News analysis: T or C’s financial paradigm shift

by Kathleen Sloan | September 7, 2021
7 min read
This screenshot of the blurry official video of Swingle's Aug. 9 budget workshop shows the city manager (center, in light shirt) and his administrative team, poised to answer the city commissioners' questions. Swingle has on multiple occasions explained to the commissioners that they must set budgetary priorities, not he and the city staff—to little avail.

City manager since early May, Bruce Swingle has held two long sessions on the Truth or Consequences budget to inform the city commission that the way they’ve balanced the budget for years by stripping the utilities of their cash reserves must stop.

Utility revenues must now go to critical and emergency repairs to make up for years of neglect of water, wastewater and electric infrastructure, Swingle has emphasized at budget sessions on May 5 and Aug. 9. The electric fund, in particular, is known as the city’s “cash cow.” It can give no more milk, which has thrown the city into a cash crunch.

Swingle, not department heads or city commissioners, has already identified two infrastructure emergencies requiring emergency purchases, which must be brought to the attention of the New Mexico State Department of Finance and Administration after the fact for its review. When Swingle ordered emergency repair in June of one of the city’s two electric transformers (both past their useful lives at 60 years old), the city was facing the prospect of brownouts and called upon citizens to do their utmost to conserve electricity.

Of the eight wells providing drinking water to citizens, only two were working when Swingle came on board. City water tanks didn’t hold enough water to keep up the necessary pressure to service the hospital and other major customers. Low pressure was also endangering the pumping system’s mechanical parts, according to public statements made by Swingle, who ordered the emergency repair of a non-operating well.

Several times Swingle has told the city commission the water system springs “between 20 and 25 leaks a week,” requiring the water department to operate in constant crisis mode.

During the Aug. 9 session, Swingle made a brief but astonishing statement that indicates how desperate the city is for cash. “I am negotiating with Sierra Electric Coop, looking at the purchase of the electric department,” he said, “to see if it makes sense for them.”

Only City Commissioner Randall Aragon asked a follow-up question. Perhaps to gauge when the city might get the cash to solve some of its infrastructure problems, Aragon merely asked how long such a sale would take. “Some time,” Swingle responded.

SCHOOLING THE COMMISSIONERS

Swingle’s insistence that the city move away from the practice of deficit spending supported by utility fund transfers means the city commission will have to be more transparent about its budgetary priorities. Currently, utility customers pay a hidden tax to support general government operations, without being informed that is where their fees are going.

Unlike other water and electric public utilities owned by corporations or cooperatives, the city’s electric enterprise and other utilities are not subject to the scrutiny of the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission. This means less consumer protection for T or C utility fee payers.

For example, the city is not subject to PRC requirements that electric utilities replace equipment on a schedule and justify any fee increases to the PRC and its customers at public hearings. The city is subject only to the state’s Public Utility Act provisions that vaguely require that:

—”Every rate made, demanded or received by any public utility shall be just and reasonable.” (62-8-1)

—“Every public utility shall furnish adequate, efficient and reasonable service.” (68-8-2)

—“At any hearing involving an increase in rates or charges sought by a public utility, the burden of proof to show that the increased rate or charge is just and reasonable shall be upon the utility.” (62-8-7A)

Chief Financial Officer Carol Kirkpatrick reminded city commissioners during the Aug. 9 budget session that there are two categories of municipal funds: government services and enterprise. Enterprise funds, such as the revenues produced by electric, water, wastewater and solid waste departments, are supposed to be “self-sufficient,” said Kirkpatrick, providing one reason for ending the practice of utility fund transfers and cuts.

Citizens’ wants and needs, city commissioners’ accountability and their ability to solve problems will come to the fore as the city seeks other revenue sources to replace utility transfers into the General Fund.

During the Aug. 9 budget session, the possibility of raising gross receipts and/or property taxes was discussed. The key question from commissioners was “Will it have to go to a vote?” Such votes won’t pass at the polls without explanations to the public about why the money is needed.

City staff will come back to the city commission with more information on GRT and property taxes: how much state law permits such taxes to be raised and at what point such increases trigger the requirement to seek voter approval. 

During his two budget sessions Swingle has also repeatedly told the city commissioners they are supposed to be making the policy decisions, such as how much to cut from each department’s budget, which employees should receive raises, which user fees should go up and which departments should be allowed to purchase equipment. 

“It’s my job to execute your policy decisions,” Swingle has told the commissioners. Since Swingle is bringing policy decisions to the city commission and it can only take action in public meetings while sitting as a body, according to the state’s Open Meetings Act, the workings of city government and the city’s problems have been brought into the sunshine to a greater degree since his hiring.

Previous city managers have determined policy and have not had to observe spending caps. Swingle, in his first week on the job, placed a resolution before the commissioners that clearly defines their authority and his. The commission is now responsible for approving all purchases over $20,000.

COMMISSIONERS’ LEARNING CURVE

Yet it is clear, from statements made by city commissioners, as well as from their silences, they still expect to be told by the city manager and city staff what the final decision on any issue should be.

