The state's first elected female governor says the state should stop funding the New Mexico Commission on the Status of Women.

As part of her plan for covering a large projected shortfall in the state budget, Gov. Susana Martinez recommends eliminating state spending for the 37-year-old program.

In response, commission officials have launched a campaign to lobby legislators and the Governor's Office to keep state money flowing.

The commission, which has its office in Albuquerque, gets about $600,000 from the state's General Fund. The rest of its roughly $1.7 million annual budget comes from the federal government, Executive Director Mary Molina Mescall said Thursday.

Among other things, she said, the commission provides counseling to displaced homemakers, job-skills training, help with résumés and finances, anti-bullying workshops and programs for girls.

"The disappointing thing was that this huge decision was made without actually knowing what we do," Mescall said.

Martinez spokesman Scott Darnell said the governor has to make hard choices in the face of a budget shortfall of up to $400 million for the next fiscal year.

"Unfortunately, Governor Martinez takes the reins of state government at a time of fiscal crisis," he said in a statement. "In order to protect core priorities like classroom spending and healthcare for those most in need, she has had to make difficult decisions as to how and where taxpayer dollars are spent."

The Commission on the Status of Women has seven staff positions, two of which are vacant and have been held open amid a hiring freeze.

A "request for support" marked "URGENT," sent out Thursday on a state government e-mail account, includes names and addresses for governor's staff and legislators on the House Appropriations and Finance Committee, asking that they be sent letters and e-mails on behalf of the commission and providing "suggested talking points" for the lobbying effort.

Mescall said she has requested a meeting with Martinez but has not heard back.

The governor's budget proposal differs from that of the Legislative Finance Committee, which recommend a 3.7 percent cut for the commission. Mescall said she could live with that, as all agencies are being asked to make cuts.

Mescall said people who get to see firsthand what the agency does are always impressed. "When people come in the office and see the activity and the clients in the workroom and the profile of the women we are serving, they are very impressed."

Among other things, she said, the group does workshops for elderly women and financial planning, workshops on post-divorce finances and life-skills sessions. It often helps women who are homeless or near homeless, Mescall said.

"The kind of services we provide isn't for somebody like the governor or me or even you," she told a reporter. "It's for someone who has had the rug pulled out from underneath them."

Former Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, who lost the governor's race to Martinez last year, headed the New Mexico Commission on the Status of Women under Gov. Toney Anaya in the mid-1980s.

Contact Kate Nash at 986-3036 or knash@sfnewmexican.com. Read her blog at www.greenchilechatter.com.