October 29, at an undisclosed time and location, local elected officials and city and county managers will pitch their top projects and ask for capital outlay from our legislators.
“Capital outlay” is not a thing in other states. It is peculiar to New Mexico. It’s considered easy money with no strings, unlike grants from the New Mexico Finance Authority’s grant/loan programs.
The NMFA application process requires preliminary engineering reports which are examined and approved or rejected by state and federal experts from environmental, water, sewer, electrical and financial departments. From application to shoveling dirt is at minimum an 18–month process, Assistant City Manager Traci Alvarez told city commissioners at the Oct. 14 regular meeting.
These NMFA projects mostly come with 20- to 40-year loans, which our children and grandchildren will be paying off in their utility bills.
The NMFA is where the multi-million-dollar projects get funded.
Capital outlay requests are usually six figures, since state representatives are allotted about $500,000 each a year and state senators about $1 million a year.
State legislators representing Sierra County and the three municipalities within (Village of Williamsburg, Truth or Consequences and Elephant Butte) are Representatives Gail Armstrong and Rebecca Dow and Senator Crystal Brantley. All three are Republicans.
Keep in mind that our legislators have other constituents in other cities and counties within their state districts and must pick and choose which of the many proposed projects are the worthiest.
Worthiest is often deemed serving the largest number of constituents. The best strategy is local governments cooperating on and coordinating project-funding requests.
For about five years straight, from around 2010 to 2014, Sierra County and its three municipalities all asked for the same thing–funding for a new hospital wing. Senator John Arthur Smith gave about $10 million to that project from around 2010 to 2018 in capital outlay. Such cooperation locally has not been seen since.
The Governor also has a pot of capital outlay money set aside for local-government capital projects. Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham gave out $595 million last year to local governments’ capital projects. The year before she gave T or C $1 million for improvements to the city’s wastewater treatment plant. The same amount was requested last year, but not given.
It is unclear from the city commission’s discussion Oct. 14 what the city will request from the Governor this legislative session, but City Manager Gary Whitehead mentioned the $1 million she gave before and implied the same amount will be requested–again for the wastewater treatment plant. About $4.2 million has already been found for what the engineers estimate will bid out at between $5 million and $6 million.
In deciding what to ask of legislators this legislative session, City Manager Whitehead and Assistant City Manager Alvarez went over the city commission’s “Infrastructure Capital Improvements Projects” selected “last spring” Whitehead said.
If a project is not on the ICIP the legislators can’t fund it.
Two project needs have come up that are not on the ICIP since last spring that Whitehead requested the city commission consider. They did, and ordered them added to the list: Shade for the recently completed street, curb and gutter upgrades to Foch Street and a permanent stand for the recently given helicopter to be displayed on “Veterans’ Hill,” near the Dianne Hamilton Military Museum.
In order of priority, these are the capital outlay requests the city will make on October 29:
- Clancy Street lift station and sewer line: This will replace the line and pumps that get sewage and wastewater up to the top of the Veterans’ Hill and then on to the wastewater treatment plant. Whitehead said a little over $1 million in funding has been found but $500,000 more is needed to complete the project, which will be the amount of the capital outlay request.
- Lee Belle Johnson Community Center: Closed for about five years due to the hot springs beneath cleaving the floor, about $500,000 has been found. About $500,000 more is needed to engineer and fix the foundation, which will be the amount of the capital outlay request.
- Sewer Vacuum System along east Riverside Drive: About $470,000 has been secured, but $500,000 more is needed, which will be the amount of the capital outlay request.
- Permanent stand for the helicopter on Vet’s Hill: The capital outlay request will be $100,000.
- Shade for Foch St. and environs: The capital outlay request will be $300,000.
It is unknown if the meeting with legislators will be public. In past years no public notice has been given, despite the risk of a quorum of city commissioners, city councilors and county commissioners attending, which requires public notice.
City Manager Whitehead said the South Central Council of Governments will again be hosting the meeting, but he didn’t give the time or location.
I have called SCCOG Director Jay Armijo, but he has not returned my calls.
As in past years, it looks as if our local officials will be avoiding any public observance of their capital outlay requests, despite the obvious public interest in what the government builds in our name.