City Commissioner Frances Luna has, during her 11-month tenure, regularly abdicated her duty to act as a fiscal overseer, saying such things as “I trust [City Attorney] Jay Rubin and “I have complete faith in Jesse Cole [water and wastewater departments director].” She has made similar statements of confidence in Electric Department Director Bo Easley.

During the two budget sessions Mayor Sandra Whitehead and Commissioner Aragon resisted making policy decisions, frequently asking Swingle: “What do you think?” “You know what’s going on; you need to tell us,” Aragon said to explain his deference. As always, City Commissioner Paul Baca remained silent, and Mayor Pro Tem Amanda Forrister contributed no policy guidance.

During the Aug. 9 session, Luna, Aragon and Whitehead did provide indications of the priorities that probably will guide their fiscal-policy decisions during this cash crisis.  

“Look at Lordsburg,” Luna said, stating that this borderlands New Mexico city, which has cut community services, is “dead.” “No one wants to live where there are no services,” Luna opined. “If we close the pool and the golf course, it makes me want to leave. I don’t want to be a representative of a town like that.”

“I concur with everything Commissioner Luna said,” responded Aragon, who was seated in April 2020.

Whitehead, a city commissioner for 10 years, did not acknowledge the infrastructure emergencies, the cash crisis, her part in steering spending policy into non-transparent deficit spending or the need to change financial direction. Whitehead’s lack of constituent focus and overarching concern that the needs of city employee take precedence was, however, on full display.

“Our employees are suffering,” Whitehead said. “We have to close the pool because we don’t have anybody to run it. Because of rain, the golf course is closed. We can’t cut services. We have seniors that depend on them. We didn’t replace lost employees and our [remaining] employees are overwhelmed. They [constituents] make it sound like we’ve done nothing. Without happy employees, we might as well close everything.”

Whitehead is seeking re-election this November.

Luna, who was appointed to the commission seat vacated by Brendan Tolley in October 2020, has repeatedly said during commission meetings that it was “drilled into [her] head” by previous city commissioners that “we are an electric company running a city.” Now that the electric company can no longer support deficit spending, it appears Luna is no longer interested in serving as city commissioner. She has attended several city commission meetings by phone, contributing nothing to discussions and largely failing to respond when votes were taken.

Luna has decided not to run to retain her commission seat this November.

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Kathleen Sloan is the Sun’s founder and chief reporter. She can be reached at kathleen.sloan@gmail.com or 575-297-4146.
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HAVE YOU SEEN?

Understanding New Mexico's proposed new social studies standards for K-12 students

“The primary purpose of social studies is to help young people develop the ability to make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good as citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world.”
—National Council for the Social Studies 

Reader Michael L. Hayes of Las Cruces commented: What impresses me is that both the proposed standards and some of the criticisms of them are equally grotesque. I make this bold statement on the basis of my experience as a peripatetic high school and college English teacher for 45 years in many states with many students differing in race, religion, gender and socioeconomic background, and as a civic activist (PTA) in public education (My career, however, was as an independent consultant mainly in defense, energy and the environment.)

The proposed social studies standards are conceptually and instructionally flawed. For starters, a “performance standard” is not a standard at all; it is a task. Asking someone to explain something is not unlike asking someone to water the lawn. Nothing measures the performance, but without a measure, there is no standard. The teacher’s subjective judgment will be all that matters, and almost anything will count as satisfying a “performance standard,” even just trying. Students will be left to wonder “what is on the teacher’s mind?” or “have I sucked up enough.”

Four other quick criticisms of the performance standards. One, they are nearly unintelligible because they are written in jargon. PED’s use of jargon in a document intended for the public is worrisome. Bureaucrats often use jargon to confuse or conceal something uninformed, wrong or unworthy. As a result, most parents, some school board members and more than a few teachers do not understand them.

Two, the performance standards are so vague that they fail to define the education which teachers are supposed to teach, students are supposed to learn, and parents are supposed to understand. PED does not define words like “explain” or “describe” so that teachers can apply “standards” consistently and fairly. The standards do not indicate what teachers are supposed to know in order to teach or specify what students are supposed to learn. Supervisors cannot know whether teachers are teaching social studies well or poorly. The standards are so vague that the public, especially parents or guardians, cannot know the content of public education.

Three, many performance standards are simply unrealistic, especially at grade level. Under “Ethnic, Cultural and Identity Performance Standards”; then under “Diversity and Identity”; then under “Kindergarten,” one such standard is: “Identify how their family does things both the same as and different from how other people do things.” Do six-year-olds know how other people do things? Do they know whether these things are relevant to diversity and identity? Or another standard: “Describe their family history, culture, and past to current contributions of people in their main identity groups.” (A proficient writer would have hyphenated the compound adjective to avoid confusing the reader.) Do six-year-olds know so much about these things in relation to their “identity group”? Since teachers obviously do not teach them about these other people and have not taught them about these groups, why are these and similar items in the curriculum; or do teachers assign them to go home and collect this information?

