A deal that has state taxpayers building a $1.4 million rehearsal hall for the Santa Fe Opera is drawing second looks from some lawmakers.

Critics of the unprecedented arrangement complain it appears to sidestep the state Constitution while singling the opera out for special treatment.

But supporters — led by the House's most powerful member, Speaker Ben Luján, D-Nambé — say it's all perfectly legal, and that helping New Mexico's biggest nonprofit arts organization will benefit the entire state.

Luján's legislation (HJR8), which is necessary to seal the deal, has passed one committee and would have to clear another before it reached the full House for a vote

There are no dollars being allocated for the project by the cash-strapped Legislature this year: $1.4 million in capital projects money was set aside for it over the past two years.

Rather, Luján's measure authorizes the lease-purchase deal between the Department of Cultural Affairs and the opera.

Here's how it works:

The opera deeds the state a small chunk of land on the opera grounds, on which the state builds a $1.45 million, opera-designed rehearsal hall. The opera leases the hall from June through August each year for $15,000. The opera buys the building back over five to 10 years, with payments in the form of in-kind services such as programs for children, tours and concerts.

"We could cut back on services and build a rehearsal hall, but we don't wish to do that," Paul R. Hoffman, chairman of the opera's board of directors, said in an interview. "So this is a method of being able to continue to provide services and still obtain a rehearsal hall."

The opera already does educational and community outreach, but Department of Cultural Affairs Secretary Stuart Ashman said it would be required to provide additional statewide services to meet its payment obligations for the purchase.

How many more services, and where, haven't yet been determined.

According to the Attorney General's Office, which represents the Department of Cultural Affairs and has worked intensively on the lease-purchase agreement over the past year, the arrangement is legal.

It doesn't violate the state Constitution's anti-donation clause — which bars the state from donating to private individuals or entities — because the rehearsal hall will be built on state land and because of the lease payments and the services, which are to be provided at fair market value, the attorney general said.

Chief Deputy Attorney General Al Lama disputed critics' contention that it's a "sweet deal" for the opera, saying the state negotiated hard.

It's not unusual for the Legislature to appropriate money that goes to nonprofits; typically, the funds go to state agencies that contract with the nonprofits for services.

The opera rehearsal hall construction deal is a first, however.

"What we're doing is, we're exchanging services for capital outlay dollars," objected Rep. Janice Arnold-Jones of Albuquerque, who joined other Republicans in voting against the measure in the House Voters and Elections Committee. "I think this is a huge policy issue."

"There's a sense that the opera is getting special treatment that 26,000 other nonprofits don't have available to them," said Rep. Kathy McCoy, R-Cedar Crest.

Luján suggested the deal could provide a template for dealing with other nonprofits.

The rehearsal hall would be open-air, and critics also wondered how the state would find use for the facility in the nonsummer months.

Ashman said the hall likely would be useable from April until June, and from mid-August until October, for concerts or for dance or theater production by other nonprofit arts groups.




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