[Music]
so
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good afternoon you're now on okay good
afternoon everyone welcome back
now we're going to start our work
session of las cruces city council today
is monday april 26
2021 it's approximately 3 16 p.m
we're going to start off with our pet of
the week or pets of the week
and i believe vanessa chastain will be
presenting
maybe not let's hear
okay how about um clint thacker there
no no clint okay well we'll just go
ahead and go to
the jobs of the week and then we'll
circle back to pets so
see darlene or cindy
mr mayor this is francisco pallares i'll
be doing the jobs of the week
mr lee lopez and ms cindy quillin needed
to be somewhere else for their meeting
and for this week's jobs of the week mr
mayor and members of the city council
and members of the public we have
for the city of las cruces we're hiring
for a museum administrator
uh that's for the city of las cruces and
that position closes
on may 17th of 2021 we are also looking
about
the the the new mexico workforce
connections as part of their hot jobs
is looking for the emt basic uh that's
with american medical response
that one closes on july the 5th of 2021
uh southeast electric is also looking
for an administrative assistant
southeast electric incorporated
in that position closes on may the 5th
uh at 10 sorry uh
that's may the 7th my apologies may the
7th
attendance also with the environmental
department with the environmental
services department with memorial
medical
center they have three positions
available and those are open
until they're filled there's also a
respiratory
therapist oxygen therapy associate and
that one closes
on july the 4th
um also one of the one additional thing
that that is
is important to point out is that new
mexico workforce connections along with
uh
the university with new mexico state
university um they're carrying a restart
new mexico job fair on may the 4th
so for those employers or for those job
seekers that are looking to
find an an online job fair you may
register in the employeenm.com webpage
and actually you can just
google it like that right up with the
employer.com webpage or along some of
the news that they have
and it's going to be on may 4th from 10
a.m to 2 p.m
so if you're looking to post one of your
jobs now that the economy has slowly
been reopening
and you're or you're looking to hire
sorry hire someone else uh
maybe under additional operations or
maybe you're looking for a job
you can go and seek in that restart new
mexico register for that job fair
for a full list of jobs internships and
volunteer opportunities please visit
www.employanime.com and also
www.governmentjobs.com for slash career
sports
las cruces then the office for new
mexico workforce connections
is on uh located in alameda boulevard
226 the phone number is 575-524-6250
and again the webpage is
www.employeenim.com
thank you mr major thank you dr paryades
appreciate that
and so now uh i still didn't see vanessa
vanessa are you there okay so we'll go
ahead and go to the covet 19 update
and that's by assistant city manager
eric henriquez
who is going to present
acm enriquez are you there yes i'm here
good afternoon mayor and council eric
enriquez assistant city manager to give
you a covid19
uh update uh dunya county is still
currently in the yellow and uh we keep
hearing
the governor is looking at changing the
criteria we were hoping that happened
last week
we'll anticipate some kind of changes to
help us with the criteria so we can get
to the green
and maybe even the turquoise sooner than
later
on the doh department of health
dashboard
fully vaccinated in donating county is
64 000 that's approximately 37
individuals with single doses is 52.1
percent uh registration for the vaccine
in donate county is about 58
the johnson johnson under cdc has
recommended to resume the vaccine for
those 18 years of
age and older there's still some concern
with women
that are younger than 50 years old to to
to be aware of the risk especially with
blood clotting uh
donating county and department of health
will use that vaccine
mostly for our homebound uh population
that would only require one trip going
out to their home
as opposed to going uh on two trips so
we'll be using it on that
uh if again if the client is
is willing to take the johnson and
johnson there has been a lull
in the vaccinations um involved last
week they had 300 doses only 170 showed
up
so we are seeing more and more uh no
shows
and there are some concerns with
expiration dates now of the vaccine
today there was 200 that were available
and it was
a um use it or lose it
within a two to three hour period so the
department of health set up a
pod site locally to try to get those uh
you know first-come first-served basis
uh one of the things that the
department of health is doing to combat
that is now
it was age 40 and over
now it's 16 and over anyone over the age
of 16 can now schedule their own
vaccines
and we're hoping that'll be a way to to
get more of the
vaccinations done in our community
also with that the las cruces public
school district is going to have a pod
site at las cruces high school on
wednesday
and they have 500 doses available for
that campaign to start getting students
vaccinated in the high school age group
the asylum refugees update
there's no concern at this time the
federal government
and the non-government agencies such as
the annunciation in el paso have really
stepped up and
doing a good job with that so at this
time we don't see
a concern of having to set up a shelter
in our area and that's all i have there
thank you okay thank you assistant
manager enriquez
i appreciate that yes sir and just um
information that
i'm aware of on the johnson and johnson
there was six six individuals or so out
of six million
so they they say that's about a one and
one million chance of a
blood clot so the the
benefits far outweigh the risk
counselor flores thank you mayor
i have a question for mr envikas so eric
um
thank you for your presentation uh we're
not anticipating
any migrant groups any children for
example
or anything like that no not not
not at this time a lot of the unattended
children have been sent to dallas and
the midland
area and that's why i said that the
federal government has really stepped up
to help in those cases
there was talk a few weeks ago of a
location in new mexico
but that got canceled just because the
place is already set up in
in the dallas area okay and the reason
i'm asking is uh and
and perhaps uh mayor gandara
has information but i did see um
jolin your bestie your mother
martinez um she's at fyi
and um and she was saying that they were
getting ready
they were preparing for the arrival of
some children but we we didn't
we were in a setting where i didn't have
the opportunity but she did say my great
children
and um i said oh that's odd because we
were told that
there wasn't going to be any
she's with fyi so
i just wondered if you knew anything
about that mayor pro tem
or you eric have heard and if that has
anything
with us being prepared mayor if i may
yes thank you mayor thank you counselor
flores
and eric yeah those are the same kind
same
type of information that i'm getting
from her from cyfd
colleagues that have um you know folks
that are working in different agencies
across the state
and all that information i've sent back
to evo for him
you know to investigate talk with eric
um and at this point because we're
getting such
difference right um different
information
um frankly and so i just know there are
folks in locally they're gearing up
because they say they're gonna receive
when exactly not sure
and but all accounts um have
have pointed that we're not getting any
um
and then i have a connection that i sent
um
i've received a email from a gentleman
that's working um at fort bliss
and so i connected ifo and eric to to
them as well so
i um you know they're they're housing
them and working through
the you know that process and it didn't
seem like we were
getting anything any children
unaccompanied minors
or or families at that point either and
that's been maybe
three weeks now come to flores so
i i i'm just when i get information i
forward it on and i
and i you know i'm um i trust that
um mr enriquez and andy for you know
working through those channels and
getting
the correct information and thus far
we're not we haven't received
any
yes thank you mayor mayor pro tem gandra
and councillor flores that that is
correct anytime that we get any kind of
information or knowledge i i reach out
to all the contacts i have from the
state
the border patrol the local churches
that are helping with these
uh refugees as well el cavalio here that
is their mission
they they are involved but uh at this
point
as a city or as a community we uh
we we don't have a concern at this point
as soon as something like that
happens we'll be sure to let you know
thank you
thank you counselor ben cuomo thanks
mayor i just wanted to note that
um it's because title 42 the provision
of title 42 is still in place
that um there is a very small
number of asylum seekers being allowed
in to the country
um title 42 is set to expire may 20th
although the biden administration has
not indicated that
committed to that so that might not
happen but if title 42 is revoked
then um we most likely will see
an increase of families arriving
okay thank you for that information
thank you
okay that any that's it eric you're
you're finished with your presentation
yes sir thank you mayor
okay thank you all right so we have two
items on the agenda
first one is item 4.1 el paso electric
20 million
economic development fund so as you all
know
um el paso electric was was sold uh i
guess it was finalized a while back and
and
part of that is uh pastor electric had
inserted in there that they were going
to give
uh 20 million dollars i think a million
a year for 20 years
for economic development and so with us
today is uh
is um las cruces businessman mr john
hummer
john i'm sorry it's taken so long you
probably could have gone to el paso and
back maybe even grab lunch and
still be in time to for our meetings
anyways or is yours just need you to
state your name and your
your position please yes mr mayor um
members of the city council my name is
uh
john hummer and my role here today is
i am one of three members on the
fund advisors who were nominated and
selected to serve in the role of fund
advisor which i'll
explain in a moment in addition to
myself
ed camden who is the ceo of calstrip
industries
serves as a fund advisor and also gerain
hutchinson
they were not able to be here today so i
am
going to present on behalf of all three
of us and i'll be very brief because i
know you you have a
long agenda um the
one thing i'll just say before i start
is i want to compliment you i i
listened to the whole tid session
it brought me back to when i served on
the uh the dlcp
board and served as chair of that
organization and
several of you did mention uh accurately
that it's been a long time coming the
incubator
that was something that was
you know supposed to happen a while back
and it's great to see that it's moving
forward and
that's really exciting because there's
just a lot a lot of potential a lot of
opportunity with that
as each of you pointed out in your in
your comments so congratulations
on that can't wait to see that happen um
so
the you all know about the fund um
it's very straightforward it's a million
dollars a year for 20 years
when we met as a group and with el paso
electric
one of the things we did we put the
criteria together we had a deadline
of april 1st for the applications for
the first round of applications
what we felt was important when we
defined
criteria was to really focus it on
economic based
uh jobs e-based economic development
which there's a lot of different
perspectives on this but if i can just
kind of
give my perspective that i think is
shared by a lot of economic development
professionals
is that when you talk about e-based jobs
the difference between that versus say
retail jobs
is that your goods or your services are
being sold
to consumers outside of our county so
we're generating income
from either goods that are being
produced and manufactured or services
that are being provided
and the consumers of that are from
outside the area bringing in
new wealth new opportunity and then
allowing those jobs to grow
as a result of that economic based
development and
so we put that criteria out which is
very similar right
you all are familiar with media and how
mubita
works and how they look at economic base
development as well so it really aligns
with that philosophy
and to date after the deadline we had 16
applications
and i will granted i will just say that
of those applications we did have
individuals that submitted in
projects that were more retail based not
e-based
there were some social service projects
that were submitted which is all fine
they're all good projects but
they don't really fit the criteria on
that uh
that aspect um we're not going to
announce who the recipients are until
after we have our first public meeting
which we're going to have on may 10th at
10 a.m
it's been posted through the community
foundation of southern new mexico
who is the fiscal
agent for the fund and we'll have a
public meeting
we will go through what applications we
received um we will have a q a with any
of the applicants themselves to the
public at large that may have questions
as well
and then after may 10th the announcement
we made
for the first deployment of the million
dollars
and our goal is for all one million
dollars to be deployed um
and one of the things some foreshadowing
obviously mavida
is an applicant and i think that
they are a strong applicant and one of
the things that we were we were in
discussion with mevita
um and we had a pre-meeting before today
uh last month
with ifo our city manager and
we talked about you know you know
the potential of this fund because i
think everybody would agree that this is
a very positive
you know development for our community
for our county for our city
and what we thought was important was to
have a courtesy presentation
to you all to kind of share with you our
philosophy
meaning the fund advisors philosophy and
ifo
had recommended and thought it was a
good idea for for us to brief you as
well
on this but one of the aspects that
we're looking at with movida is the
the concept of a closing fund and a
stackable
closing fund that can be stacked in a
multi-year award
and we know the incentives that new
mexico has which i think are good
um some states have some incentives that
are better than ours but we have some
incentives that are better than other
states
when it comes to leta in particular
which i think is our strongest
you know uh incentive as a state of
course jtip is a good program too
but one of the things that we can build
um
as a community and i think mavida is is
putting this forward
as the concept is the the concept of
building a closing fund
that can be used for things that you the
city really can't do because of
anti-donation for say infrastructure say
a company wants to come in but they need
some funds for some infrastructure
so on and so forth and that that closing
fund can be built
and that really i think strengthens the
collaboration between mavida and the
city and the county
as well to have access to those type of
funds and obviously it needs to be
proven
these type of funds that you just don't
write a check and hope they come they've
got to demonstrate that they've hired
jobs
that they've made an investment and
they're here and then it can be back
funded on that as well so i just wanted
to give you a foreshadowing
that there are some create creative
discussions going on
to uh to do some things that we've not
really been able to do
as a community and as a state with some
closing fund uh
incentives as well so um
with that i just want to stop and answer
any questions because again i wanted to
make it brief
um and this is a courtesy to let you
know kind of our
our thinking our philosophy on this and
to answer any questions that you have
thanks sean when you say closing fund
you mean like close the deal fund
so okay yeah all right i'm sorry thanks
that's okay
no no no problem and then also and i'm
waiting for council if they have any
questions i'm also
if um is it is it broken down into city
and county or is it just all either or
you know like half a million city half a
million county
or is it just whatever whatever is you
all feel is best
yeah i think you know let's let's assume
let's say that
that an award goes to an organization
that that manages the closing fund
we really don't want to get into the
details of
of city county let's say a closing fund
is awarded to movita
and they manage that which the city and
the county you have a seat at the table
with mevita
they'll come up with a criteria on that
we're not going to come up with it
x percent has to be county x percent has
to be city i think what's most important
is
good projects that are vetted and
can contribute to the economy and the
growth of our re of
our county is what's most important
that's my personal feeling
and the money will will follow good
ideas
okay uh looks we have a question from
councillor vasquez
thank you mayor uh thank you mr hummer
for your presentation
and representing um this initiative
today
uh yeah i'm wondering first of all i'll
just start by saying
um i know el paso electric under this
new leadership
and restructure that they recently did
has changed a lot of their philanthropic
and community
giving programs and opportunities and so
uh grateful that they are thinking about
um
investing this money in our community as
a fund to generate economic development
opportunity
i just want to say that first um second
in terms of this model
um i haven't seen this model before um
especially from a utility company
and so um i'm wondering mr hummer if
this was based
as far as you know off of other models
that have worked in other communities do
other utilities typically do this
um how have you seen perhaps maybe
similar companies
uh use a a program like this to spur
economic development in other places
um just to see kind of where we are in
terms of the precedent of
of el paso electric organizing a program
like this in our community
i i do not have knowledge of any others
this this is
the you know the first of its kind that
i'm aware of and
and i let me catch that by saying that
my role really wasn't
involved in the creation or the where
and the wherefore of it other than
i read about it at the same time
probably everybody else
read that wasn't involved in the
creation of it and then
i got a phone call and said we want to
nominate you to be a fund advisor would
you be interested in that and i said
i said i would be interested so really i
i had no no reason to do any research as
to if it's been done elsewhere before
but i think
i'm glad it's being done here because i
think it's better than not having the
money
so thank you mr humber i appreciate that
