New Mexico § 23-1-5 - Indebtedness in excess of appropriations prohibited; exceptions

§ 23-1-5. Indebtedness in excess of appropriations prohibited; exceptions

Every officer, board, body or agency or any member thereof, empowered to expend any

public money or to direct the expenditure thereof, or to contract indebtedness against

or in view of specific appropriations, is hereby prohibited from making any contract,

incurring any expense, or contracting any liability against this state, or any public

fund thereof, which shall make, tend to make or contemplate any excess of expenditure

beyond the terms of the laws authorizing expenditures by them, or either of them,

or under their direction; and it shall be unlawful for any trustee, superintendent,

warden or other officer of any of the educational, penal, charitable or other institutions

of this state, who, under the laws, has authority or may be vested with authority

to purchase supplies, employ servants or assistants, contract indebtedness, or to

do any act contemplating the expenditure of public moneys, to contract any indebtedness

in behalf of such institutions or ostensibly against the state on account of such

institutions in excess of the appropriations made for the maintenance and support

thereof; but in respect to the penitentiary, the asylum for the insane, the reform

school, the institute for the blind, the miners' hospital and the deaf and dumb asylum,

if the specific appropriations therefor shall have become exhausted, food and clothing

for the inmates thereof may be purchased on the credit of the state.