[Editor's Note: This is the final article in a multi-series of articles on the Grant County Commission work session on June 25 and the regular meeting of June 27, 2019.]
By Mary Alice Murphy
Grant County commissioners at their work session after department head reports and presentations, on June 25, 2019, heard in the review of the regular meeting agenda from County Manager Charlene Webb that no applicants had applied to be on three county advisory boards—Lodger's Tax, Shooting Range and Tu Casa. The appointments were removed from the regular meeting agenda and would be re-advertised.
Assessor Raul Turrieta asked if elected officials could apply. County Attorney Abigail Burgess said she would look into the issue.
Commissioner Alicia Edwards said she had spoken with the current consumer advocate for Tu Casa, and he said, if the county could not find an applicant, he would be willing to do it again. "I am struck by there being no applicants. Where was it advertised?"
Webb said it was in a display ad, in legal ads, on the county Facebook page and on the county website.
Edwards said: "These are important positions for our decision making." To the audience and to those listening to the recording, she said: "We would appreciate your applying as part of your civic duty. I encourage those being reached to apply. I know shooting sports is a very important program in 4-H. Maybe we could get a student to apply. How about contacting the social work and nursing departments at the university to apply to the Tu Casa position, and maybe someone at the Business Department for the Lodger's tax spot."
The next presentation was from Cindy Blackman of the DWI Program on consideration of a professional services agreement between the Grant County DWI Program and Chris Helgert of the Recovery Management Center. Because the grant received by the program requires that 65 percent be spent on treatment services most counties provide such treatment services. "We do some treatment services. Not all our clients have Medicaid or private insurance, so we provide treatment for them through Recovery Management. This year, the amount for Recovery Management was lowered. Last year, the amount received was $45,000. This year we had to readjust our budget and cut $10,000 because a lot of those we treat are eligible for Medicaid."
Edwards asked if a person could go to Tu Casa for detox and then to Recovery Management for services.
"Yes, as long as they are not going to both at the same time for the exact same treatment services," Blackman said.
Webb continued with the regular meeting review.
The next agreement was a grant agreement between the county and the New Mexico Department of Finance and Administration Local Government Division for the 2020 E-911 grant for $502,000 to purchase new hardware and software for the Dispatch Center to bring it up to the next generation of dispatch systems, and "so it will match the new CAD (computer-assisted dispatch) system."
The agreement was approved at the regular session.
A professional services agreement between the Sixth Judicial District Court Pretrial Services Division and Luis Alvarado to provide pretrial services, not to exceed $22,500. This, too, was approved at the regular session.
The work and financial plan with the USDA for Wildlife Services was extensively covered in http://www.grantcountybeat.com/news/news-articles/51892-grant-county-commission-work-session-062519-and-regular-meeting-062719-part-1 It was approved with an amendment that may or may not be accepted by USDA by a 3-2 vote.
An agreement was approved at the regular meeting for the Road Department to work with Santa Clara to chip seal streets in the village. At the work session, Commissioner Billy Billings said the county does such work for municipalities. "They purchase the material, and we provide the equipment. The price is contracted."
Webb noted that the Local Government Road Fund should increase over the next three years due to the increase in motor vehicle excise taxes that went into effect July 1. "It is a bit disheartening to hear about the 'extra' $50 million the New Mexico Department of Transportation has, when we could have used the funding this year if the LGRF hadn't been cut. We applied for funding for some shovel-ready projects. We're waiting to hear."
Webb lumped three professional service agreements together. The first two were agreements with Gary Stailey and with James Graham with the Grant County Continuum of Youth Services. The third was with Bianca Padilla. "All three are funded through the juvenile justice grant. Stailey works with youths on probation; Graham continues the education of those students who have been suspended, and it allows Silver Schools to keep their enrolled allotment whole; and Padilla is the juvenile justice coordinator."
Commissioner Harry Browne asked why the commissioners were agreeing to the agreement if it was school related.
"It's our grant," Webb said. "We are trying to keep kids out of detention. Yes, it benefits the schools, but it also benefits us for not incarcerating them. It is part of the continuum grant. We do a lot of in kind for the match."
The three agreements for professional services were approved at the regular meeting.
The first resolution was to authorize and approve the submission of a completed application for financial assistance and project approval to the New Mexico Finance Authority for a portion of the purchase of the CAD software upgrade for the Dispatch Center.
Webb said the county is the fiscal agent for Dispatch. "We will pay for this through the increment of gross receipts tax that fund the Dispatch Authority."
Commissioners approved it at the regular meeting.
They also approved the amendments to the approved and adopted budget for the 2018-19 fiscal year budget to allow the transfer of funds before the end of the fiscal year, which ended on June 30, 2019.
Consideration of May 2019 Health Care claims were tabled until the first meeting of July, which will take place July 11.
In Commissioner reports at the work session, Commissioner Javier Salas said he had met with the Gila National Forest Supervisor Adam Mendonca. "He was very receptive to working with the county. He was receptive to the proposal on trails that we discussed last meeting. I think we could use someone in the county for parks and recreation to deal with the issues, embrace it and control it for motorized vehicles and non-motorized trails. Mr. Mendonca is willing to work with us."