and i i haven't seen it i haven't seen
this model either so i'm just curious to
see if this was
you know something that that other
utilities had done in in communities
where this
you know would have produced similar or
or the types of results that we're
looking for
um what what is i don't want to put you
on the spot here but
what would an ideal situation be like
for the use of this fund
um what kind of hypothetical situation
would you see
this fund being used for in the city of
las cruces that you would say
and this is why i signed up to do this
and it's successful and
um we will yeah we would call this a
success
so just from from my perspective and you
know and i just go
i've been here now going on 22 years so
i'm just coming from my
my perspective and experience since i've
been in the state
if i was to wave a magic wand i think
the ideal situation would be
a an msu graduate
that has a business idea
that was able to raise capital and to
create
a business opportunity in our community
and to
create a product grow it hire
hundreds and hundreds of people locally
that would be the ideal
second to that would be a company coming
in from outside
that would would be an influx of new
jobs
be it manufacturing be it high tech
be it you know any other type of you
know
economic based uh job creator
to come in and and to stay here long
term
but if you ask me the question what
would be the ideal would be that first
that first scenario
thank you mr i agree with that for sure
um
what if it's a community solar company
if they manufacture panels here and they
sell them out you know
absolutely yeah i mean you know uh
you know if they're yeah i mean
i have not i'm not opposed i've got
on a side note full disclosure my wife
and i we own steinberg real estate if
you have if you ever look at the google
earth that entire plaza is full of solar
panels we put in solar panels seven
years ago
so um no i
yeah i appreciate that um yeah no i you
know i think
certainly again appreciate the
investment on the part of el paso
electric for this closing fund and
interested to see
how it would work especially in
conjunction with tools that we have in
place
like lida and certainly some of the work
that navita and others are doing
in this space whenever you can leverage
dollars from from
you know community partners as well as
local and state government federal
government
to to bring forth projects that are
beneficial to our community
i'm all for it um so i'm excited to
learn
more about how this fund would be used
and um
see the evolution of where it goes and
thankful for you and el paso electric
for um
contributing this to our community so
thank you thank you people to
receive funding based on the quality of
their project as well
so um it doesn't mean that they don't
get it directly from
the grant they can still go to the
economic development organizations who
may be receiving
funding to also receive that funding as
well
okay great well very good well again
thank you very much for
sharing this information with us and as
well as
bringing us this news and so with that i
think um
you're you're good i mean go back to
wherever it is you were doing so
thanks okay thanks thanks again thanks
for everything you all do
thanks bye-bye okay so now we're going
to go ahead and move to item 4.2 the
fiscal year
21-20-22 proposed budget and cip
being presented by leanne damouche and
david cedillo so
who's going to start first probably
leanne he's going to be me mayor
let me as you know i'm not real good at
this let me
i'm getting better can you see my screen
yes
okay let me see if i can make it full
can we see it full
yeah pretty good good okay
okay let me do one more thing mayor
excuse me
okay i'm going to
move you guys over here great okay
so mayor it is that time of the year
mayor and council
we have david sedillo and our staff have
met with you on multiple times
uh it is per our charter just to let you
know
that uh at least 60 days and i apologize
with the allergies i have a little bit
of a frog in my throat today
uh 60 days prior to the start of the new
fiscal year the city manager
shall submit a budget and a budget
message to the council
for the next fiscal year and that's uh
what we're fulfilling today
is what is in our charter
okay so this is our budget book
cover i hope you like it it was
developed by
um carla walton our theme if it looks
familiar
is together we can which is what the
theme we had
for um what uh carla put together with
community communications together we can
um i'd also like during this time mayor
council is to
just introduce a little bit of the team
that we have
of course my budget team i could not do
this job without them of course that's
matt signs will blanchard
and sherelle della cruz um
we do have a team for this presentation
it's not just me up here
giving this all to you we have our
economist kyle eager who i'll be passing
off to him
after that we have our i.t director
scott maher
who is going to be introducing a new uh
plan or program
to you and then of course turning it
over to
david sedillo who is our public works
director
also would like to give a shout out to
of course carla who designed our
beautiful cover
sarah cundiff who works on the cip for
public works and of course our deputy
director mr
tony trevino
so our proposed budget summary uh
conservative budget
especially due to the coven 19 recession
we are not asking for any
increases in property taxes or grt
we did take in your council
considerations and myself
and mr david sedillo will be going over
those with you in this presentation
um and that was part of the direction at
the last
work session that we had with you and of
course elevate las cruces
and your new strategic plan initiative
that was adopted by council as well
so our budget development this year per
our city management guidelines
we did budget a salary benefit increase
of 2.5 percent
it is in our budget and any union
negotiation contracts that we had we
took that into consideration as well
some of them are either higher or lower
than the 2.5 percent so we took all of
those into consideration
we are asking for three new positions
and it's they're not actually new
uh what it is is uh parks and rec asks
for
six of their part-time after-school
employees
to become uh full-time so they're
already budgeted
at 50 so actually if you take six and
you divide it by two you get three new
positions
so actually just six people are becoming
full-time
uh re-classes uh city management said
reclasses only if
the increase is less than 10 percent so
we took all of that into consideration
we are doing a open salary savings
actually this would be our third year my
third year of the budget as well
that we've had open salary savings this
year we put us
open salary savings of 5 million
and then in operating of course all of
the departments reviewed their budgets
to meet their performance strategic
results
of course elevate was always on our mind
the whole time in our new strategic plan
a little bit of the budget highlights
using the new strategic plan
you'll notice i'm using the themes the
first one being community prosperity
we did put some budget towards the
certified site program
which is updating the las cruces
innovation industrial park master plan
in the overlay zone
to stimulate business in that area uh
the downtown business incubator which
you
you discussed um with the tid
uh earlier as i think chris had
mentioned to you
he did budget some operational funds
some startup funds to help develop
additional business activity in the
downtown
um then there's funding for main street
grant program to develop
additional business activity in the
downtown area as well
and then the el paseo and solano
corridor for a metropolitan
redevelopment area
plan
uh next theme is education and community
services
we anticipate the last quarter of fiscal
year 22
to open our new community pool so we
budgeted that under um you know for one
quarter it includes new positions
it includes some operating expenses you
know supplies
purchase services general things like
that um
environmental sustainability we increase
infrastructure and purchases
of ev vehicles so we are looking at uh
for fiscal year 22 hopefully purchasing
some electric vehicles
uh which has been discussed as you know
in the last couple of work sessions and
resolutions that went to council
recently
capital improvements and infrastructure
we have talked about the payment
condition
index which when we get into the council
priorities we'll talk a little bit more
of how
we what we budgeted for the pci
and then under communication involvement
and follow-up um
this year we have budgeted the main
street or
maybe it's not necessarily main street
but the extension of the main street
public wi-fi
and this year for fy22 there should be
on our website a dashboard
for performance and performance-based
budgeting
we're using opengov and we hope to get
that up and going for fy 22
and then of course under public safety
which is part of
the council priorities that we've been
discussing we did budget for the mobile
integrated health
program so
at this point i'm going to turn the
presentation over to
mr collieger who is our economist
all right thank you liam
yeah this is kyle eager i'm the
economist for the las cruces economic
development department
i'll be providing a brief snapshot
snapchat
snapshot of the current economic
conditions
in the city of las cruces
i'll be focusing particularly on labor
market conditions within the city
so we'll first look at general
employment conditions
this graph shows long run trends in
employment growth
for the city of las cruces
this data comes from the bureau of labor
statistics
local area employment statistics
so these numbers are based on household
surveys of people
residing within the city limits
so prior to the copen 19 crisis
the city had experienced steady
employment growth
since 2010
starting in march of 2020 we
observe a sharp decline in employment
however since july there's been
a recovery in terms of total employment
for the city
so as of february 2021 our best
preliminary estimates
that we get from the bureau of labor
statistics
they suggest that total employment
within the city was
uh 44 302
which is about 1 338
jobs less than total employment in
february of 2020 or that's about
3 percent less again
most recent observations are preliminary
estimates and they're
subject to change
they're subject to change by the bureau
of labor statistics as
time goes on so although
we are um 1 000
about you know 1 300 jobs away from
where we were
in february 2020 i should note that
we need to consider population growth
during this time uh we still have a ways
to go
to get back to where we were you know
prior to
to where we were if if there had been no
covet
and of course that number is difficult
to
uh to calculate uh however
when you take into account population
growth we're actually more
like 2 000 jobs away from where we need
to be
but we're about 4 000 jobs
less than where we need to be
so as you probably noticed that there's
considerable
seasonal seasonality in in this
employment data
where there's often a a thousand
job difference between november and
january
and because of that it can make kind of
uh distinguishing the month-to-month
fluctuations
uh from the long-run trend difficult
uh and because of that it's it's useful
to look at year over year
employment statistics um so
next slide please
i thank you so this graph shows
monthly employment for 2019
2020 and our preliminary estimates for
2021.
so this is the same data as before it's
just presented in a different manner
so if you look at if you compare your
2019 with 2020 you'll notice that at the
start of 2020 we were doing better than
we
had done in 2019 and then you
you see the effect of the coveted
shutdowns
but then a recovery that begins in
august
um and then we of course have our
2021 preliminary numbers on total
employment for the city
um so um given that you know we are
seeing
a rise in employment there are there are
reasons to be
cautiously optimistic
next slide please
so a common question is is what
industries have been
hurt the most by the covid 19 shutdowns
and we have data on that unfortunately
it comes out with a considerable lag
with the core 3 2020 being the most
recent data available so quarter four
data should be coming out later this
week
uh although this information is a bit
dated it still
has value in telling us what industries
have been
impacted the most um i should note that
whereas the previous data in the
previous two graphs
came from household surveys this data
comes from surveys of businesses
so it comes from the quarterly census of
employment and wages
so they take they use information from
payroll data to
to get these estimates so total
employment won't match
the reason being that more people work
in the city
and live in the city uh
so looking at this this data
we see that the largest declines in
employment
have been concentrated in the retail
trade sector as well as the
accommodations
and food services sector we also
observe a large decline in employment in
administrative and support services
uh about a 800 job decrease
so i have looked into that particular
sector
and most of that employment loss is
due to a decline in call center
employment
however i'm doing some follow-up
research on that
that decline in call center employment
it is not something that's unique to las
cruces
so if you if you look at data from the
bureau of labor statistics
um since 2017
if you look at total employment in that
sector for the whole entire united
states
um beginning around the second quarter
of tucson 2017
the united states has been experiencing
a decline in call center employment
and a lot of it is because they are
offshoring a lot of call centers
um so that's a snapshot of the las
cruces economy and i'll turn things back
over to leanne
thank you thank you so much kyle
so mayor council we're going to jump
right into the budget
this is our all funds expenditured so
this is our
total citywide budget as you can see
uh we're at close to a half a billion
497.8
million as you can see the general fund
and the um special revenue there's
a big jump in the expenditures for the
general fund
which i will actually get into a little
bit more detail in a
in some slides uh when we talk about the
general fund
uh but overall uh we have a 20
increase there is um
as you can see 115.1 million for the
general fund
other operating funds uh these are funds
that
are like our there's a these are all
funds that start with the one
they're they're still considered general
funds
uh for example there's economic
development
the vehicle acquisition fund facilities
and the hold harmless grt these are all
in the other
operating funds um our special revenue
revenue funds these are funds that start
with the twos
uh and by the way in your book or you
know
in the attached document this starts on
page eight
which is our recap our recalculation you
can
actually see the different funds uh this
goes from page 8 to page 11 in your book
these funds are funds that are
restricted or they're dedicated to a
special project
and typically these are funds that are
tied to either
a state statute or an ordinance or to a
resolution
an example of that is the gas tax the
tit
that we just talked about that's
considered a special revenue because
it's tied to
a state ordinance and also a city
ordinance
the telstra fund the street maintenance
and flood control all of those
are revenue because they're tied to um
to either a resolution or an ordinance
or a state statute
and then you have the debt service funds
and of course
these are funds that are used to pay
principal and interest
on debt that the city has
our capital project funds as you can see
there's an increase of 40 percent
most of the reason for this increase
is actually the majority of this is
carryovers
and if you'll remember in fiscal year 21
we went out for our second phase of
funding
for the go bonds and it was allowed it
was a rather larger
uh chunk of the go bonds and as you know
all of those
projects are ongoing uh we also did our
recycling of our bonds
and so we have a lot of pro we have a
lot of capital projects that are ongoing
right now
and so that makes up why there's an
increase of 40 percent
and the majority of these is not
necessarily we're asking for more
capital
uh funds what it is is most of these are
all carryovers
from the previous years of capital
projects
then in the enterprise you see another
jump in the enterprise
and the enterprise funds those are the
funds that start with the five
and those funds are typically utilities
the airport
and transit um are uh
enterprise funds um as you know the
utility board
uh takes their their uh budget to their
utility board which they already have
they've had a special work session or a
work session
and they have adopted a resolution to
bring
forward to council and we we have that
part of the reason that you see an
increase in these enterprises funds is
not necessarily because of utilities but
because in this past year if you will
remember
the grants department and budget brought
to you a couple of resolutions for
transit we brought to you the
facility the grant for the facility
which was
a 11 million dollar grant that we bought
so we just recently in fy 21 budgeted
for that grant
and also we brought in the um electric
buses and so we budgeted that in 21. so
a lot of
this increase in the enterprise fund is
uh due to these capital projects because
those capital projects
are within the the five within that
enterprise just like
utilities capital projects are also in
the enterprise funds as well
and then of course we have our internal
services and
our internal services are those
particular
funds that support our own internal
operations and that includes
such as fleet services we also have in
there
the health fund of you know for our
benefits
we have the liability claims in there
and also workers comp
and then under trust and agency funds
uh these are all of the funds that start
with seven
and eight and this is typically uh our
jpa's murda metro
uh animal service center south central
solid waste
and then we have a couple of accounts in
there that we receive donations and
and trust from very small amount for
those
um this is where our budget uh this is
just a different
way of showing you where our budget is i
think sometimes graphically it's a
lot easier to read as you can see the
largest
portion of our budget citywide budget of
course is our
enterprise funds then next you have the
general fund capital funds and followed
by internal
trust at seven percent special revenue
and debt at four
percent
so i'm going to jump into the general
fund
um the general fund as you know is the
largest fund for the um department
for the city departments as you can see
from fiscal year 21 the current year
that we're in
the fiscal year 22 there is a 19
increase and as i mentioned i will be
going into a little bit more detail of
why there is such a large jump as you'll
see
but it went from 97.0 million to
115.12.
