[Music]
and you're on
mayor good afternoon
everyone uh welcome to city council work
session today is Monday February 26th
it's approximately 1 p.m. I am mayor
Enriquez we will start with a moment of
silence for the brave men and women of
the United States armed forces and as
well as our courageous men and women of
the Lost crues police department and
fire department as they keep our city
safe please
join
if you join me in the
pledge allegiance to the flag of the
United States of America to the Republic
for which it stands one nation under God
indivisible with liberty and justice for
all uh we'll start out with jobs of the
week uh Sarah Rainey
good afternoon I'm am Sarah Rainey from
the New Mexico Workforce Connection
OneStop
coordinator
and there we
go all right for jobs of the week for
this week February 24th 2024 we have an
art instructor for the city of Los cruus
um that position p $20 an hour the
posting closes on 311 we also have for
the city a customer service
representative that position posted at
1557 an hour and the posting actually
that that posting closes this week on
the 26th we have a registered nurse
Occupational Health position on White
Sands Missile Range that is um depending
on experience in the open until
field we have a registered nurse a Dita
healthcare partners that is a dependent
on experience position as well and that
one closes in March as well also a
Quality Senior leader at stammen
Incorporated the desert Grove location
that one is depending on experience as
well assistant PR excuse me assistant
professor chemical education at NMSU
that position starts at $76,000 a year
um and the posting closes in March we
wanted to remind you all that we have
some upcoming events um we have the mock
tell you rocket that's for the high
school students here um we are looking
for employers to help come out and help
interview students and do those mock
interviews teach them the the interview
skills that they're really needing and
just kind of step into that leadership
mentorship role so if anybody is
interested please reach out to us you
can log on to employee andm to see about
how to do that we also have upcoming on
April 1st the hiring for Heroes that one
is for veterans specific we also monthly
we are going out to a community of Hope
to do job Readiness um this coming month
in March we will be there on the 13th
and then the Los crusis spring career
fair will be on the 27th of
March and that's all we have for this
week thank
you thank you
Sarah next we have Amy do Felix with the
pets of the
week hello everyone I'm am Felix one of
the rescue coordinators for the Animal
Services Center and of course I present
the pets of the week so we can go ahead
and get started so always we start off
with our cat of the week um this week he
is Marx his number is 7239 n and he says
I have an ear tip because I lived most
of my life being a community cat until I
came to the Animal Services Center they
realized I was just so sweet that I
really should find a forever indoor home
and a family to love me for the rest of
my life I absolutely love attention pets
and being spoiled I'm sure I'll find my
family this week and then we have our
dog of the week her name is Zola her
number is
64863 and she says I came to the Animal
Services Center as a 3-month-old I've
spent most of my life growing up here
I'm dreaming of a loving loving and
patient family who would like to take me
home to help train and guide me into
being a well behaved and confident dog I
just want to know what life is like in a
forever home and then events going on we
have an adoption event uh at Staples
that'll be this Saturday March I believe
it's March 2nd not March 3rd um we'll be
there from 10:00 a.m. to 1: p.m. um and
then we have our social media links as
well I do want to mention we did have
our drive-through vaccination clinic um
we were able to microchip 303 pets and
then we administered 1,600 and some
change of vaccines so we really
extremely proud of that um we're hoping
our next vaccination clinic will be in
June once that gets settled we'll start
advertising for that as well but that's
all I have thank
you thank you
Amy
next is our agenda item
3.1 uh city of Los Cruz's 2023 economic
summary by Monica
[Music]
thores good day Mr Mayor and members of
city council my name is Monica Torres
City Economist with economic development
and I'm going to give you a summary of
2023 in 2023 both the labor for and
employment continue to increase the
labor force reached about 49,000 which
is
1.8% um increase as compared to 2022 and
about
3.5% increase as compared 2019
employment reached about 47,000 which is
800 additional play pay employees in as
compared to 2022 and about 2,000 as
compared additional as compared to
2019 in December as compared to December
2022 there was a almost a 1% increase in
the labor force and a decline of 0.1% in
employment the average unemployment rate
Rose from 3 3.8 in 2022 to 3.9 in
2023 and the number of people actively
looking for a job Rose from about 18800
22 to 1900 in 23 while it um it increase
in 2023 the level remains below the 20 9
level and at 2.9% December
2022 was um one of the lowest
unemployment rates in December
unemployment rates in the city in the
last 10 years it Rose to 3.7 in December
2023 um however it remains among the
lowest December rates in the city
these are key rates in the nation and
are level in 2022 and 2023 we have
inflation as measured by the Consumer
Price Index that went from about 8% to
about 4% in 23 in response to inflation
the Federal Reserves start increasing