He said he had been looking at Bataan Park again. "We should be getting information. I see things that are possible."
"When we talk about current job descriptions, I want to make sure we continue the process," Salas said. "What kind of action do we need to take to look at promotions in house first?"
Browne thanked Salas for working with Mendonca.
Edwards and Billings saved their reports for the regular meeting.
Commission Chairman Chris Ponce thanked everyone for the cards he received after his mother passed away. "Thank you for the phone calls. I felt at home with what the staff did. I thank the Sheriff's Department for their full escort. I thank all of you."
At the regular session, Edwards was the first to give her report. "I also went to the New Mexico Counties conference in Clovis. I want to share a couple of things. One, the New Mexico Supreme Court has a group working on whether to use licensed legal technicians, who are not attorneys, to aid people in counties that may not have enough attorneys. In 2018, 51 percent of cases had one party without an attorney. They plan to make recommendations by January 2020."
She said she sees the opportunity to broaden the options for students. "It's a type of program that the training could happen in Grant County."
Edwards said one of the presentations was by Secretary Bill McCamley of Workforce Solutions. "There is $25 million in funding distributed among the regions based on population and poverty numbers. These regional bodies are essentially non-functioning. It is actually the counties who are in charge of these funds. When you look at the data charts, our region was taking advantage of the funds, but we are not taking charge of them enough, so there is a large potential that we are not getting this money for training. The connection is the licensing program for training licensed legal technicians under the Workforce Opportunity Act. We are represented on the board, and I am an alternate on the Worker's Comp board. New Mexico Counties has substantial resources for training. At localgovu.gov, there are 647 training courses. I'm sure all of us would benefit from the risk awareness program. I saw a lot of different counties that are taking advantage of the training."
She said there are civilian crisis intervention courses to teach de-escalation of a crisis. "I see gigantic barriers to keeping crazy people out of schools and government offices. Trainings are coming up in Albuquerque, Taos and Raton. Maybe they already happened in our half of the state. I also saw the loss ratio summary under Worker's Comp from fiscal years 2008-09 to 2017-18. For Grant County, overall, we were at 46.06 percent. It's good that we are under 50 percent. The reason this is important, is the 32 of the 33 counties that participate in it and put effort into it, resulted in a 15 percent decrease in funds expended from $220,000 to $189,000. Exemplary results turn into savings."
Edwards also talked about the upcoming U.S. Census in 2020. "New Mexico is the hardest state to count in the country, but Grant County is not the hardest to count in the state. We have to have a personal count by going house-to-house, counting renters, immigrants, as well as those in remote rural areas. There are two reasons why I'm telling you this. In New Mexico, the effect of a 1 percent undercount costs the state $700 million a year. That is $7.1 billion over the next 10 years."
She cited the programs that could be affected by the undercount and less funding.
"It will also affect the reapportionment of Congress," Edwards said. "We have the chance to lose a Congressional seat. It is incumbent on all of us to make sure we help (Community Development and Planning Director Michael) Mischa (Larisch) to make sure we don't lose money and a Congressional seat. It could mean the state is represented by only one party, which can happen, of course."
She also said the hospital Board of Trustees appointments are "worth thinking about. Because of the way the Hospital Funding Act is structured, this is the only opportunity for the county to take any responsibility for the county-owned hospital. The Commission does not have authority over the hospital other than naming the trustees. We have the responsibility of owning the hospital, but no authority to make decisions. I think it's a stressful relationship, because we have responsibility but not authority and we have to have discussions in open meetings."
Browne said he had three things on his list to talk about. The next day, June 28, was the Wild and Scenic Film Festival. "There will be 16 short films inspiring activism to support wild and scenic rivers."
Second, he said the director of Regional Dispatch Authority has resigned and there was an acting director while a search for a permanent director is underway.
"And I would like to make a brief correction," Browne said. "I mentioned earlier should the mines stop producing copper they would stop paying property taxes, but that's not true, it would revert to standard property assessment rates."
Salas said he wanted everyone to know that the commissioners were doing due diligence on the appointments to the hospital board.
"I want to see diversity in economic development," he continued. "The trails and collaboration with the Forest Service have great potential to plant seeds to put in the mechanism to promote the trails. We want to continue to address the possibility of added duties to a county staff member or a new position to help us create economic diversity."
Edwards encouraged Salas to meet with Larisch. "I've been hot on trails since before I was elected. I would like us to help Mischa."
Ponce said he had an announcement. "I resigned my position at Freeport-McMoRan on June 15. I was working and doing the County Commission, which took a lot of time. I was missing out on meetings. I had to take a step back to decide and think about what I was elected to do. I will devote my time to being a commissioner. I will be putting in office hours. The resignation took stress off me."
Salas said each commissioner is assigned to committees. "I'm hoping we could have a calendar. We who are retired may have more time to devote to committee meetings."
The commissioners went into executive session to discuss personnel matters regarding the county manager and staff and disposal of real property.
They adjourned from the executive session without making any decisions.
The next work session will take place at 9 a.m. Tuesday, July 9, following a special meeting to narrow the number of hospital trustee applicants to six from 11.