so general fund summary so before i
begin
and um the mayor and
counselor floris have already heard this
a little bit
uh this has to do with uh recently
we have the state passed house bill 479
and i'm sure that's now sounding very
familiar and what house bill 479 did was
it
de-earmarked a certain municipal
and um county local options gross
receipts tax
and so with the city and i did not put
i did a presentation to the finance
select committee on friday
and we talked about in depth about house
bill 479 but
sort of giving you in the nutshell
version but what it what it did was was
any grt that we have specifically
dedicated to certain operations
the state has now undedicated them
and the city actually has several
and um specifically
we have quite a few ordinances that we
dedicated our grt just to the general
fund
we have quite a few of those and then we
have a couple of
dedications to certain items
certain programs that we have one of
them being street improvements
we have another one for environmental
services this is our
environmental gross receipts tax we have
one for police and fire department
programs
and then we have another one for our
hold harmless grt
so what the the state did was they
they de-dedicated or deep earmarked
most of the grts that we have dedicated
to
those being specifically street
improvements
the environmental gross receipts tax and
the hold harmless grt
so now since our hold harmless is not
really an issue because it's already
going into a general fund
but specifically this is for street
improvements
which is 2600 which is a special revenue
and then um our other one is
environmental gross receipts tax which
is in 2800
so now because of this de-ear marking
for fy 22
all of the revenue and all of the
expenses
now have to go into the general fund
okay so this is pretty much why you see
this
big jump because they used to be in a
special revenue that started with the
two
and now they are actually being brought
in uh the revenue
and the expenses and you can see there's
a jump in the revenue as well
the revenue the expenses and the
transfers are now
in the general fund so that's why you
see this big expense
um so overall you can see that our
ending balance went from 20
million to 21 and the reason that our
reserve you're probably wondering why
did our 212th reserve go up
well the reason for our 212th reserve
increase
is because our reserve is calculated
on our expenses well since our expenses
went up 19
our report now goes up 19
so that is why you see now that we have
an unreserved balance
of 1.94 million
so i'm going to jump into a little bit
of the um
mr pele wanted me to give you a little
bit more input into
uh why we have that increase other than
just house bill 479
it involves a a couple of other things
um the difference of course is the 18.1
million
as you can see here with the increase of
the 2.5 million
i mean 2.5 percent in the union
contracts
you see an increase in salaries and
benefits for fy 22 about 5.2 million
in our operating we see some new new
operating expenses of about 1.7 million
and then one of two of the other changes
i should say that for fy22 we made all
kinds of changes this year
but uh what two of them have to do with
reclassing some transfers
uh to an expense and the reason we did
these
uh was that fleet services is an
internal
uh with the city it should be um
it should be set up as an internal and
it is just for you know for basic
operations to know what the true costs
are for each of the departments
in the past we had always considered
fleet as what we call a chargeback
they perform a service for a department
and they pretty much send them a bill
and then that department pays for it
and so a couple of years ago i'm
not privy to why this happened but a
couple of years ago
any of the departments that had fleet
vehicles
that were in the general fund they made
um an automatic transfer instead of
using the chargeback
expense that i mentioned so we're just
we're just
writing this it it needs to be
considered an expense
i've talked with accounting with our
finance director she agrees with me
this needs to be an expense to the
departments
and bringing in an income instead of a
transfer in the general fund
the other item that we're reclassing
into transfers to an expense are the
jpas
and the reason for this is as you know
every year the finance department
puts together the comprehensive annual
financial plan
and in this plan the jpas are are
considered
a commitment that's a good word to use
we are committed
to give so many dollars to animal
service center murder
and metro and so since
they are and they are considered an
expense
in our financial our comprehensive
financial
report so it they need to be budgeted as
so as well
and so working with finance as well we
have reclassed those transfers
to an expense which is what they should
be so that's about 4.3 million as you
can see
and then from the house bill 479 that i
just mentioned
you see about 3.4 million of expenses
that are going to be coming out of
the general fund uh for the the
funds that were in the special revenue
and so all together
you can see why there's an increase of
18.1
million
now i also wanted to bring up the
general fund transfers because if you
if you remember back on the previous
slide they seemed very comparable
and the reason being is is an and
hopefully this
is not i tried to make this as
transparent as possible
but for our fiscal year 21 as i just
mentioned fleet services is considered a
transfer right now for this fiscal year
so we're reclassing that to an expense
so
we're not going to have that transfer
and fy22
and we're also doing the jpa's that way
just as i just mentioned so we're not
going to have that 4.3
million as a transfer so we're getting
rid of the 7.8
it's going to be an expense but we do
now that 2600 is now in the general fund
due to house bill 479 they do have some
transfers
out of the general fund for debt and for
capital projects and that's around 6.5
million
we did increase this year the
transfer to the liability fund of a
million dollars
and then um the other one the other
house bill 479 was 2800 which is our
environmental gross receipts tax and
there is
um a transfer to uh 2780
um which goes to the grits walnut and
then we have a couple of other increases
in there
um you know a little bit of debt as you
saw debt did not really go up that much
and we did increase our our our transfer
to the airport
they are needing some capital equipment
such as i i think no one is a
really large mower they need to mow
around the runways and keep that really
clean
and so i i think i put a couple of
pieces of equipment in there
for the airport to purchase these
tractors and mowers
and then so we always like to know
where's our money coming from
okay so as you can see our revenue is
114.2 million
and this gross receipts tax does include
the um environmental gross receipts tax
and the funds for the street
improvements
2800 so typically our gross receipts tax
revenue is about 70 about 72 million 73
million so you can see that we've really
increased due to those two particular
grts coming into the general fund now um
property tax 13.2 million excise and
other taxes these are
the franchise we get franchise fees as
you know
we get a couple of other little taxes
i think we get some tax from cigarette
tax and then we get some
we get some license plates so if you
have las cruces license plates we get
some funding from them as well and then
other revenue
this includes funding like from
the within the departments so things
like
the community development they have
permit fees and business license fees
the police department has fees um
the parts are wrecked for you know
renting the
the parks and renting um for baseball
and hopefully um once covet opens up
and we're able to open up the city this
past year those revenues have not come
in very strongly but
hopefully we're anticipating that we're
going to
start off fy 22 hopefully not jinxing
myself
with the bang and get everything open um
our internet sales tax it's not based on
um it's not based on sales of
what is sold this is a fixed amount
we've received about 2.1 2.2 million
um we actually in one of the special
sessions and i think i've brought this
up
the governor actually doubled the
internet sales tax so for fy 22 the
state has assured me
that this will be our fixed rate for for
the fiscal year
so this is a another graphic of
where our money goes so these are our
expenditures 115.1 million
this is actually if you look on in your
book
on page 12 this is where this
information come
came from and as you can see uh the
largest chunk of
our funding goes to for emergency
services
for police department fire
and then as you can see parks and rec
has a lot has a large she's growing um
parks and rec is growing every year
close to somewhere
around nine to twelve percent somewhere
in there each year
it varies um as you can see
uh public works grew mostly because
uh now that we because of uh house bill
all of those expenses are now coming
into
the general fund and most of the street
will not most
all of the street improvement expenses
are now in public works
though uh public works is um
budget operating budget has grown as
well
and then the others are pretty you know
remaining pretty much
the same um and as i said uh this
follows
page 12 of your book
and then this is a different view of
where our money goes
as you can see it just give you uh where
it's going
most of it as you well know in
in previous years and really just for
businesses in general
the largest portion of the pie is always
personnel this is uh
this is salaries and benefits um our
operating is 27 percent and our capital
is one percent
now i want to jump into our hold
harmless grt
um our hold harmless um
coming into the all of our
grt receives hold harmless grt uh this
is a specific cold harmless grt that we
set up
i want to say in 20 gosh help me mayor
2016 i think it was that we started it
um but
that's right i think it was 2014 when we
passed the tax yes
and so as you can see we have a nice
little beginning balance 4.59
revenues are coming in very steady as uh
compared to 21.
our expenditures went up just a little
bit uh
transfers out went up just a little bit
so now we
we do not need to meet a 212th reserve
on this fund because we meet it all in
our general fund
so we have an available balance as you
can see a 5.29
um so i'm making we're going to jump
into the next slide on your council
priorities
mayor and council and so um mr cedillo
and i are
proposing that we use this fund
the hold harmless to be used for your
council proposed council priorities
and so with what we're going to be
showing you and making a recommendation
to you
is to use about 2.78 million
that would give us an unreserved balance
of 2.51
and so with that mayor i'm going to i'm
going to be leading this but of course
at any time
i've asked david to jump in um the green
the column where it says budgeted in fy
this is what we have budgeted as you can
see on the source of funding
and the comments um we have put
if some of this is already budgeted in
the general fund
we had it previously budgeted i think
you know we've had
two individual meetings with all of the
council and mayor
and we've also had two work sessions on
the council priorities
um and so the last work session
that was that we had the mayor and
council asked
david and i and staff to come with a
proposal to you and this is what we're
doing today
so what we are proposing um i'm only
going to cover the ones in the green
but if you have any questions at the end
of the presentation
david and i can go back to these as well
um
we're proposing a budget in the hold
harmless
for two million dollars for the pavement
condition index
we this will be a perpetual expense
which means every year
we will need to be budgeting this of
course
we had already been budgeting the la
casa maintenance
that was already in the general fund the
arts and cultural district
district improvements the 15 000 that
was already in the general fund as well
and then the senior center kitchen
equipment
i did budget that already in the general
fund
as well the airport operations
that was already in the general fund
worked with andy and we
we got that all budgeted for a re-class
of a position
that he has um then gallagher park
uh we're recommending or proposing that
we
uh put funding in there for gallagher
park out of the hold harmless that's
part of the 2.78 million for
and fifty thousand dollars uh the
chandler tank
part phase two um was 625 and we're
proposing to budget that in the hold
harmless grt
as well um the social worker was already
budgeted in the telstra fund
uh the mobile integrated health program
is
in the general fund the 535 000.
the mobile crisis unit is budgeted
within
the police department and then the el
paseo
and solano corridor we budgeted that in
the general fund
as well so we're proposing um a budget
in fy 22
of about 4.1 million
for your council priorities
and with that i would like to turn it
over to mr scott maher
who is our i.t uh director to talk about
a a
new uh pilot program technology
improvement plan
scott thank you leanne
and uh good morning good afternoon mayor
and council i'm scott maher i'm the i.t
director and i also have to apologize i
seem to have a frog in my throat as well
with the with my uh
allergies um
the plan that i want to talk about today
is a key component of our
technology governance program
this pilot is the first time that we are
attempting to
launch this plan the goal of it is to
provide for better budgeting
planning and management of
technology-based solutions
we're primarily focusing on new business
systems and applications that use
web servers or database servers
and um the schedule of the plan
parallels
the cip schedule which you're familiar
with being a pilot
departments were asked this year to
volunteer to participate in the process
if they were planning on technology
projects
in fy 22 next slide please
so the process that we go through in
this plan
is we start with the departments
completing a technology
project request form and submitting that
request to their business systems
analyst
that gets passed on to our technology
review committee which reviews
these requests for compliance with our
technology standards
that then goes to with a recommendation
to our
steering committee which reviews
prioritizes and approves
or denies the requests submissions are
made in november
and the committee reviews are performed
in december and january
and then moving forward it's part of the
city manager's office
approval of the budget it's included in
the budget for the next fiscal year for
those projects approved
and then comes to council as part of the
budget approval
process next slide
so the two uh projects that we have for
fy22
which were submitted and approved uh
both from quality of life and both
part of the transit program first was a
clever devices replacement and upgrade
and a dial-a-ride customer software
upgrade
next slide
so the clever devices replacement uh
the the current version that transit is
using no longer is no longer supported
and must be converted to a new product
called from the same manufacturer called
cleverworks
this software updates the gps mapping
and
the bus time web page so that there's
real-time information to the public
based on the location of the buses and
the routes
it also tracks the route and driver
time performance which is a measure for
their strategic goal
next slide the dial-a-write customer
software
this is a notification system that'll
enable
clients to book trips uh receive
automatic notification
and give the clients ability to cancel
trips and receive reminders of the book
of the trips they have booked so this
will help free up dispatchers and assist
uh operations for transit
and with that uh next is david cedillo
and the capital improvement program
thank you
thanks scott thank you scott good
afternoon mayor council
as scott mentioned i'm david seville
public works director for the record
i'll be going over the capital
improvements program
those councils where we do have to have
a cip
which is required by our city charter
article 5 specifically section 5.05
simply states that one must be submitted
to council
as part of a five-year capital
improvement program
as part of that we go through an input
process
next slide please as part of that
process
we get gather input from council public
departments the city manager's office
and non-profit organizations
also from assessments approved plans
from council such as elevate las cruces
and also that of available funding
i'd like to go over again just briefly
the difference between the capital
improvement program and the
infrastructure
capital improvement plan the cip
is a program which is approved by
council
that shows funded and unfunded projects
this is a plan that spans over six years
with the first
year funded the remaining five are
unfunded
the icip is
needed to be on the cip to be eligible
for submissions
through the state legislature so as part
of that that's part of that grant
funding source this is the five-year
plan
that is outside of the funded column
and is updated in the icip database
every year
that database is housed by the new
mexico department
finance authority local government
division and typically
there are rarely any changes but if
those do occur
those have to happen with special
permissions from the state
i'd like to share with you some of those
changes that occurred
for the fy 22 cip process and then the
final product
as part of this council is aware the
city did go through a new
organizational structure so this
made some changes to this eip whereas in
the past
only departments were listed with this
new organizational change
you will notice that you do have
departments and programs now listed in
the cip
for example economic development as a
department
and visit las cruces as a program
another change i'd like to note is
south central solid waste authority
wants to have the ability to
look for legislative funding as such
they have moved into getting their
request on the
cip under public works for future
projects
they would like to go forward at the
next legislature for equipment
as noted there in the graphic below the
other changes
i'd like to highlight are those that we
revised in the matrix
that basically have all
rank their projects uh some of these you
may see in there
are they are existing ones from last
year uh although
some of them have been improved and the
criteria
updated based on council's movement
with their priorities as well uh one to
note you will notice community benefit
although benefit was in the matrix last
year
this improvement we wanted to highlight
and increase the improvements to those
living standards
the creation of permitted jobs equality
and increased access to resources and
recreation
you will also notice planning alignment
this was
this placed more emphasis on those plans
approved by council such as elevate las
cruces
and the active transportation plan
however i would like to know that we do
have a new item in there
called sustainability and water
conservation
so this gives projects the opportunity
to rank their projects a little higher
due to those initiatives
that they are doing with their projects
such as the level of water consumption
carbon emissions and contribution to
ecological processes
lastly we do have scheduling although it
was on there before
