By Mary Alice Murphy

The purpose of the Grant County Commission special meeting on July 25, 2024 was to hear the details of the final budget for fiscal year 2025 and approve it as well as the fourth quarter FY24 financial report and to consider the budget adjustments for the 2024 approved budget.

With no public input, then-Finance Director Robert Placencio presented the details of the final FY25 budget to be submitted to the state for approval.

Placencio said he had submitted the preliminary FY25 budget prior to the June 1 deadline, and this final budget took into account the final numbers as of the end of FY24.

He prepared a PowerPoint presentation to summarize some of the changes from the preliminary budget to the final budget.

"Of course, we all know that we have limited resources, and we have departments competing for those resources. So you, as the commissioners, set the policy, dictate the priorities and help guide us in allocating the resources. I remember when the budget was a once-a-year necessary evil exercise with incrementalism. It's so much more than that. Now it is a plan. A financial plan can be short or long term, and a budget is for one year and is the main building block of a long-term financial plan. It's a plan of operations matching uses with sustainable sources. A budget is dynamic and evolves allowing room for change through BAR (budget adjustment requests) adjustments. We have to account for every penny. And in the spirit of transparency and fiscal responsibility, that's what we're looking forward to with Grant County going forward, more than anything. We want transparency. We want to be informative. We want you to be able to rely on us. We want to provide you with financial data. We want to make things easier for you to make decisions so going forward and that's our goal in finance department.

"I want to let you know that most of the changes for preliminary budget were either we had a placeholder for some of our grants and we entered the best possible number at the time, or we didn't feel comfortable. So what we did was we went up and looked at a bunch of the grants and also entered as accurate debt as we have. Obviously, a lot of our grants are federal, so they're on a different fiscal year than we are. Theirs begins on October 1. We were able to retrieve a lot of information and true us up in the grant income, and then from there, the grant expenditure. So that is a lot of our changes from the preliminary.

He said he also want to let commissioners know that the year would likely be a challenging year. "We are trying to reinvent how we do things with finance, and we're probably going to be coming to you a lot this year with budget adjustments. It's because we want to true up things. We want to make sure we do things with the spirit of transparency and Fiscal Responsibility going forward. We want to keep you informed and we want you to be able to weigh in on any of the fiscal activity within the different funds."

He then presented some of the changes from the preliminary budget.

"We added $321,219 to true up the PILT (payment in lieu of taxes from the federal government on federal land within the county) award. We were able to increase it to a total of $2.821,219 million, because we received the final numbers on the award.
We added $147,003 94, to 401-02-5002. This is for the county managers. It's where two employees were moved from part-time to full-time positions, and we also added a Grants administrator to assist us with policy and internal controls.
We added $46,072, to 402-15-5002, for an additional road supervisor.
We also added the fire and excise amounts to fund 406 for some of the other changes.
We reduced by $400,000 in 4504-00-4584 in the airport budget, due to reduced occupation and activity and fuel usage.
We added budget authority to the Detention Center for accreditation management and to align uniforms and vest with CBA (collective bargaining agreements). and
We added budget authority to Fund 537 for road and streets projects."

He summarized four major funds

For the General Operating Fund for FY2, revenue is expected to come in at $19,041,421.

For the county road department, the revenue is expected to come in at $1,045,850. For the detention center, about $1.273 million. For the airport fund, which is an Enterprise Fund, the expected is $2.4 million. The rest for the airport consists of governmental funds.

He summarized the revenue in a pie chart, which showed the largest chunk is all other departments other than those above, with the general operating fund at about 30%, the county road is 2%, the jail is 2% and the airport Enterprise Fund is 5% of the total revenue.

General operating expenditures come in at about $14 million, the county road at almost $2,000,000 at $1.9 million, the detention center at 4.1 million, and the airport enterprise at $2.5 million."

Placencio asked for questions.

District 5 Commissioner Harry Browne asked: '"These don't include the monies we receive, for example, forcounty roads at less than $2 million. I'm thinking it doesn't include monies received from the state and federal sources. Is that right? That's just our operating portion, right? We do anticipate receiving state funding, and we do anticipate several projects for the capital outlays."

Placencio said what he reported is just the operating funding. "I want to clarify that, in case anybody's watching, they think: 'wow, we only spend $2 million on our roads. We need so much more.' Because we do need a lot. The actual number is going to end up being maybe 10 times, something like that. Yes, you're right. That's just the general overview of the other funding that falls in that category."

County Manager Charlene Webb said Browne was correct: "We spend about five times that amount on roads."

Browne continued: "And then let me go back. Earlier you described the increase in PILT once we got that number nailed down from the feds. It looked like it went up by $321,000 and then I couldn't really account for how that was spread out in expenditures. Where did the rest of that revenue get allocated?

Webb said: "We don't take that increase and allocate it to specific departments. So we just know that's the big revenue. And then it's just a source. We don't allocate that particular increase to any one particular line item or department. It is just the generalized source of revenue for all the departments within the general fund."

