it is not part of the law. The position of the commissioner of revenue, referred to in Subsection D(1), no longer exists. Laws 1977, ch. 249, § 5, abolished the bureau of revenue. Section 9-11-4 NMSA 1978 created the taxation and revenue department and the revenue division therein. Section 9-11-8 NMSA 1978 provided that each division in this department shall be headed by a "director."

Subsection D means that indebtedness as evidenced by the warrant alone is extinguished, and not the indebtedness provable by an underlying contract. 1980 Op. Att'y Gen. No. 80-15.

Federal portion of money involved in canceled warrant does not revert to state general fund. While certain outstanding warrants drawn against the vocational rehabilitation account should properly have been canceled under state law, because the services which they represented in fact cost the state nothing, the federal portion of the money in question was never the property of the state and should not have reverted to the general fund. 1964 Op. Att'y Gen. No. 64-04.

Am. Jur. 2d, A.L.R. and C.J.S. references. — 56 Am. Jur. 2d Municipal Corporations, Counties, and Other Political Subdivisions §§ 804, 830; 72 Am. Jur. 2d States § 77.

20 C.J.S. Counties § 211; 64 C.J.S. Municipal Corporations § 1899; 79 C.J.S. Schools and School Districts § 351; 81A C.J.S. States § 242.