but we wanted to make sure and change
this
prior we just said if your project was
ready within a year
we know that we need to get projects
going as soon as we have the funding
available
this right here does increase that
project's ability
by making sure that it's shovel ready so
once budgeting is available
we can quickly move it out to
implementation
so now i'll go over some of the
looks of the new cip this is the first
page which is part of the packet as you
notice there's not much change here
we have the department or program list
in the first column the second would be
they're funded
your next five are those icip
which ranges from fy 23 through 27
and lastly that funded column which
identifies the source
for the appendices we have some that are
existing we have some new i'll go over
those
here we have appendix a which tabulates
all the newly funded
projects for fy22 as you can see there
those are all the new
newly funded projects again this will
include
any discussion from today's meeting on
the final product
for council's priorities as well
on appendix b we're highlighting and
showing all the totals for all those
projects listed in the cip
for newly carryover annual and future
projects by department and program
on appendix c i'd like to highlight a
new appendix which would be your park
impact fees
so this highlights and identifies all
the projects
that have the pif as a funding source
now it may be the sole
or a contributing funding source but it
does identify that
in the appendix on which projects do
have that funding source
and for appendix d similar we do have
that for the tid
again that's the funding source for
these projects
or whether it be the sole or a
supplementing
funding source and with that leanne
and i in the group will oh i'm sorry we
have notations that go through i
apologize
uh next slide please i wanted to
highlight some of those items and
notations in the cip
i know we've gone over this but just
wanted to mention these
we had recently the 2021 legislative
session
appropriations uh here you will notice
that we do have those appropriations
that will be coming in
if you notice in the column the first
column it's noted
2021 legislative appropriation
since we have not accepted when i say we
council has not accepted these funds
or accepted that appropriation it is out
in the
23 column once this comes before council
and it's accepted it will be moved into
the funded column
and conversely the cip will be amended
at that time as well
so here are those projects that were
approved under the 2021 legislative
session and they will pop up right here
as you notice we have the east mesa
roads drainage madrid avenue
and so forth that were approved under
this legislative session
also we have those other 2020
legislative appropriations
that are still in need of acceptance
now we used march 15th as a cut off to
produce
the document for the cip so although
they may have already been accepted by
council
once the full fy22cip
is approved we will be coming back at
the new fiscal year in july
to move those appropriations from 2020
into the funded column and then
conversely have the cip amended
and here are those legislative projects
that were accepted and approved during
that session
now leanne and i are both available for
any questions from council and mayor
thank you thanks david thanks david
so counselor vasquez
thank you mayor thank you david um
i just want to start off with one quick
question here
that's around the uh the cip projects
that are to be funded by the hold
harmless funds um
the chandler tank project
and the vmware
damn project
um i think thank you
um so i think i see here for the vmware
damn
project is not funded in this fiscal
year or the next two years but
in future years um which tells me we're
not
planning on funding that at least right
now according to this
budget um uh
for this year um but then in the slide
prior i think we do have
chandler park or the chandler tank uh
project
funded um the phase
two uh could you just explain uh
david or leanne um what the rationale is
like how that decision was made in terms
of two very similar i think
park projects
yes thank you councillor vasquez uh
mayor
councillor vasquez david cedillo public
works director
uh although that is not being funded at
this time
we do have funding available under this
current fiscal year
we have an amount of 123 000
we also have 2020 legislative funding in
the amount of 250
000 that we are waiting for approval to
move
into the new fiscal year so based on
that
and those funds that are available that
would be
the startup money to move the project
forward as we seek additional funding
for the plan thank you david
i appreciate that and i think um i just
gotta have to continue to advocate for
via mora dam because it's already being
used as a park
and i know i've said this before but
it's also
in an it's also in in a low to mid
income
area of the city uh potentially the
largest open space
um that we can that we can actually
create to be a park
that's all you know in in sa on city
property
um and so i know i've asked for just the
opportunity to build out
uh some very maybe rudimentary
infrastructure there that allows people
to actually use that park with some
degree of safety
and trails and parking i mean what
whatever
i don't think it has to be a
multi-million dollar project now but
for me where i see the needs are where
people are already using
existing park space like there's folks
already
essentially using that as that space and
so um
you know i i i just wish that there
could have been some prioritization
especially because it is in an urban
area where you're not going to get
more green space i think in that area
than
what is currently there at the vmware
dam
um so i'm just wondering in terms of the
i know the cip projects get um
they score differently based on the
criteria i think that that
your department sets forth and other
departments also set forth
and the council sets forth so i i am
just wondering david if if
the chandler tank project scored higher
than the vmware dam
park project uh and for and if
you have any more insight as to why
thank you council vasquez mayor david
cevillo
that process was based on the
interactions and the process that we
went through as leanne had mentioned
in the one-on-ones and the work sessions
prior to
so based on that and trying to utilize
the funding
or what we already have in hand to move
forward with some of these initiatives
that's how the recommendation is coming
forward
yes you did mention that you would like
to see some of these things
and that's what staff is looking and
working towards with the available
funding that we have now
and what will be coming in once that
2020 legislative funding is appropriated
thank you david um you know the
obviously chandler
the chandler tank project is not in my
district and
um i know councillor sword uh
very much wants to see that park
developed as well
as i do with my my own park in my
district
it just would be helpful to know how
that determination was specifically made
as to if there are existing
opportunities to fund parks
in different parts of the city what the
criteria is of where we're going to
invest
you know six hundred to seven hundred
thousand dollars on the development of a
park and
my my interest is really to make sure
that that is an equitable
uh process that there's considerations
to available
or existing park space in the
surrounding neighborhood
um you know even something as the health
conditions of
of of certain parts or certain
demographics of the city
to make sure we're that our investments
are going into
the places where a green space like this
is really needed
um and and is uh equitable so
uh maybe that's a conversation for us to
have later david i would love to find
some other sources of funding for vmware
damn um besides i think the 170 thousand
dollars perhaps that we have existing
which i believe is for planning and
design um
but but again i just i would hate for us
to lose out on an opportunity
in where people are already using an
existing space as a park
not to begin to give our residents the
opportunity to have
safety and lighting and trails and you
know those kind of things
um so i'll i'll just stop there but
um david maybe we can have a separate
conversation about how we get there
uh later um but but i regardless i
appreciate all your hard work these are
easy decisions and i know we have a lot
of priorities not all of them can get
funded too
uh so i appreciate you um just hearing
me out uh
because you know i've been i've been
talking about that one for a while but
um i appreciate it david and
uh leanne as well your whole team for
putting this presentation
um together but for doing our budget is
just uh
um it's a lot of work um and i may have
some questions or comments later but
just wanted to bring that point up for
now so thank you
thank you mayor we appreciate thank you
thank you vasquez mayor step away
i'm still right here uh i'm here for tim
i'm gonna
have to make a quick comment and then
i'm going to just take out for about
five minutes
counselor vasquez i'm just going to ask
you something
um two things one i think uh the via
mora i mean the
chandler tank probably was
you know as you know was done i don't
know you know accidental or was not
supposed to have been done by a previous
administration and
and and i think they probably wanted to
you know get that back to where it was
where it was you know where it used to
be
but i was going to ask you something i
wonder because if we if we really do are
serious about the
the extension of of madrid and the
east-west
another east-west
corridor i wonder if it would be good to
have a work session on this
take a look at some possibility because
we're going to have to have a little bit
of uh
of um you know well possibility of some
commercial on either side of that street
and instead of selling it just like what
we're we're thinking
of the don't the loma property lease it
and then that money
can be used to fund uh in perpetuity
the improvements that you want to see
then that way there is kind of um
is that something you'd be open to
having a work session on that because i
think it's time
because i don't think people really know
the the the size of it
and the history of it and and the
proximity and how it can actually
really be developed and i think if we
are
kind of creative to uh being open-minded
to having some of this
money this that that that land itself
can generate
because i think there's if we do have
that park there's going to be some
vendors who are going to want to be
there you know you're going to want to
have
restrooms there but you're going to have
vendors there that can really add to the
fun of people
kind of using that area no thank you
mayor
and i think some degree of commercial
activity there
i think has has been in the iterations
of the plan since the apodaca blueprint
was created
um the first the first i guess
um design concept
had a little bit too much commercial for
me because it was really i think
i think part of the the return to our
residents is that green space
but i think certainly some some degree
of commercial
like you said that evens that that would
produce the type of grt that could help
fund the sustainability of
maintenance and everything else i'm
totally fine with that so i think that's
a good idea
um like i said i just don't want to miss
out on on
on the opportunity now if that if that
is three or four years down the line
it's like hey let's let's let's let's
let folks use this park with dignity in
the meantime as well
to some degree um just because you know
i mean technically folks are trespassing
there
right like that's the city property it's
not a part it's not designated as a park
and so
if you're walking your dog on there
right now which i bet you a bunch of
people are
they're technically trespassing so i
just want to get that some minimal funds
to open that up
while we invest into the development of
a permanent park there but uh but no i
agree with you man i think that's a good
idea okay well we'll
get that scheduled on a work session
here upcoming okay thank you man
be right back
thank you mayor thank you council
vasquez counselor sword
thank you madam mayor pro tem
um yeah i to continue that discussion
uh i that the gra the tables you have
here are confusing
um you have seven hundred thousand
dollars for via mora
and then um
is that that not there or is it there uh
do we have that seven hundred thousand
or don't we
david wake up
yes thank you counselor sword i was i
was waiting to see if leanne wanted to
go over but i'll answer the question no
this is all cip stuff
yes so the first column that you see the
amount
that is the amount that was estimated
for that project
that is just identifying what that would
cost okay
the next three columns are showing as
leanne had mentioned before
what has been or is going to be budgeted
in fy 22
the next column which says budgeted in
next two years
those are identifying sources of how
those can be
budgeted in the next two fiscal years fy
23 fy 24
and then the last column which you noted
the budgeted in future years
or anywhere between fy 23 and fy 27
of being budgeted in those outer years
okay okay now is my understanding that
there was some legislative money
appropriated for vmware wasn't there not
counselor sword you have a leg that's
what i had mentioned to councillor
vasquez
we do have that 2020 legislative
appropriation that still needs to be
approved by council and brought in
in the amount of 250 000
so then we we can use that next this
coming year then right
once that appropriation is approved by
council and moved into the funded column
we can start using that funding correct
yeah i'm assuming that would happen
i don't they see any reason why we would
turn that money down
no sir yeah let's assume that sue 250 is
going to be an fy22
okay yes sir okay we consume that
all right so that's that's what's
confusing by this table here
um and then uh all right then
that's okay but um i'm gonna lead up to
a resolution here
and that is that in the chandler tank
case
there are a lot of housing
that was built around changler tank
[Applause]
and they all had collected uh
park impact fees and none of that
housing none of that subdivision
none of that neighborhood community
ever got a park never did okay
still don't have a park to this day and
uh
it's been going on for what since 2006
seven eight and they started building
those there
um so that's what's what's happening
here in this city
um there are neighborhoods and
and subdivisions that don't get parks
because of one reason or another
nobody's ever told me why so i want a
resolution
uh brought to the city council to vote
on
uh the prioritizing the using of
park impact fees right now park impact
fees are dumped into a
[Music]
not real general fund but a general like
fund
and they're used wherever the staff
wants to use them
or that as long as the city council
approves them of course i understand
that
so i think what we ought to do is
prioritize the
use of park impact fees that
provides for park in those neighborhoods
those
subdivisions that are being built that
you that the
park impact fees come from and then
what's left over we can use on a lot of
different things via more and everything
else
um so that's the resolution i want to
see brought to the city council
i will draft a rough draft of it
and i'll bring it to the city council
here in the next month
okay um other than that i like the
budget
it's a pretty good budget um i see a lot
of work has been put into it
uh we thank all those who are uh
have worked on it and um
that's all i have to say mayor pro tem
thank you very much
thank you counselor sir can you clarify
for me
and and just so you know my internet is
very unstable right now so my video's
off right um um can you clarify for me
where the 250 000 is coming from
that you mentioned earlier
did i mention 250 yes you said
that two well one of you did let's
assume the 250 thousand where was that
coming from
if david help me out
david uh mayor pro tem councillor
david cedillo for the record that 250
000 is coming from a 2020 legislative
appropriation at this current time
that has not been accepted by council
once it is
then it will be moved into the either
into the fy 22 budget once it's approved
by council
and this is for chandler park chandler
tank correct
no ma'am that is the funding that's
available for
oh i'm sorry oh got it
okay we got to be careful and get these
things all straight because
i know a lot of us get confused with
with uh money going here and there and
everywhere
okay i'll wait to ask my questions then
thank you counselor
counselor ben cuomo thank you mayor
parteman thank you so much leanne and
david and the rest of your team
for all the hard work you always put
always but definitely around uh the
budget
i hate that i can't see you guys i'm not
okay
or whatever um so liam i
mind you i don't necessarily think we
can say we're new anymore but still
the budgeting process is intense and so
i might ask you
just some very budgeting 101
questions 201 questions um
but as i was reading the book yesterday
uh preparing for today i sort of
there's just a couple things i noticed
that i have some questions about
um can you talk through how
so like on page 12 for example um
you know i'm noticing that there are
some
um departments that are getting less you
know that are budgeting for less
this upcoming fiscal year some that are
budgeting for more
how are the how is that determined are
those numbers presented by
directors and the departments or are
they coming to you and city management
and you all are sort of saying no i
think this department's going to get
less this year this
department needs more can you talk about
how that
those decisions are made of course
um thank you um mayor pro tem and
council bencomo
so what we do is as you know we start
really early
unfortunately and but uh what we do is
we we get we sit down with city
management and that was why one of the
slides that i presented to you
was uh you know as city management you
know
uh not necessarily just mr pealey but
you know
the management team we get together and
we decide you know we have to give some
direction
to the departments and of course this
year the
the direction was we're going to do the
2.5 percent
increase in salaries and typically on
that one hr takes care of it
they have everybody's salaries and they
go in there and they run it
and they load it into our um we this
year we used opengov
as our budgeting tool this was the first
year that we used it
but typically it's in munis and then
what we do is we ask each department
we pretty much told the departments that
it was status quo
where are you in your revised budget as
of december 31st
of 2020 so where you are right now
is like your starting point now
i will tell you some departments um
you know may say you know hey we're not
going to do this any pro
any we're not going to do this program
it's ended so they
you know they want to take that you know
take that out
things like this but you know if you
look counselor
on page i want to say page six
we have redone the city organizational
chart and this budget and if you
um i think if you were listening uh when
you heard
uh scott maher was talking about are
david also
about the new um you know we have
departments but we also now have
sections uh that we're budgeting so
as you can see our org chart has a new
