Inez Bushner Gill (1918-1982) and Maralyn Budke (1936-2010)

A legislative memorial called Gill the midwife of the Legislative Finance Committee; it took her intern longer to get the title she earned. When the committee gained its own staff, its members could not bring themselves to call a woman director, so Budke ran it as executive secretary until Governor David Cargo hired her as chief of staff in 1967. She came back as director on November 18, 1968. In 1975 she became the first president of the National Association of Legislative Fiscal Officers, and in 1986 she served Governor Garrey Carruthers for a dollar a year.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historic Marker Inez Bushner Gill 1918-1982 Inez Bushner Gill impressed governors, legislators and journalists with her fiscal expertise. Among the original staff of the Legislative Council Service when it was founded in 1951, she served as fiscal analyst and principal staff for its finance committee. In 1957, she helped establish separate staff for what today is the Legislative Finance Committee. Inez developed many of the financial procedures that modernized state government and helped create the Department of Finance and Administration, bringing order to the chaos of state finances. Official Scenic Historic Marker Maralyn Budke 1936-2010 Maralyn Budke, Inez Gill's first intern, joined the Legislative Finance Committee in 1959 and was its first woman director from 1968-1982. A brilliant strategist and trusted advisor, Maralyn was a confidant to legislative leaders and chief of staff for Governors Cargo and Carruthers. Highly valued for her knowledge and insight, she mentored legislative and executive staff during 40 years of exemplary public service. Maralyn and Inez were two of the most important and influential women in New Mexico state government.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Palace of the Governors — 0.3 mi
  The long adobe on the north side of the Santa Fe plaza, called the oldest public building in continuous use in the country, though its own founding date is in dispute.
• Pecos National Historical Park — 17 mi
  The red walls of a 1717 mission church inside the foundations of a far larger one, beside the kiva Pecos people dug in front of the old church during the revolt of 1680.
• Bandelier National Monument — 20 mi
  Rooms carved into soft volcanic tuff in Frijoles Canyon, named for a Swiss scholar who was led there in 1880 by a man from Cochiti Pueblo.
• El Santuario de Chimayó — 22 mi
  A small adobe shrine on the High Road to Taos, built around 1816 over earth that pilgrims still carry away in hope of healing.

More markers nearby

• Myra Ellen Jenkins — steps away
• Doña Teresa de Aguilera y Roche — steps away
• Dorothy Scarritt McKibbin — steps away
• Mother Magdalen and the Sisters of Loretto (1852-1968) — steps away