Point four follows from “three”; some information relevant to some performance measures requires a disclosure of personal or family matters. The younger the students, the easier it is for teachers to invade their privacy and not only their privacy, but also the privacy of their parents or guardians, or neighbors, who may never be aware of these disclosures or not become aware of them until afterward. PED has no right to design a curriculum which requires teachers to ask students for information about themselves, parents or guardians, or neighbors, or puts teachers on the spot if the disclosures reveal criminal conduct. (Bill says Jeff’s father plays games in bed with his daughter. Lila says Angelo’s mother gives herself shots in the arm.) Since teacher-student communications have no legal protection to ensure privacy, those disclosures may become public accidentally or deliberately. The effect of these proposal standards is to turn New Mexico schools and teachers into investigative agents of the state and students into little informants or spies.

This PED proposal for social studies standards is a travesty of education despite its appeals to purportedly enlightened principles. It constitutes a clear and present danger to individual liberty and civil liberties. It should be repudiated; its development, investigated; its PED perpetrators, dismissed. No state curriculum should encourage or require the disclosure of private personal information.

I am equally outraged by the comments of some of T or C’s school board members: Christine LaFont and Julianne Stroup, two white Christian women, who belong to one of the larger minorities in America and assume white and Christian privileges. In different terms but for essentially the same reason, both oppose an education which includes lessons about historical events and trends, and social movements and developments, of other minorities. They object to the proposal for the new social studies standards because of its emphasis on individual and group identities not white or Christian. I am not going to reply with specific objections; they are too numerous and too pointed.

Ms. LaFont urges: “It’s better to address what’s similar with all Americans. It’s not good to differentiate.” Ms. Stroup adds: “Our country is not a racist country. We have to teach to respect each other. We have civil rights laws that protect everyone from discrimination. We need to teach civics, love and respect. We need to teach how to be color blind.”

Their desires for unity and homogeneity, and for mutual respect, are a contradiction and an impossibility. Aside from a shared citizenship, which implies acceptance of the Constitution, the rule of law and equality under the law, little else defines Americans. We are additionally defined by our race, religion, national origin, etc. So mutual respect requires individuals to respect others different from themselves. Disrespect desires blacks, Jews or Palestinians to assimilate or to suppress or conceal racial, religious or national origin aspects of their identity. The only people who want erasure of nonwhite, non-Christian, non-American origin aspects of identity are bigots. Ms. LaFont and Ms. Stroud want standards which, by stressing similarities and eliding differences, desire the erasure of such aspects. What they want will result in a social studies curriculum that enables white, Christian, native-born children to grow up to be bigots and all others to be their victims. This would be the academic equivalent of ethnic cleansing.

H.E.L.P.

This postmortem of a case involving a 75-year-old women who went missing from her home in Hillsboro last September sheds light on the bounds of law enforcement’s capacity to respond, especially in large rural jurisdictions such as Sierra County, and underscores the critical role the public, as well as concerned family and friends, can play in assisting a missing person’s search.

Reader Jane Debrott of Hillsboro commented: Thank you for your article on the tragic loss of Betsey. I am a resident of Hillsboro, a friend of Rick and Betsey, and a member of H.E.L.P. The thing that most distresses me now, is the emphasis on Rick’s mis-naming of the color of their car. I fear that this fact will cause Rick to feel that if he had only gotten the facts right, Betsey may have been rescued before it was too late. The incident was a series of unavoidable events, out of everyone’s control, and we will never know what place the correct color of her car may have had in the outcome. It breaks my heart to think that Rick has had one more thing added to his “what ifs” concerning this incident.

Diana Tittle responded: Dear Jane, the Sun undertook this investigation at the request of a Hillsboro resident concerned about the town’s inability to mount a prompt, coordinated response to the disappearance of a neighbor. From the beginning, I shared your concern about how our findings might affect Betsy’s family and friends. After I completed my research and began writing, I weighed each detail I eventually chose to include against my desire to cause no pain and the public’s right to know about the strengths and limitations of law enforcement’s response and the public’s need to know about how to be of meaningful assistance.

There was information I withheld about the state police investigation and the recovery. But I decided to include the issue of the car’s color because the individuals who spotted Betsy’s car emphasized how its color had been key to their identification of it as the vehicle described in Betsy’s Silver Alert. Because the misinformation was corrected within a couple of hours, I also included in this story the following editorial comment meant to put the error in perspective: “The fact that law enforcement throughout the state was on the lookout in the crucial early hours after Betsy’s disappearance for an elderly woman driving a “light blue” instead of a “silver” Accord would, in retrospect, likely not have changed the outcome of the search” [emphasis added].

I would also point to the story’s overarching conclusion about the inadvisability of assigning blame for what happened: “In this case, a perfect storm of unfortunate circumstances, many of them beyond human control, hindered the search that it would fall to Hamilton’s department to lead.”

It is my hope that any pain caused by my reporting will eventually be outweighed by its contribution to a better community understanding of what it will take in the future to mount a successful missing person’s search in rural Sierra County.


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1 thought on “News analysis: T or C’s financial paradigm shift”

  1. Discharging the duties of a commissioner is difficult and requires doing home work, learning the issues, being able to analyze and frequently making unpopular decisions. Apparently, many of the current office holders are not up to the task!

    Holding office by virtue of being a graduate of Hot Springs High School should not be the sole qualification for election.

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