look
so we had to you know we moved out a
couple of programs i'll just call them
programs
we called we pulled out a couple of
programs out of some of the departments
uh such as visit las cruces used to be
part of economic development
facilities management used to be part of
public works
so some of the the ups and downs that
you're seeing by the department
could be because they might have had us
that particular program pulled out of
them
and put into a different
and and one of those and i'm trying to
get flip back to that page 12
if you um if you see
how much like for instance david's
project
or david's department grew okay and if
you remember i was talking about house
bill 479
um i i think i've said that so many
times in the last couple of weeks
house bill 479 house bill 479 well
what used to be a special project or
special revenue like i was talking about
has now been put into the general fund
and
2600 which is one of those um
is actually pretty much used if not all
used 100
by public works so that is one of the
reasons why david's
particular budget or public works budget
grew so much
and then on some of the others the
reason it went down was because
it could have been that we pulled out a
particular program
like airport um well airport is now an
enterprise but used to be
for 21 it used to be a or 2020 it used
to be in the general fund
so we've done a lot of you know changing
around and moving some of these programs
so
it's is it apples to apples it's it's
it's
on some it is and some it's not and the
best way of knowing which ones we pulled
out is to look on page six on that
organizational chart that's the best way
so hopefully i've answered your question
now we'll tell you
um that management and budget
meet with each department multiple times
um and then they they we have them fill
out
massive forms unfortunately and they
they tell us
here we want to start this new project
we want to start this new program
here here's how much it's going to cost
and so as you know
there's only so much money uh the only
money that we have in the general fund
is our grt our property taxes you know i
went over the different revenues
that doesn't that hasn't grown um in a
while mostly because of the hold
harmless grt
which will end in 2030 so we're we're
seeing as that's going down
but it's staying pretty stable in the
revenue
um so we do have growth you know kyle
talked about population growth
um so we're seeing growth it's just
happens to be
that in that g that hold harmless grt
it is pretty stable
so um so overall
you know they come to us with these new
programs and
you know sometimes they're budgeted and
you know it's
it's really them talking to their their
acms and talking to the city manager on
you know what we're going to budget what
we're not going to budget and bringing
forward to you
and of course this is a work session so
i'm
i'm was going to say well ago to the
mayor and to the council
this is the opportune time that if
there's something that we have missed
you know we're taking notes please let
us know because if it's something and mr
peeley's online
if it's something that you would like to
see budgeted then by all means we're
we're ready thanks again for that um
answer yes that definitely answers my
questions i appreciate that
um again i apologize if these are
rudimentary questions i just i'm trying
to fully understand this whole process
um in terms of the 2.5 salary increases
was that across the board
or for just for union
employees
mayor pro tem and counselor ben como
it was across the board now if we do
have and i think joe richards is on the
line if i don't say this correctly
we do have a couple of union uh
contracts we have a fire department
police department and then of course our
blue collar
if they have a certain percentage
in their union contract hr when they did
the budgeting for each of the personnel
and benefits
they went into those contracts and made
sure that those particular people that
are
our union whether blue collar police or
fire
will get that appropriate percentage
increase what's in their contract
okay okay thank you um and then
i'm gonna ask you a couple just like
really specific questions from the
um book can you help me understand the
condensed fund summaries
portion of this and just sort of you
know
sort of wondering like why are some of
these blank um
right can you just talk through this
portion
okay so in the last couple of years let
me talk about
the blank funds first in the last couple
of years
um you know our new fi our well she's
not new anymore but our finance director
uh miss gehart we've been working with
accounting
we have a lot of funds if you can't tell
from those condensed
we have a lot and so what we're trying
to do
is we're trying to get rid of some of
these funds
uh there's some that we haven't used in
years
but unfortunately they keep popping up
so we are trying to get rid of these and
get rid of
any of the excess available balance that
we have in there
um and so the reason you see a lot of
blanks in there
is because they may have like a
beginning balance in there or there
might be some adjustments in there
and so we still have to keep showing
that particular fun
in our accounts but our ultimate goal is
to try to knock out as many funds as we
possibly can that are not
needed anymore so that's why you're
seeing the blanks
okay as far as the condensed funds
many many years ago before i took over
budget they used to have one page
for every single fund
the book was just huge it was huge huge
and so one of the things we worked with
gfoa we worked with the state
you know the dfa and we said can we
condense these down
and just show you know here's the here's
the beginning balance here's the revenue
very similar to
you know what we showed you on the
general fund summary you know here's
personnel here's
operating here's our capital and they
were like yes this is wonderful
now we'll tell you at the end of the
when we finish the budget
and it's brought to council and it's
adopted
what we do is we take um we
we actually have in the book the
condensed
uh fund summaries but we do have the
full con uh fund summaries you know one
page for every single fund
and we do put that on our web page so
that way if somebody wants to
to see those and pretty much what those
look like if you'll remember the budget
adjustments that we bring to council on
a monthly basis matt
brings them to you the one cheaters that
we
you know the one sheet that we have
that's what those look like
so instead of that version we're just
condensing it to where we're telling you
here's the beginning balance here's the
revenue
here's the operating here's the capital
and
you know and then here's the bottom line
okay that actually makes a lot of sense
thank you
um specifically on some of those i had a
couple questions like for example
the street maintenance operations and so
maybe this is for david
i saw that there was a decrease from
fiscal year 21 to 22.
can you talk about that david especially
given that this you know
street maintenance was you know
continues to be one of our
priorities i'm just curious mayor for
tim and counselor
uh bing cuomo before david jumps in
sorry david
are you talking about fun 2600 yes
that is house bill 479.
that is one of the ones that is being
moved from
the special revenue into the general
fund that is why you don't see it
anymore because
uh yeah yeah now we have
not moved if you'll notice um the
uh beginning balance we have not moved
the beginning
balance of 2600 or 2800 which is the
environmental gross receipts tax and the
reason for
that is counselor is that
the particular uh house bill 479 went
into effect
in uh july of 2019
it did not uh taxation and revenue did
not
change anything until this uh last month
march okay and just to let you know
um and i'm sure councillor flores and
the mayor we're gonna let everybody know
um at the finance select committee um we
gave them certain
options that we could bring as an
ordinance
um they chose that we bring because it's
transparent okay
that we bring an ordinance to um
to council and still showing that the
uh that these funds when they come into
the city even though they're going
straight into the general fund
that we'd still dedicate that
cert that particular percentage
that we dedicated to street improvements
and so we're going to bring that to
council as an ordinance i hope to bring
that to you
in late may as a first read and
it will still go into the general fund
but we will be tracking it probably
through a project number
okay that's very good to hear leanne
thank you so much
and then there was two things that i
didn't know what they were can you
explain the telstra facility
and the police protection fund
okay the telstra facility
so are you talking about 27
um so the telstra facility 2705 that's
the telstra
fund so we never we never expense
anything out of the telstra fund
typically you will see that we do
a budget um transfer from the telstra
fund which is invested 27.05
we take it out of the telstra and then
we put it into
2700 which is the healthcare service
that's so silly of me i was literally
imagining a facility
now like what are you talking about okay
no i'm i'm not the name
of these funds but uh yeah but i have to
live with them
so the other one was um
what was the other one that you
mentioned i'm sorry counselor i'm
looking for the number it's the police
protection fund 2401
okay so police protection fund
and i'm pretty sure and i apologize
because i don't really have them
but in your budget just let you know in
your budget book
after the fun this is the old
i shouldn't say old the current budget
book after
the condensed fund summaries there's
actually a list of
all of the funds and it tells you
in there what these funds are where the
revenue comes from and what they're used
for
so we're talking 2401 police protection
it says this fund provides
for the purchase of police equipment and
police expenses
associated with advanced law enforcement
planning and training
the funding source is the law
enforcement protection fund
administered by the new mexico
department of finance and administration
local government division
and this is actually part of a state
statute and it requires these funds to
be used to operate the police department
my understanding that this fund and i'm
sure
um chief dominguez is on the line if he
wants to add to that
this would be very similar to the fire
fund as funding as well from the state
so the police get some funding
and the fire gets funding as well okay
no no worries that's a good explanation
and i'm sorry you said in the budget
book where
can i find the these explanations leanne
actually in the fy
22 i mean 21 budget book
they start on page 305
not in the budget book that i that you
recently got for fy 20
i'm talking about this budget bar oh the
old one okay so i will go ahead and look
at that
and then um
that's my last question i just wanted to
make a comment on can you go
to slide 18 please sure
thank you leanne um you know i
i've been reflecting a lot on sort of
this
visual representation of what our budget
looks like
especially when i consider our strategic
plan when i consider some of the things
that i believe
to be some of the biggest challenges
facing the city
you know to be growing economic
insecurity
you know a poverty rate that hasn't
moved for a really long time recovery
from the pandemic
um a housing shortage a housing crisis
if you will when i consider some of
those really
serious challenges that put a lot of our
residents
in very vulnerable positions when i look
at this visual representation of the
budget
i do not feel that it is representative
of those challenges
and you know i for the police department
to have such a disproportionate
chunk of the budget to me feels
like we need to do some serious
reflection
on the creation of this budget in terms
of
um how are we really thinking about
public safety
rethinking about public safety and what
that looks like
um for there to be actual prevention of
the things police are dealing with we
must invest resources elsewhere
for there to be a decrease in any sort
of
property crime we must meet people's
needs
people must have their needs met and
crime will be reduced
um for the police department to stop
dealing
so much with issues like folks
experiencing homelessness
addiction mental health we must invest
resources
elsewhere um and so for me i
you know this is sort of the second
go-around
and i haven't seen that change and i
will keep advocating for
us to seriously consider some of those
things and maybe my question is for ifo
and um if i'm sorry to put you on the
spot but i do want to know
and it and i want to hear from my
colleagues too like when we think about
those serious things those the serious
issues facing the city
when you think about that what is that
one or two things that we are saying
this is a big deal this is a serious
issue that's facing las cruces
and the quality of life of las cruces
and then when we look at this budget
does it reflect that
and you know i so maybe my question ifo
is
how are you thinking about that how are
you thinking about that with your
directors in terms of
how do we ensure that this is a more
equitable
process that that we are thinking about
the issues in our city and then
reflecting that budget to meet those
issues
thank you mayor mayor and council
uh you know first of all let me back up
a little bit
uh councilman cuomo i think
you know i've had this conversation and
and i don't know if this is necessarily
um something we can
really just resolve at a at a budget
meeting right i mean it's
you're talking about a fundamental shift
in
how we spend dollars as an organization
when i what i can tell you is that
the typical this is the typical pie
chart or bar
bar graph uh throughout the entire
country
i'm willing to bet just about every city
in the country
has the same if you looked at it
certainly from where i come from
when you look at what those costs are
going to
you know it's all personnel the
personnel is the majority
as liam mentioned of all our budgets
they're all
uh over 70 is personnel here some are
higher than others in in different
cities but
essentially that's what you're talking
about and so when we talk about cutting
you know or moving around we're talking
about shifting resources and also
personnel
so we're looking at uh how many
officers how many you know what whatever
how many employees in whatever
department
is necessary and so i think it's a it's
a discussion that's
maybe even bigger than the budget uh and
and how we look at that
i think a good step forward is is the
mih program that we have budgeted this
year and
uh i'd like to see how that works and
how the return
goes uh we know that there's going to be
great return
uh you know qualitatively but even
quantitatively to see how
how that affects our overall costs
um you know like i said right now you
mentioned uh council bencomo you're
you know just a call to your colleagues
and how they feel and i think it is i
think that's where
it becomes over my pay grade where where
this it becomes a council discussion on
how you
how you want to carry out policy in the
city
and then we move forward and carry it
out but i will tell you
and you know everybody knows uh you know
i touch you guys when
when there's crime uh you know
when there's and we've noticed we've
noticed the crime
in the city we've noticed the resources
that are needed to deal with those
issues um and so
yeah it's far beyond the budget it's
it's more on how we
how we approach you know policing and
and uh
but like i said where i come from and
i'm willing to
bet any other city this is the typical
this is the typical
cost uh you have your public safety both
fire and police and then you
you kind of look at the other services
um you know
safety first with with your your
citizenry but
um i don't know if i'm uh becoming this
if i'm just dancing around your
your uh thank you ifo i appreciate you
saying that and i think it is important
that i note that these are conversations
i have with ifo
often naming my frustrations and i just
think it's important for me to name
my particular feelings about um
and frankly my analysis on on this here
publicly and i know it's not going to
get solved and
we're not going to shift any of these
radically in a work session but i do
think that um you know just here
publicly i really
do want to you know encourage and push
my colleagues to have this conversation
that while i agree with you i guarantee
you almost every single
i agree with you that almost every
single city city's budget looks like
this to include even the federal budget
and there are conversations happening
across the country
about exactly this about exactly how do
we reach
how do we rethink public safety in a way
that actually meets the needs of our
communities and our
in our residence and and and i i will
keep
pushing for us to continue having this
conversation publicly so that one day
um our budgets are truly representative
of
the issues that are facing our our city
and and representative of meeting the
needs of those who is
who are most vulnerable so um sorry to
put you on the spotty foe but
i really am i i but i i just want to
name that but i do have these
conversations often with eufo and i'm
hoping that
um we can continue having them as a
council publicly
see yeah council bitcoin
i appreciate you bringing that up i will
tell you this much that
um if you notice one of the positions
and i know
um mayor protem has been advocating for
it a lot a social worker
so this is really the beginning you know
and i guess it's it's
it's unfair to just
remove and i'm you know there's no way i
would support that just remove
money and just allocate it you know
we've got a
you know the police officers and and
primarily police officers and
firefighters too but primarily
police officers when they go on a call
you you never
the ideal is to have a probably a
a social worker with them a psychologist
with them all in the back seat you know
really because you just don't they don't
know what you're coming up on to
and so you know they're they're asked to
deal with so much stuff
but in order for us to slowly reduce
that and i'm sure they would like that
i'm sure they would be able if we could
have a whole different department
they could deal with this that's great
but you know a lot of times when they
they're
they're on a call you you they have no
idea what they're what they're going to
encounter
and and and we're asking them to do so
much
of these things that that you know we're
slowly working
to to eventually uh remove that
but i think it's just um
you know i know that's a national
conversation
and some people may have that fallacy
that that
things like that happen here and i i
don't believe that they do
yeah sure we can always have improvement
everyone can
i can the whole city can but
you know um i'll be real candid with you
a few weeks ago someone asked me hey do
you want to have a
a protest on asian hate and i go no
it's okay we don't have it here i know
what's happening back east but we don't
have it here
we're very fortunate you know and and
and i'm not here to
to you know bring that up when when
we've got our own slice of the pie here
where we have where we live and it's
great yeah we have
challenges like everybody else but we'll
deal with them what i'm trying to say is
we're working through
well we're here and we we hear what the