Browne said: "I guess the takeaway I get from that increase is the one thing that I want. I'm only going to ask for one thing, and that's what I've asked before, which is a position for implementing the trails and open space master plan that was approved quite some time ago. And if there were any question about whether we have funds. This seems to answer that question to me. I didn't have the question anyway, we do have funds. I would like to see that included in the budget so that further down the line we're not told, 'Well, it's not in the budget,' and that adds extra time and barrier for making this happen. So that's the one request I have, is that we have say $100,000 for that position."

District 4 Commissioner Billy Billings said he has had several conversations with Mr. Placencio. "I have a question about the Detention Center. It gives a sense that it's only 8 percent of the budget."

Webb concurred, but said the Detention Center actually uses 30 percent from the operating fund. "The 8 percent included everything we do, like grants, etc. I have a wish list for more code enforcement officers. But I'm not suggesting changes today."

District 3 Commission Alicia Edwards suggested it could be done with a BAR. She also said that the public should understand that the Detention Center takes about a third of the county General Fund.

Placencio thanked Manager Webb and Assistant Manager Andrea Montoya for "getting us to this point. I've been here 2 1/2 weeks, and on Friday we had a Microsoft outage."

Commissioners approved the final FY 25 budget.

Next came the fourth quarter report.

Webb said the general fund had $8.7 million in cash, with revenues of $18.4 million, transfers out of $4 million, expenditures of $10.4 million, leaving a balance of $10.7 million. with a required reserve of $2.6 million leaving an adjusted balance at the end of FY24 of $8.1 million.

The Road Fund began with $438, 000, revenues of $1 million, transfers in of $845,000, expenditures of $1.8 million, with a balance of $491,000, a required reserve of $150,000 and an adjusted balance of $340,000.

The Detention Center fund began with $910,000, revenues of almost $1.28 million, transfers in of $1.7 million, expenditures of $2.4 million, with a balance of $1.4 million, with no required reserve.

Browne said: "It looks like we took in $4 million more than we spent."

Webb said she wished she could explain that, but it has been difficult to track down.

Browne said it was a good thing that it was in the right direction. "It looks like we have some extra things we could to and maybe hire extra staff."

Webb noted that property taxes and gross receipts taxes were trending upward.

Commissioners approved the quarterly report.

The final item under consideration was the budget adjustment requests.

"We can't approve this," Webb said. "We don't have the final numbers, so we don't have the adjusting numbers."

During commissioner reports, District 2 Commissioner Eloy Medina said he had recently held a meeting in Mimbres that went well, and that the grand opening for the Mimbres Clinic would take place on Aug. 1.

Billings said he was late to the meeting because he received a phone call from a constituent sharing his concerns about junk yards around the county. "I assured him we would discuss it at our next meetings on Aug. 6 and 8. I reiterated that it's time to clean these junk yards, especially in residential neighborhoods. The problem seems to be growing rather than shrinking.

District 1 Commissioner and Chair Chris Ponce asked what the county was doing for code enforcement.

Webb said the Sheriff, as well as the fire chief and emergency manager would be dealing with the issues. "We will utilize all resources and help putting this issue forward."

Ponce noted that all the commissioners are getting calls about it.

Billings noted that one citizen is addressing the trash issue. "She picks up lots of trash, especially in the Ridge Road area. Is it the sheriff or who should be dealing with this?

Sheriff Raul Villanueva said his department can enforce it. "We get up there when we can. We can issue a citation if we catch them in the act. We need to put a stop to trash blowing out of vehicles. We appreciate those who do clean up."

Webb noted that the fine for littering is $300 per incident.

Browne said that the county needs to discuss with the Southwest Waste Authority, too, because a $5 fine for an uncovered load is not enough.

Billings noted that the cost of a tarp and putting it over a load is at least 10 times as much as the fine. "It should be a significant payment. I used to not wear a seatbelt, but after four citations and fines, I started wearing my seatbelt."

Edwards agreed it needed to be a significant fine, and people need to take responsibility not to throw thrash out of their vehicles.

Browne, said, as he serves on the Southwest Waste Authority board, he would seek support from others on the board. "Every third Saturday, the town holds a Toss No Was. I did it last time. I encourage all of you to do it. In about two hours, we picked up enough to fill the back of two pickups and a trailer." He also noted the significant event at the hospital of the opening of the Women and Newborn section. "On the trails issues, I went to a meeting, and we had a call with the CDT (continental Divide Trail) director on how to connect our local trails with the CDT. They asked us about our work on the trails and open spaces. I was embarrassed that I had nothing, so we need to be able to tell them something."

Ponce said he didn't get to the session.

Montoya said it lasted about 30-40 minutes, and she has the updates.

Medina noted that a proposal to the town planning and zoning in Bayard for an SOS type facility in their neighborhood had energized the residents. They created a petition and presented about 150 signatures that the residents did not want the SOS facility in their neighborhood.

The meeting adjourned.

He summarized the four major funds