the federal funds
rate shortterm interest rates tend to
move with the federal funds rate longer
terms um they also adjust to the
expectation of short-term rates in the
future
inflation deficits in other words um
longterm rates tend to adjust to the
expectation long uh economic conditions
in the future the treasury the 10-year
treasury yeld is used as a benchmark for
other borrowing cost such as mortgage
rates if the yield increases mortgage
rates tend to increase this in turn has
an effect in the housing market
and in consumption in general because
when people buy homes they also tend to
buy other products appliances furniture
and so forth also higher interest rates
can have an impact in business
investment because the cost of money is
higher the city of Las Cruses has been
participating in the cost of living
index from the console of community and
economic research since 2018 we we
cannot compare one year to another
because cohort of participating cities
changes but since 2018 the composite
index for the city has been below the
average of the participating cities in
2023 the composite index for the city
was about 90 which means the city is 10%
cheaper as compared to the average of
the participating City the composite
index includes components for Health
Care housing
groceries other services and
transportation
on regards to revenue GRT Rose about
2.4% in 2023 as compared to
2022 that's an additional almost 3
million to a total of 25.8 million this
is some more Mo moderate increase as
compared to what we saw in 21 and 22
December which is an important month for
ER for the city there was a declin as
compared to December 22 but it's
important to highlight the December 22 2
was an all-time high GRT
month much taxable gross receip are a
good measure of economic activity
because taxable gross receipts are
matched to tax payments the sector o
industry is Rose 3.2% in 23 as compared
to 22 again this is a more moderate
increase as compared to what we saw in
21 and 22 the top contributor sectors
were retail trade Healthcare and social
assistance and accommodation and Food
Services
this were the same top contributor
sectors in 2019 as well there was a
small change um in
the contribution of healthcare and
social assistance a possible explanation
could be the additional um deductions
for health Healthcare Providers after
July
2023 on the other hand retail trade in a
little higher and accommodation and Food
Services remain pretty much unchanged
looking forward the economy has
continued to normalize after all the
changes that we experienced in recent
years we expect some softening on the
labor market or more moderate realt
growth because again what we experienced
in 2022 and 2022 was above average and
23 continue to grow but a more Mod Mo
moderate
Pace I
questions
any questions from
Council I I have a question your honor
go ahead Council appr thank you Mr Mayor
and thank you so much Dr Torres so why
is there an optimistic Outlook in so far
as economic
growth uh your last comment I believe
was to that
effect thank you for um your question
can you repeat your question please um
it seems to me that well my question is
I guess my question is I didn't
understand exactly what you said but um
so there's a strong footing in 2023
growth oh that was but that was more
moderate I just want to understand how
that happens we have had many changes
that we have never seen before we have a
very strong uh a very resilient economy
so far but we're living in a high
interest rate environment and while
there's the expectation that interest
rates are going to come down we still
have higher it's been the highest
interest rate in the last 20 years and
the highest um increase pace so this can
have a lack effect in in
demand and when you have a when you
affect theand you can have affect
employment so that's why we're think
there's going to be a softening on the
labor market it's been the lowest
unemployment rate in the last 10 years
why I say that there's going to be more
moderate grow in GRT because we
experienc very strong growth in 2021 and
2022 but a lot of things are
normalizing we have um a lot of the co
related programs already expire some
expire in
October and as I said interest rates
remain high so all those factors can
contribute to have a more moate moderate
growth in 2024 yes okay so there's just
a trend yes 2022 was still a strong year
and if we compare year-over year we
still grow 3.2% but we're not seeing the
9% that we experienc from 2022 uh to
compared to 2021 it's like more aligned
with we've seen in the past thank you Dr
Tores thank you Mr
Mayor all right thank you is there any
members from the public uh that would
like to come up any questions or
input okay well that's the only item
that we had on the agenda so Monica
thank you for your presentation thank
you and that should conclude our work
session for today 14 minutes is
it all they're telling me that's a
record time 14 minutes okay
here well thank you all for attending
next we'll have the agenda
setting a motion to adjourn oh motion to
adjourn so move
second this is on the motion to adjourn
the work session councelor McClure yes
councelor matis yes councelor Graham yes
councelor Karan yes councelor flutes
yes councelor Beno yes and mayor
yes
McLure I really enjoyed the visit with
um Fred
h
item number one consent one consent item
number two consent two consent item
number three nonconsent three
non-consent four consent four consent
five non-consent five non-consent six
non-consent six non-consent and seven
non-consent seven
non-consent all right thank
you