what the public would
like but that's that's what and it makes
sense though
because as i mentioned i think we do
expect too much from
from police officer we expect too much
from teachers you know we expect them
they can take
a child and just make them into the you
know into the perfect person
and there's a it takes a lot and it
takes a lot of uh
different uh people working together
so that's all i wanted to say uh and i'm
glad that you agree
it's not gonna be done overnight and
yeah sure continue to advocate for it
that's great
because with those things that we're
working to help you know
fortunately we have a expert in mayor
pro tem and yourself too i know your
background social work but
you know to kind of figure out how can
we move the needle
still keep uh police and fire priority
number one
because that's really what it's all
about when you stop thinking about it
if what would you rather have a road
that's disintegrated or no police
well rather that road is disintegrated
you know i'm sorry i just would
um what would you rather have or or
something else and no fire i mean
we need that they are they are that
essential
and some of that money back in 2001
there was an election
that so much of our grt gets put into
the police and fire
and that's automatic so it may be
disproportional because they're one of
the few that gets their own
funding source the public voted for it
overwhelmingly in 2001 i know that i was
there
i was that's when i got on the city
council so
anyways i just wanted to put my two
cents into it mayor i just
yes i i i agree with most of what you
said but i do think that you're taking
some of what i'm saying
and um exaggerating it a bit i never
said that
these departments were not essential and
absolutely necessary
but i i don't necessarily those those
choices you put in front are
a little bit of center choices a
disintegrating road
or no fire like or police thankfully
those are not the choices we're having
to make right now
those are not they're not the city is
not in a place where we're having to
make
such dire choices and so i'm saying
while we have a fairly healthy
budget and city we should really
consider
what meeting needs of our communities
look like
that are beyond and and really think
about rethink what public safety
actually looks like
but yes that it is not overnight it will
not happen overnight i just don't want
my words to be turned into something
that they weren't okay well i apologize
i didn't mean it in that way i'm just
trying to explain that we're
thanks to much input from from you
and may pro tim and those that know this
business you know
we're able to kind of slowly move the
needle
and and try to provide those necessary
resources
to help our police and fire
okay good you're good we're done
okay so next is uh counselor beta study
thank you mayor and thank you dan
and david and the rest of the staff for
this presentation um obviously i had a
set of questions
and a way in which to ask them
but i'm going to deviate just for a
moment um to kind of respond to
counselor ben cuomo
um and then i will go back on my
schedule but i think one of the things
that i was looking for
um when we saw these types of budgets
are kind of
completed or well thought out programs
that work together because we know that
this is a very complex question that
we're asking in a complex time and it's
going to take a complex solution and so
seeing the various items like
a an expanded
mobile integrated health program unit
a crisis unit seeing the social worker
he said all those little steps
i think are the first start at the same
time i think most of us are
talking in with ifo i know i have had
really in-depth conversations
of the history of even how fire
did a huge transition after housing
codes changed and became
emts and how in my personal opinion
i feel that policing is going through a
similar
type of growth and experience um
what they're being asked to do now and
the types of calls that they receive
are very different than what was um done
in the past in a lot of ways
and it's unsustainable and so how do we
grow
and kind of move on and what does that
look like and
just in my opinion that type of stuff
looks
like investing in um that
training it's truly competitive pay
that you're getting people that are
wanting to be in this type of
profession because it is an active
service for them
and so you're getting high quality
people and then we are
hopefully going to incentivize those
that have specialized training
in perhaps even social work or things
like that but it's
there's a lot of a lot of different ways
that it could go and i think there's a
lot of conversations to still be had
but i am hopeful that this is the start
that we're putting things in this year
then can start addressing that and why
we talk
over the upcoming year of looking what
that planning
looks like and realizing that we still
have
even um new state bills
that are going to impact the way that we
need to train
or to operate and so we're going to have
to
really take time to recognize
all the the impacts that those changes
have been made and perhaps if we ever
see
federal changes and how we can hopefully
be
leaders in our community on what i think
um
that policing is and
what that next phase might be like so
that's
all i'll say on that issue but i'm going
to go back
um and say thank you uh leanne again
one of the items that you kind of
touched upon was that for
municipalities we talked about how most
of it
the budget does go for um personnel
issues
and out of curiosity i was just going to
ask on what percentage
is usually yeah thank you um that
percentage is that
average pretty much for most
municipalities to have that type of
percentage
mayor counselor stevie it is it really
is
actually i i went back to several
budgets
and i've actually been in this position
for three years
and we've been between 71
to 73 um
and and as we um i mean we do
have quite a bit of personnel i think
you can actually see in your budget book
we put a list of uh
of the personnel numbers by departments
um i want to say i think it's right
after the
write in the financials so we do have
quite a bit of personnel
um i know it's in here i'm sorry
but we typically do run that what other
cities are actually running i want to
say they're probably about the same i'd
need to do some research and i can do
that
maybe look at cities that that are
comparable to us
i think el paso and albuquerque would be
too big but what i might do is go and
look at rio rancho
who's very similar to us and see what
their personnel
percentage is running i can check into
that and then i can send you that
information
next this week thank you
that's very helpful and with that i also
see personnel there's
different types of personnel and some
are um
you know some individuals are supplying
a very direct
service um to our constituents
uh and so that to me also makes a
difference um when we have programs
um we'll just take um like the the youth
specialists
uh those that are doing after school
programs they're providing a direct
service so by adding them we're
increasing that service base
and so for me that that is even
different than we have
more administrative and and those types
of programs and
so i don't mind necessarily seeing the
personnel because i know if it's
especially if they're the increases are
going to that user so we can expand
programming and expand our usage i think
that's
for me that makes it worthwhile
[Music]
with slide 22 i have to ask because i
actually got a constituent asking about
this today
was about median landscaping and they
were talking
about i believe the medians on
uh loman if that was the same project
that was listed there or if that's for a
different
median landscaping so mayor councillor
stevie i'll actually
see if i can get david to maybe he might
be able to look at that what i can do is
go into the council packets remember
that we had
given to the council months ago
um and see what it what it lists in
there for the medians
unless david do you know offhand
thank you i believe that sloman some of
the loman medians
counselor made the student okay thank
you i
just wanted to clarify on that one
and then my next one is actually for
david um
and thank you um with this
new kind of um way to
capture all the the cips and everything
and in your opinion are there any
projects that you feel
are kind of timing themselves out or
have just been on the list for a very
long time
that um you know things have changed
uh perhaps the budget might be very
different now for that type of project
do you see
any of that with those that are on there
mayor councillor beta stewie david
seville for the record
that is that is a great point and one of
the changes that we made several years
ago to the cip
was to show those carryover projects
as part of that document that lists
those projects that get carried over
from year to year to year to year
that don't ever start so that we
identified that to be able to
reevaluate and look at the projects that
we have on there
and say based on how we're moving
forward with funding
priorities initiatives our strategic
business plan
elevate las cruces are these gonna be
as beneficial to the community you know
and why are they
on their stagnant so that was one of the
big things that were looking as part of
the cip to be able to identify
and take a look at that and say okay if
if this project is not moving forward
how else can we utilize the funding to
get that benefit out to the community
thank you i appreciate that um
and i was just gonna ask um
with leanne um are there any other
legislative changes that were made in
this last year that you anticipate us
having to just take into consideration
for this upcoming budget cycle
mayor counselor stevie i'm going to ask
mr peeley to help me on this one i want
to say that the only one that i was
looking at
i want to say it was house bill 4
which changed for the police department
there might be
some concerns and and uh trying to read
that particular act
i don't know if there were others i know
mr peeling meets with our lobbyists
maybe he might have some
um something to add to that as well but
that was one that
particular i was looking at
i i'm sorry uh counselor basically we
repeat your
question if they're
thank you um evo the the question is
um are there any upcoming um legislative
changes
that were made um that we need to be um
considering for this upcoming budget
cycle
well you know not that i know of and and
i know elia mentioned
mentioned house bill 4. we we still
don't know all the implications of even
that bill
but from what i understand i don't think
there's any
direct budgetary implications that we
need to
now we're expecting a big windfall from
the cannabis
legislation uh passing so we may have a
revenue change hopefully but
um no i i'm not seeing any uh
any direct impact to the budget okay
thank you um and you look forward to
that work session with
um mr haran as well and mayor
councillor stevie also the only other
one in
uh was recently there was one that was
passed on
our para which is our retirement and um
it increased the percentage for the fire
department
so we are working with the hr department
on that particular one we may be
after the new fiscal year be bringing
a budget adjustment if you know unless
we can get
um get those percentages in before we
bring
the budget to adoption on may 17th so
we're looking at that one as well
thank you so much and thank you once
again um
for all the work that you and your team
have done with
this budget almost everything that i
wanted was on
but i will i will still also have to
advocate for
um upgrades with uh some of our parks
that are much older
um but i also see opportunities you know
i talked about perhaps expanding
broadband to
gomez park but
that is something when we look at
perhaps
funding that comes from the american
rescue plan if we can see where we can
tie in some of these priorities to any
type of
funding that we get there so we can
still accommodate
and thank you mayor i couldn't find rio
rancho but i did find new york city and
chicago at 90
for personnel and and we still uh are
the second largest city in the state
at 104 000 and change and rio rancho at
101 000
change so there you go uh let's see
who's next
airport
thank you thank you mayor i'm gonna try
my videos so let me know if i come in
and out
um appreciate leanne david and others my
colleagues
um and and i
too want to respond a little bit about
the pie chart
um sort of understanding where our you
know where
most of the budget comes from
and the previous that was it slide 18
where our money goes if you will
um i i mean i appreciate this but within
each of these departments there's
so many projects and services and
programs
and you know those of us that
are a little more seasoned at this know
what they
are um and maybe not even even more
even specifically so this is sort of uh
when i look at this i think
does our budget reflect our values
it's hard to just determine out of this
right
uh at first glance you know we see
some some areas safety being um
one of the ones two of the areas that
are most um
that have most of the budget or a
significant part of the budget but when
i think about
housing for instance and it being put
under economic development all the
grants that we receive
related to the programming and kind of
to conservatives this duvey's
point related to direct service like our
youth
um our people that are working with
youth
that that direct service
this doesn't really get i think to the
crux of that and so
i i'm i'm really going to challenge
staff about looking at a different way
that we can and i'm thinking about a pie
chart
that would be more reflective of right
where where um
our money goes to and those sort of
social determinants of health right
those important place
those important pieces housing food
um behavioral health
you know those kinds of because i think
it's going to say a bit of a different
a different picture and it'll definitely
um
inform the public people who are really
not familiar with our budgeting and our
budgeting process
and so i i like
i like for us to take a stab at kind of
looking at that
um and and i appreciate counselor ben
gomo's remarks i think those are very
important ones
i think we really need to look at it but
i i suspect as people
indicated that you know most
municipalities and commissions do that
do it in this way
and so i i like to challenge us in in
really re-examining re
just looking at a different way to
report
um the way that the funding is and
giving
and just remembering that there's folks
that are are not a part of this process
so
um i i think of all the victim
you know advocacy that happens in you
know
within the police um some dv
programs there's some great great prom
like
we mentioned in fire right the
integrated health
um when you look at it you don't get to
see any of that
in there unless you're very intricately
involved you know in the city and
understand this so
um leanne i'm not sure if if if there's
a way that
that we can re-examine the way that that
looks i'd really love to see
us identify kind of in in those those
special areas those
areas that reflect health um and
in all it's in all levels um what
it would be interesting to see and then
where the grants fall and who gets more
grants and what kind of grants and
and and whatnot especially that we've
been very clear
as as council what our priorities are
moving forward um
so that all this all i'll say about that
again i appreciate the the work um
that's already been done
and um as far as um i just want to go
back to
um the technology piece i appreciate
having scott
and talking about you know um sort of
the
the projects i guess that are that are
happening um
and and they're a bit foreign to me so
you mentioned the transportation one
specifically and one
and so i i i'm really
interested in hearing a little further
it's one of the things that i think is
going to be
really important to move us into you
know a different level of service
and and so um
the the clever devices and sort of the
gps
mapping the web um you know those
being able to to see like on a moment's
notice
and then as using that as a super you
know it's a supervisory tool right in
terms of
of you know are we on time and how long
are things at but
when i saw that i thought it is this
an opportunity to kind of change what's
happening
currently and um
be able so for folks like for instance
me
can i get can i just via an app can i
can i purchase a ticket or a monthly
ticket from my phone
and be able to then show um you know
the drivers that i that you know i and
or run it through my phone through a
a code of sorts um is is that
what this is about it's that what that
is entailed or is it just for the
identified pieces that
you pointed out scott
mayor mayor protem i'm going to defer to
mike bartholomew
who i believe is on the call this is his
projects
as far as i know this is uh just a
replacement at least the clever devices
part is just a replacement for their
existing system i'm not sure
what additional features this upgrade
would have
so if mike can jump in uh
yes yes uh mayor pro tem uh this
microphone
roadrunner transit the clever device's
replacement is to update the uh
software that we have that's about seven
years old now
oops uh that's about seven years old now
and uh to get a little bit more accurate
and how we uh
for the geo-location of the buses it
will it also is going to allow us to uh
do a lot of changes like if we do a
route change
on our own we could move bus stops a
little bit we can read we could move
routes around a little bit
with this without having to pay for an
expensive uh
kind of a redo by the company because we
did a minor change to a route this will
allow us to do minor changes
and then once we get that uh
upgrade installed and it our data gets
more accurate then the second part of
this the second phase of this would be
to add automatic enunciation system
to the buses so it basically announces
where the bus stops
far automatically over the speaker
system on the buses the the dialer ride
one the trapeze one is is
would be more for the just the dial
right customers to
it could allow them to schedule rides it
would uh have a callback feature to let
them know that they're
for ride confirmation or text back
rather
uh context back information about the
ride is like 15 minutes away get ready
kind of a thing so that's what those two
programs are for
neither one of those would be like for a
pass purchase on a on a app type
program for the fixed route
okay
thank you can you hear me thank you mr
pratham yeah i appreciate
i appreciate that um i think these are
all great changes
uh moving forward something i think that
you've talked about
at different at different times
throughout the years
and that i think will be really helpful
so appreciative of the
of your explanation um
and then um
i i wanted to talk about um
you know the funding and the funding
that's going to be allocated
specifically um i
i appreciate all that these are a lot of
of
things that i've i've advocated for over
over the years i think it's going to be
important some very important steps
in dealing with getting to the root
causes of why we've had
such an increase in rep and reports and
calls and violence and
maltreatment of children um and and
and so i i do think that that um it's
been a slow process i wish we can
i wish we could change overnight but i
know that that's not
