Mayoral candidates clash over budget

the candidates for mayor clash over how to balance the budget as the race for mayor of albuquerque lurches toward the finish line stuart dyson has been covering it all the way and he s here now with the latest from the campaign trail hard times - tight belts - tax revenues down at city hall - how do you avoid layoffs - serve the public - and stay out of the red ink three term mayor martin chavez says the budget he crafted with the city council last spring does just that - and his two challengers don t have the right stuff to get the job done albuquerque is one of the only cities that has balanced its budget without layoffs or cutbacks in service - i ve been really conservative with the public s dollar challenger richard romero says it isn t conservative spending - it s a shell-game hey - he s using 4 mills - property taxes that should be used for infrastructure - he s using it to pay for salary increases over the years challenger richard r j berry - front runner in this week s albuquerque journal poll - agreeing with romero - shell- game when you grow government 50 like chavez has done and when you take 112 million dollars of our property tax money thats supposed to go to senior centers - youth soccer fields - median lanscapes - quality-of-life projects - and you take that into this budget that you grew 50 - thats the problem the chavez campaign disputes that 50 percent figure - and points out the city council passed that budget unanimously