The City Council held a special meeting May 6, looking at the General Fund budget, the major checking account for any city.
New Mexico Department of Finance and Administration’s Local Government Division financial advisor Michael Steininger has been helping the City for over a year, ever since it was noted the City was losing over $300,000 a year since it was given Sierra del Rio Golf Course in 2018, which includes a restaurant and pro shop.
The City has also experienced a lot of staff turnover, which compounded financial problems, which has since stabilized.
Newish-City Manager Vicki Ballinger said of the budget, “It’s like starting from scratch . . . Last year wasn’t the time to fix it. This is just a starting point.”
City Clerk Rani Bush said they revamped how revenues and expenses are assigned in each department to get a much truer picture of where the money is supposed to go.
Mayor Pro-Tem Kim Skinner thanked them for their hard work, “which will help us determine if departments are staying within budget.”
By the end of the meeting, the General Fund revenue was estimated at $830,000 for fiscal-year 2020-2021, which starts July 1 and ends June 30, 2021.
General Fund expenses are estimated at over $1.2 million, creating a $400,000 shortfall, but this is just a first draft.
Mayor Edna Trager asked each City Councilor to give input on the largest revenue sources: Local Option Gross Receipts Tax, Shared Government Gross Receipts Tax and Small Cities Assistance Grant.
The City Council agreed both Gross Receipts Taxes should be projected at 25 percent less than the 2019-2020 fiscal year, which ends June 30. Local Options GRT was therefore penciled in at $127,000 and State Shared GRT at $150,000.
Skinner said the State is estimating a $3 billion shortfall, making it unlikely the small-cities assistance grant will be much.
Trager said the National League of Cities and federal government are working out how to share Community Development Block Grant funds with small cities, using a formula of one-twelfth of the cities’ budget for revenue replacement. That would put the small-cities grant at $100,000, which the City Council agreed to plug into the budget, down from about $300,000 in the current fiscal year.
The biggest expense is a $240,000 management fee to Spirit Golf, which has signed a contract with the City to manage Sierra del Rio, but the takeover has been delayed by the coronavirus pandemic. The City Council will meet with the company again to work out particulars, possibly getting the management fee down.
The City had planned to hire a city planner, but that will probably be scuttled, Skinner stating that “if the choice is between putting a roof on [City Hall] versus a planner, I say we budget for the roof.”
The annex building, which holds the fire-fighting equipment that needs to be protected, will definitely get a new roof for about $7,000.
Trager said the City has $1.3 million in reserves, although not all of it is available because a cash reserve is required by the state. “It is a slim cushion,” she said.