that's not um possible um
and so i i wanted to to really
talk a little bit about um the funding
um that should be coming from
the cip the the state in relation to the
viramura dam and um i i really
appreciate
counselor vasquez's points
about the way by which to look at it
right it's in a more underserved area
um you think about health and social
determinants of health
um you think about the these you know
that already
this route is being used already and
um i'm wondering if we can come back
with a resolution council vasquez that
supports
a green park um
and and and i i like mayor's suggestion
about coming
um back for a work session
but in this balance when you think about
the 250 000 and if i remember correctly
it's for design right to to to to to
study
if you will and and then to basically
capture
a design or develop some sort of design
if you will but um and
and i i'm not sure that it will take
the you know the whole 250 000 but
i i mean there's a lot of trash that's
accumulated
there it's not set up for as a as a park
if you will
but people use it um it
it it i i'm i'm worried that
that if we don't do something quickly
and whether we're waiting for this money
or not
that you know that we could be liable
for some things that go on
and um there um and and i'd
i'd really like to see um
and maybe maybe um the design will tell
us a little more
but i'd really want to to to talk about
putting forth some
additional funding um and not wait
not wait a whole fiscal year um and i'm
not sure
when um david and or
um leanne do you know when that money
might
arrive to us from the legislative sector
mayor council gonda i'll check with amy
because she takes care of the
legislative funding
um i know that we are filling out some
questionnaires for the recent funding
it it all it all is response to when
they go out the state goes out for
bonding so i will double check on that
uh if she has like a date when we're
actually going to be bringing that to
council
and i'll let you know um the other thing
about the vmware dam
um and that's why i brought up this
slide for the hold harmless grt
uh counselor is because i mean there is
still some unreserved balance
um we're going to be bringing a
resolution to adopt the budget on may
17th
so as i mentioned earlier david and i
both mentioned
you know this is a time where council
the mayor and the council can let us
know that you want to
increase something or decrease something
and so i just wanted to show you i mean
we still have 2.51
in this particular fund uh that we can
still
you know use some of this
and the other thing too is is and i i i
didn't check to see but i don't know if
maybe and i don't want to put her on the
spot
but i'd like maybe for sonia to see if
she can
maybe touch because we did touch base
with her
before we did when we did the council
priorities especially for chandler and
for
uh gallagher so i don't know if maybe
sonia might want to
jump in and have some thoughts on
the villamora dam so
thank you leanne
good afternoon mayor members of council
sonia delgado director parks and
recreation
um being more of them
we take the funding for it well we need
the funding for it there's a lot of work
to do at vmware dam
they'll need to redo madrid so we have
to work very closely with public works
that will probably have to come first
before we start thinking about utilizing
as a park
we do understand that there are
individuals out there there's
individuals all over our city
in places that may or may not be city
property
um and we run into that often we get a
lot of different phone calls about
things like that
but when it comes to being more damn we
still have a lot of work to do on the
front end
we can get it done that can happen but
we'll definitely need a funding source
and i
can't speak to what it would cost to
redo madrid and realign that if need be
um we'll also need a parking lot so
there's lots and lots of things to do
with it it's not quite shovel ready
um whereas chandler tank we've done a
lot of work there already
it's going to be a little bit easier to
get some of those items taken care of
but a little
bit quicker and then so
i and i do like the fact that counselor
sorry had made mention
uh prioritizing the piff i had made
mention of that prior
that would be important so that you can
understand what projects you want to go
first because we do get a lot of firsts
come our way
and they they all can't go first so
we're looking forward to that and that
will be great um so we can
take those um into consideration and get
these projects prioritized and
and get them done yeah sonya i really
appreciate that and
and um i i i
i'm thinking you know we have this
balance still event there's still some
money available why can't we pull the
250 now
to start working on the design you know
well cleaning up um because it's
it's it's bad i i i walk
um not so much in the area but
through it i don't do that i've done it
maybe once or twice but
but have walked up in that area and it
it's it's
it it's not becoming and we need to be
taking care of it
um and and i'm not suggesting that you
all are on
out there um you know trying to clean up
and whatnot but i would really like to
see
um us a start on this
and and it starts with just cleaning up
the area and then having
you know this does that they could then
come in and do this design
um and i can't i don't see how we
when we do receive the funding if it's
not something that's going to be given
to us
you know within the next six months that
that we start it and then
that we come back and and replenish the
fun when we receive it i
i just it just me i feel that it's
something that needs to happen
and so do you have an idea when where
the madrid
um the madrid madrid will be worked on
uh mayor memorial tim no i do not um
i would have to defer that to david
sedillo but before i do
um when it comes to cleaning since it
hasn't been designated a park
as of yet um it won't be turned over to
us until the park
the best i can do at the moment is we
can try and put together a volunteer
group that can go out there and help
pick up trash
and then once that facility becomes ours
we'll be also looking to add additional
team members to our team to make sure we
can take care of that because that is a
very large
parcel blend and even with trails
as you know people utilize our trails
they leave trash
and there's a lot of work that has to go
into it so
there's a like i said there's a lot of
pieces we need to put in place
we certainly can get that done with the
help with public works and working
closely with him
and we will continue to do so but in the
meantime i will see if we can get
keep lost cruise beautiful and maybe get
a group out there to do a cleanup
an alternative thank you sonia i
appreciate that and let me know because
there's a few people that live in my
district that have have
voiced some interest in the cleanups um
and so it was it was the you know at the
beginning of covet so
i think people are a little fearful but
it feels like you know
we're turning a corner and people are
more interested in doing that you had
some people
um participate in your keep las cruces
beautiful con
event not too long ago so
um i'd love to see that and again i'm
recommending that
come sir vasquez i'd be happy to work
with you
to put forth a resolution to name that a
city park
um a green space and and then looking
forward to
when the work session comes but again i
think a lot of this needs to be sooner
rather than later and so i'm advocating
for you know money to be put forth and
just
generally thinking about this this area
um now um and
um then i guess david do you have some
idea of when that me that madrid area
will be worked on
mayor may uh mayor gandala before dave
uh before i let david start i wanted to
let you know i did talk to
amy just now um she said that
um she's waiting on dfa to get us the
agreement it's actually over at the new
mexico environment department they're
putting together a new agreement
for the 250 i mean
yeah the 250 000 for the the vmware dam
so hopefully we'll be bringing that to
council in about
three months she said it's for design
and then limited
trail amenities which includes lights
and parking and etcetera
so i'll turn it over to david now thank
you leanne
uh mayor mayor pro tem gandra the madrid
project
we do have that slated to start we do
have the funding for it
that is in the queue to start the design
because there will be a little bit of a
realignment
and that we're also waiting on nmdot to
finish their study corridor
of i 25
from lowmen to to angler so
we're looking at that to make sure that
we have that in place as well too
so we do have funding we are starting we
are starting on that design
here in the fall and then as we move
forward we can get that as well
uh just to note this project also
it did have uh 2021 legislative funding
in the amount of 400 000 that we're
waiting to
also accept into the budget as well
i appreciate a time frame david there's
a few
um people that have asked about that
area concerned about the streets
that are that are that
rub up against madrid and so um and i'll
be i'll be crafting an email here
shortly
over to you about um one of the streets
in particular but the the caller did
have concerns about madrid and i said
it's in the queue
but i don't have a time frame so um let
you know let me let me figure
on that so anyhow i appreciate the
information
i'm really excited about the different
priorities
um i i i know that it's a lot of work
and very very difficult to put into
place and
listen to all our exciting um you know
plans and
and such but um i am
i appreciate each and every one of you
so thanks mayor
thank you counselor sword thank you mr
mayor
um now i just need to comment on some of
the stuff that's been discussed so far
um i i sympathize with counselor bencomo
the graph that shows our uh where our
money goes
is uh not a good image um
i'm all for a discussion on how we can
make our police force a little more
efficient maybe
but on the other hand i've had so many
requests
for people that said why don't we have
some police house here
that out here in the this place or that
place it could be anywhere in the city
to uh watch traffic on the speeders and
all the violations that you have um
and i noticed on the um
police department for your history the
personnel uh numbers keep going up and
down
and it's just an unsettling thing um
but yeah i'm all for a discussion on how
we can make
our police department better and
also provide more uh funding for
our social programs uh the affordable
housing et cetera et cetera et cetera
and um i i'm all with it um
[Music]
then on on the uh biamora
um why don't we just go ahead and take
uh
three four five hundred thousand dollars
of that uh on reserve
balance and just do it let's get it over
with uh let's not discuss it any longer
let's just do it um so
whatever it takes now the problem with
the the street if you're going to wait
for the street to get done before you do
the park
it's not going to be done very fast
we're talking years
and so uh maybe we should start on
something in the park that
doesn't uh is going isn't going to be
affected by the street
um so that's what i said and i agree
with
uh mayor pro tem it is somewhat of an
eyesore there as i drive by it i see it
too
and i have all kinds of visions and how
nice it could look
a little water here and there uh
probably take out some mesquite
trees or shrubs there so it doesn't
catch all of the trash
goes below and through uh different
things like that
and so um yeah that's that's i think we
should what we should be doing here
i agree with you all thank you mayor and
good job
leanne and david and the whole staff on
getting this budget going here
thank you counselor i'll just give you a
word of caution
so reason why i think we need to wait
until the street is done i think we can
i think we can have a work session we
can start the planning but if you go
and and work on the park and then and do
some things to it and then turns out
that when
when rose has to go and do some things
and then maybe he has to tear it up
after you just got done doing something
yeah you didn't hear me mayor in there
oh
no i didn't have but i'm just saying but
now it's going to be affected the street
at all well
well it might because what if it needs
some parking what if it needs a parking
lot in there what does it need
you know what if people want to be able
to park there and then go so there's a
big
huge space there that work some work
could be done
on not one side of madrid well and then
we've got to figure out how we're going
to
continue to pay for it i think a
workstation
yeah i'm thinking of road runner norse
and how many years it took for that
street to be
built i i fear was gonna have the
similar thing with madrid
road running north that was uh a lot of
that was because it was owned by
developers
and that wasn't our yeah it was it was
the city that's the city built
north road runner well well that little
portion but
the other part that you're the
connection uh we did it
because it was owned by some developers
yeah and it took three years to get it
done well yeah but that's
that's the thing they there was no
reason
to do it i mean that's them they could
control however they want to do it
but anyways that's another story uh
thank you for your comments and uh
counselor
vasquez thank you mayor um
thank you all um as we go into
i know a kind of a late afternoon
session here but budget is really
important and so i appreciate all the
discussion that's been had here
one of the things that we get to control
um
as representatives of the people of our
districts that really makes a difference
and so
i really appreciate this discussion um
you know i keep
going back and forth between the
discussion around public safety
and what councilman cuomo brought up in
terms of the priorities of our
community and our values and how that
reflects and how we spend our money
and i think this is a good example um
talking about a local park
in an area that is a historic area that
has
a lot of folks who you know aren't going
to get new
uh infrastructure new investment for a
long time there's no developers that are
putting in anything
uh in that area it's all going to be up
to the city to improve this part of town
and so
i think of parks honestly as an
anti-poverty anti-uh pro-public safety
effort um when we can reinvest in these
areas of town that
oftentimes do suffer from um
those heightened levels of crime or
property crime or or or violence or or
um any any number of those things the
built environment
has a big big impact on the psyche of a
people
um of a neighborhood of a community
right and so
if you think that you live in a
neighborhood not worthy of having a park
or you think your city doesn't care
your your mentality as a resident of
that neighborhood also leads to you to
think that hey maybe i'm not as valuable
as other people in other parts of the
city
and that often is that road that leads
us to think about
you know where we're investing and why
why we even need
like police in in the first place in
these areas i've had many discussions
with our police department as
i have with with mayor and mayor pro tem
and others
about then like the need to reinvest in
these neighborhoods as a tool
to help prevent crime right it's not
just about enforcement it's not just
about
showing up and taking a report and then
coming back later and following up on it
which is where a lot of our resources
go to uh go toward right um
it's about preventing this in the first
place and so that i i really agree with
i think when we say we don't have the
money for a park in a neighborhood like
this
that is though we're saying that that's
part of our values right of
of of what we want to invest in and so
this is a good example
i think of of we could have all the
excuses in the world to say we can't do
it
including let's wait till we it's the
right time
um yeah i like i said either let's put
up a fence around this whole thing and
not let people in it
if that's what we're saying that this is
not a park the people can't come there
you know let's put up with fence then
and say that you can't come in because
um
i don't think we can have it both ways
we can't keep it a pseudo park for the
meantime
uh and be okay with that uh and not
willing to make an investment in it and
i do appreciate so much
my fellow counselors uh for um uh
for wanting to perhaps see how we can
tweak this budget to make that happen i
think there's ways i mean
you look at all the trails outside of
the city baylor canyon and soledad
canyon and the sierra vista trail
those don't have amenities those don't
have big parking lots those are trails
in the
that are you know managed by the bureau
of land management and they're
they're pretty much in a natural
environment that are that are
that work just fine for people so i
think we can do something there
um uh and then just to further um
what i'll say too on this discussion
around uh just the future of our budget
and the discussions around public safety
and how much we invest in our police
department you know i think
uh nothing should ever be off the table
or non-negotiable
you know i i think that's those are part
of the hard conversations that
that as a community um and as a country
we are having
uh and where real change starts in and
starting to tweak
um where where we invest in as a
community and so
um nothing should be off the table
nothing should be non-negotiable
i think rethinking what public safety
looks like and we're doing it
i'm not saying we're not i think the the
investment in the mobile um
health crisis uh center is amazing and i
think if it works then let's double the
budget for that next year and let's
triple it the year after that right so
um i i do appreciate that we are
innovating in some ways
um and that we have room to do more and
we don't have to wait for
the state or the federal government to
act and tell us what is
good policing and what is not i think
you know we can listen to our community
and
um and also do things that that will
change
uh how we invest and so you know i'll
just say that much i think
all options should always be on the
table for that but um
with that said uh mayor thank you i
appreciate it i really do hope that
from this work session that we can come
to some
resolution in terms of an initial
investment and via more dam
to put a sign up put a few lines put a
few lights up
let people who are enjoying that park
now you know
actually think that the city cares and
invest in a park there and so
i think there's some very low cost
things we can do while we work on the
redevelopment of that street
um uh and and i think that'd be fine
because as we mentioned it is a huge
it's a huge property
i mean it's a huge opportunity that
where the city will never get land like
that in that part of the city again so
thank you mate i appreciate it so before
i get to efo
um i'm going to go off of what you said
that all
what did you say all things are on the
table all uh
yeah just you know yeah yeah okay let me
let me ask you this
and and via mora it's got on both sides
right
but primarily more on the bad directions
i guess on the
north end is the larger side i think
i'm not sure which side is bigger i
think maybe
what i was going to propose something to
think about and this is where the work
session
is earlier you saw i think you did i
think you were in the work session maybe
