In an effort to correct the scant public information made available about last year’s budget and the upcoming-year’s final budget due to the state on July 30, the Truth or Consequences City Commission agreed to hold a special meeting, open to the public, but not open for questions from the public.
The City Commission discussed it at the June 24 meeting, new Commissioner Amanda Forrister asking that department heads be there to answer questions.
That meeting is not yet on the City’s calendar for July.
The Commission passed the preliminary budget May 27 with little discussion or questions and many missing pieces, with City Manager Morris Madrid stating they could ask him questions up until the final budget was due, leaving them to navigate the parts-and-pieces preliminary budget on their own. The preliminary budget was one among several important items packed onto the agenda.
The preliminary budget did not include a comparison to last year’s budget, leaving the Commission at sea about what the City Manager Morris Madrid is proposing.
It also did not include much detail on capital projects, roughly estimated at $16 million, a massive amount for a community of less than 6,000 souls. Madrid has often stated that maintenance on the utilities has been “deferred” too long, and these capital projects are necessary, although no long-range planning or how much it will cost and how it will be paid for has been presented.
What the ambitious capital projects debt will do to the City’s overall debt load was also not discussed or brought out by the preliminary-budget documents.
Throughout the year Madrid gave no quarterly budget reports and no year-end budget report is on the July 8 meeting agenda. Therefore if the year-end budget report is ever to appear, it must be at the so-far unscheduled special budget meeting or the July 22 regular meeting, leaving little time to digest a massive amount of information.
Madrid has also not kept the City Commission informed about capital projects over the past year and department heads weren’t required to give reports about operations or capital projects.
A few things do stick out in the preliminary budget.
As usual, the utility funds will be tapped to make up for deficit spending. In other words, the people will pay higher utility bills to fund deficit spending.
The water department will have $412,171 transferred out, although it will only make $1,165,400 in revenue and spend $1,003,776. About $40,000 will be used to supplement the General Fund and about $100,000 will be used to pay the utility office to bill customers.
The solid waste department is costing a fortune and has one of the highest payrolls, about $450,000, with an additional $62,000 paid to outsiders for professional services the staff can’t handle. It will have nearly $283,000 transferred out, with $65,000 going to the General Fund. It too will contribute about $100,000 to the utility office. It will charge $2,224,413 from customers and will spend $2,286,278, according to the preliminary budget, spending more than it makes.
The sewer department will have $246,200 transferred out, with $90,000 going to the General Fund. It will charge customers $1,143,550 and spend $1,023,660. About $100,000 will go to the utility office.
The electric department will have $1,487,291 transferred out, with $1.29 million going to the General Fund. It will charge customers $7,328,874 and spend $6,539,533. It too pays about $100,000 to the utility office. Its professional services costs are also high, at $132,000, indicating staff is underqualified, and staff training will cost nearly $25,000 in the upcoming year.
In all, over $2.4 million will be transferred out of the utilities, with nearly $1.5 million going to the General Fund. It is unknown if the nearly $1 million not going to the General Fund is going to pay off debt for utility capital projects or to shore up other departments’ deficit spending.
It is certain the airport, golf course and swimming pool, besides the General Fund, have deficit spending. Although they are enterprise funds and are supposed to be self-supporting, as are water, solid waste, sewer and electric funds, they are not. The airport will get a $121,000 infusion, the golf course $195,133 and the swimming pool $76,437.
Given the nearly $1.5-million deficit spending in the General Fund and the nearly $400,000 deficit spending in the airport, golf and swimming pool funds, the City Commission may want to consider $1.9 million in cuts or cost-efficiency savings instead of upping utility fees.
Since the solid waste department’s spending is extremely high, ways to make it more cost efficient should be examined. Privatizing trash pick-up versus City costs could be priced. The City’s recycling costs and results should also be priced or at least made public. In addition, the City could put out to bid tipping fees and other services it currently purchases from the Las Cruces landfill. It has not done so since it built the transfer station in 2013.
Without any reporting, it is impossible to know what the residents are getting for its $2.22 million in solid- waste fees and if these services are worth retaining or need cutting back. That also applies to all other City departments.