you weren't when
when the proposed loman area right
if we did on one side and did something
similar
not only would that allow for more uh
mixed income housing the money
that was generated off that could be
dedicated solely
for the the park across the street and
talk about now you have a funding source
and you've got money to do
whatever you want to do and really make
it
a a really premier park not skimping not
doing this i mean now you're talking
and dedicated just like how the tid the
money that was dedicated just for the
downtown area
that money dedicated for across the
street something to think about
this is something okay uh ifo you have a
comment
thank you mayor in in council just a
couple of comments
if i can make a couple suggestions on
the vmware of damp first and then
uh just some comments uh maybe
concluding from the staff perspective
with this budget uh
[Music]
so just to give you a little background
with the as we've gone through the
council priorities that
just let you know when it comes to
council priorities we
we don't i try not to
to rank them myself right it really
comes off of our
discussions with you of course we have
our cip and a ranking system
but when it comes to council priorities
it's really we go through this and see
how we can get it get it done
and and i i will tell you you know after
considering everything i
you know the decision comes to me to say
okay
where do we where do we fill the dollars
that we do have and specifically
tomorrow damn my thought process was uh
and with others here that uh if we had a
funding source identified
check and we'll move on to the next and
that's really the way i looked at it i
i remember uh councillor vasquez and or
maybe if it was with mayor pro tem or
both in our tour
uh going by the via more than and being
very
impressed with the possibilities there
as well and so
my thought uh i can tell you my thought
process was okay
we have a track record of legislative
funding
and so let's just keep on that track and
we there's your funding
source and we can you know allocate to
some where we we don't have that track
record
so that's really all it all it is i i
think from staff perspective
uh you know we can find a way to to make
it work especially
if we have another funding source like
you mentioned mayor
to add to it but a suggestion i have is
maybe we do
move forward you have the 250 let's go
on the design
we can try and pull some funds out to
allocate now
or look at the design we could put the
250 there now
look at the design and come back uh
mid-year to see what we want to move on
next but we know we do have some money
we we have a little bit money to pull if
that's
you know always as a as a city manager
you're counting right you're
you're listening to the council and
you're you're counting each each opinion
that comes up
and i i feel like this is a this is a
one of those
priorities that that we we should
consider based on everyone's comments so
i i'm glad to do that i'm glad to go
back with staff
take a look at what we can come up with
uh put that in there i don't think
that'll be a problem like you said you
you see where some of that fund balance
will propose to pull it from
and we have some fun balance there so we
can do that
and have further discussion there and
then just a couple of other things
uh the direction we gave from
from the city manager's office from my
team to the staff
didn't give a much much direction
besides if you had
extra ftes that you were asking for this
year
the default setting is to not include
those
now we we did look at it from a case by
case basis as you see there are some you
have a social worker there
but there were certain the default was
that we didn't want to grow
our staff we didn't want to grow our
budget in that way
if we didn't have to we had a lot of
vacant we have a lot of vacancies that
we wanted to look at
we wanted to reclassify first
and so those are some of the parameters
we gave our department heads i think
they've done a great job of coming back
with some solutions
and and one just for the sake of being
being efficient with our budget but also
uh the other thing that we haven't
talked about that i know i've talked
about this
individually with counselors throughout
the
past months we are looking at our
premiums
and uh you know we're going to go out to
bid here
pretty soon and the hope is that we can
find a solution
better solution uh first of the year
next year so to be mid year in the
mid mid fiscal year and so that's
something
where i've told staff like we you know
let's look at where we are from a
personnel standpoint because this is the
part that we're going that's going to
increase or decrease based on what we
we get back from our premiums and that's
the goal is we want to move it
we got a study recently back from our
consultants
that shows how far off we are
from the rest of the state the rest of
the public sector
uh and and that's something we really we
really are taking a look at and want to
want to bring back to
to the council at some point when we
have numbers
uh you know or else it would be a part
of the budget but we we need to
make sure we have those numbers there so
just summing up the
the budget and some of the parameters
we've given our staff
not much besides those those things that
we wanted to focus on
uh i think our department heads have
done a a great job of
really honing in on the budget uh
especially leanne and her team and david
appreciate all that they've done to
uh to get us here this thus far they're
great uh
what they do and then just just
lastly in in light of the discussion
we've had
you know about just the budget makeup
you know with public safety
one thing people don't recognize uh
you know our largest asset and liability
of just about any municipality
is our roads that that's it they're
hundreds of millions of dollars they're
worth that much
and a lot of times you know my
colleagues my other city man when we go
to different cities
we do judge each other by the way their
roads are maintained
and because it is it is the biggest part
of your budget as far as your assets
uh in the city and so when we talk about
what our our budget
reflects does it reflect our values it's
a little difficult when we're talking
about
our operating budget because our
operating budget
a lot of times ninety percent of it is
fixed they're fixed costs
and they reflect necessities and um
and a lot of times when we're talking
about improving an area
it's really counterintuitive to talk
about decreasing money
right decreasing funding a lot of times
when we improve a certain area or
department
uh increasing the budget actually helps
not decreasing the budget and so when i
talk when i think about public safety i
think everything's on the table but i
also
i also believe um you know when you look
at our salaries when you look at
uh our officers for thousands
uh we we aren't high
and and so when we're thinking about
improving and we're thinking about
getting the best and asking our officers
to do more
than what they were previously asked to
do or retain
a high level of competency and customer
service
a solution may be that we we increase
because we need to retain those officers
and we need to
get training and we need to get a whole
different type of officer
uh into a whole different level and so
that's something i just wanted to throw
out and i think that's the same with
it goes through sort of the theme
throughout the entire budget
um a lot of times when we're looking at
improving things it's
you know money talks not necessarily
pulling money that
that will improve but but with that uh
mayor and council i i appreciate the
opportunity i know this is we'll have
other times to present
the budget in its final form and for
your approval
but i appreciate the feedback in the
comments we are all taking notes here
and so especially with the vmware dam
and and some of the things that were
mentioned we'll
we'll go back with staff take a look at
it and
see if we can we can route some more
money
to those to those uh projects
thank you baron council thank you uh ifo
we forget to come before i get to
council florida's just yeah and i know
you all know this but
um you know the budget is you know for
the most part
if we pass it as is we need to make sure
the departments know what they've got
to operate their their departments but
that doesn't mean that we can't come
back later and come after some of this
unreserved balance
to be used to augment things that the
council wants to do okay
all right um council florida
excuse me excuse me thank you mayor
thank you leanne and david and sonia
and my colleagues were the excellent
questions that they and concerns that
they posed i i agree with
everything everybody said um and
i you know i i think when when you see a
a bar uh graph that
shows that our police department's paid
the most it's or that
personnel takes a huge chunk
of our budget it's i know when i first
learned about
how much money goes for our personnel
i was horrified i thought why do we
spend so much money on personnel well
just the way it is and and um it was
explained to me
and very well and i appreciate your
words uh
ifo i i agree with uh
with councillor gandara's comment about
our budget
um reflecting our values and
um and you know the the thing that's
that's always been something that i've
worked on
um you know since the 70s you know
late 60s early 70s
is just you know justice
and um and in my different
roles is in different capacities
uh we met i think i shared this with you
etho that
um when i was president of the
mexican-american bar association
we met with devel patrick we had
the uh he was head of the civil rights
division
um in the ag's office here you know the
u.s attorney's office
we met with him um because of the police
brutality in los angeles
and the problems we were having there
are not getting anywhere with the
attorney
the city attorney's office or any other
level of enforcement and um
and we did bring some changes to lapd
and you know fast forward what 30 40 50
years whatever it's been now
um there are a lot of problems that
still exist
so and and really and being also
in the education field um you know the
the answer and the question is how do we
eliminate all of these problems well
it's slow
it's very slow um because
because racism and ignorance has become
so institutionalized
that and the only way we can eliminate
that is
education and of course identifying the
contributing factors such as
aces and that's why cassandra ganda is
one of my heroes
um my mother being the other one um
where you know we're not taking care of
our children
and they're not we are creating a
society
um the forgotten the forgotten ones
so it's it's important to
um work and i for example you know we
have a jpa with las loses community
schools
and cassandra and tessa and i sit on
that board
and um and and i you know and we can see
that there are a lot of changes coming
about
in our school district for our children
and community schools is the answer and
the question is how do
the question of course is how do we how
do we
get out of this this cycle that i've
been a precipitate witness to
for most of my life well
more than two-thirds of my life and
and um and yes a lot of ugly things have
happened
in our country and um and
and and the only way that we can really
uh
remedy that is through education and i
think our community schools especially
here in las cruces i mean i
i attended a big conference uh that was
sponsored by the nea
on community schools and and it was
wonderful to see
how those communities flourish and
because the children are being taken
care of
and as councilor vasquez said you know
there's a park there
and and uh and as councillor um
aveda stewie has said uh a city is
judged by its roads and its parks
um and i and i and
and those are areas that are so
fundamental to
uh you know how we get around and how we
care for our community
but um but more fundamental than that
is focusing on our children and and how
they need us and on so many levels and
the community schools
and i i would like to see um
i know this is an opera operating uh
budget and you said
evo in terms of counselor or mayor pro
tem gandara
saying that we like to see our values
reflected in the budget
and because i then i thought that's
right i mean where you know where does
it fit in where we
have our fantastic animal uh service
center
you know which is a jpa with the county
and
um and other other services that
we have in the city and and other
where does that money come from leanne
or mr pealey uh ifo
how is that reflected in our this budget
and you know i'm just wondering about
that and then
um yeah but i think that um
in areas where this budget does uh go
into our parks and whatnot and i and
that's right it's true there's money
there i think the mayor has said that
uh mayor putin has said that and you too
epo
where there is money that um that can be
used and i think that
starting with the with a with the design
with that 250 000
would be amora we should get a design
or whatever you know whatever it's
called planning to see if um
to see where we can begin at least uh
making
uh some roadway and and into that and
then
um and then you know a lot of these
almost like
you know um one one of my frustrations
is
you know i want it done i want it done
now type of thing
um where we have things planned out and
um and and then the only ones that can
really see any have seen you know the
slow
uh wheels of of what's it called
uh progress turn are the mayor and
and and gil um and they can sit here and
say
yeah we did this back in 2000 whenever
and um and so and some of us i think
um you know for whatever reasons would
like well
for the very exigent
exigent reason that um
we have a community that is is hasn't
has been uh there's been a failure of
government to really look out for it
and i i think it's our duty our moral
obligation to
um to do as much as we can
so i i wholeheartedly support
moving on via mora dam and if money is
there
let's do it and and get our seat in the
meantime yeah let's get
uh keep las vegas beautiful out there
and
um but i but we really have to emphasize
too
and make sure that our money is going to
our children
anything that's related to children the
parks the
you know this whatever our aquatic
center
but um but
leanna or whoever uh
who how where does that money go when we
have a jpa
how do we contribute money to the county
for certain
programs or how is it where's that money
reflected if it's not in the operating
budget so
mayor councillor flores as if you'll
mention um
as i mentioned earlier in the
presentation let me see if i can get
slide um
this is a better one okay so um
it is coming out of the general fund and
as i mentioned
earlier um our jpa's because we do have
a
you know we do have a joint powers
agreement with them uh those um
that used to be treated as a transfer so
every um so every month accounting would
just transfer maybe 1 12
to those funds they do have a fund the
i'll use animal service center as an
example
their budget is budgeted in the sevens
so we would just move money from
general fund 1000 to their particular
fun which i want to say is 74
gosh i used to have i don't have them
all memorized and i apologize
but they're in the sevens this year they
are going to be treated as an
expense but it's no different um we're
just giving them money
our our share that um actually the
animal service center board approved
uh and i think you're on that board so
uh we're we're giving them one point i
want to
say 1.725 million
and so every year we will we will just
put it in there as an expense
on us the city to them as revenue
so we're it's like a transfer but we're
just
we're showing it as an expense but we're
supporting them by that much
okay yeah well thank you so much uh
leanne
you know i you know i mean i
i think it'd be wonderful if if somehow
this was reflected somehow for the
public to see
i think that you know it's like um
you know it's it's like showing doing
not just doing not just showing but
definitely
um sharing with our with our community
with our residents of the city
uh what the city does um
to uh to make it a better world for
everybody
and um and it because really the overall
thing is quality
of life and i'm not talking about the
department i'm talking about
the city and then that's what our
comprehensive plan tries to achieve
you know and building a city where
people are going to be talking to each
other
being a community instead of being
isolated in little houses or something
or buildings that are built like 10 feet
tall or something that have an effect on
people's psyche
and that is something that um that uh
councilor vasquez brought up about the
psyches you know the effect
that just looking at something and it's
like um
really with all the problems that we
have and they are problems
you know you have to call it as you see
them uh
with all our um trauma childhood
trauma and poverty and all that
i mean the worst thing a kid can feel is
that if
he or she is being kicked around and
being ignored
so it'd be great if we could release
this and
have an ex and then you know it'd be
wonderful
you know maybe take up two pages in the
uh
sun news or somewhere to show um to
and to explain where this where their
tax dollars are going
and um and how they're being spent and
with an
emphasis i would suggest or recommend
strongly recommend
that um that we emphasize it for the
well-being of our child our children
thank you leanne thank you mr mayor
thank you everybody
all right well thank you and uh
appreciate it uh
everyone our presenters leanne and david
and tony and
all of you and the great questions you
asked and so um
i guess uh we'll go ahead and just move
forward with this and then bring it back
and like i said if later
we need to tap into some of that other
monies and we'll just start doing that
we'll have those work sessions that we
talked about scheduled and just kind of
move forward so
real quick just let you let you and
council know
that our next step will be david and i
will be bringing
on may 17th um the re
the resolution for the budget sir so
that's the next step for us
may 17th okay sounds good what about the
press release
i would think uh counselor that that
our reporters are probably going to have
something in the next day or two talking
about this budget this is a big budget
it's a huge budget and it's wonderful
that we have money
yeah very good okay well if there's
nothing further
um entertain a motion to adjourn
so moved second
okay motion made by counselor flotus
second by counselor beta stevie
christine
this is on the motion to adjourn the
work session
um counselor beta stevie yes
counselor vasquez yes
councillor benkoma yes
counselor sorek yes
counselor flotus yes
councillor gandara yes mayor
yes okay so we're adjourned at 6 31
pm enjoy the rest of the evening of
course i'll stick around
christine to do the agenda studying
meeting and
thank you we'll talk to you all later
thank you
okay mayor whenever you're ready are you
ready okay so this the
this is the agenda setting meeting for
our may 3rd 2021 city council meeting
number one consent
one consent two non-consent two
non-consent
three consent three consents for
non-consent for non-consent
five non-consent five non-consent
six consent six consent seven
non-consent
seven non-consent eight non-consent
eight non-consents and nine non-consent
consents thank you thanks happy
too
you