City fails to make six PERA payments

City manager says missed contributions to retirement fund due to issue with new payroll system

Nancy Howley, an information technology worker for the city of Santa Fe, called the state Public Employees Retirement Association earlier this month to ask about her possible retirement dates.

What she learned, Howley said, is the city was 2½ months behind on its contribution payments to the retirement fund — money that already had been deducted from workers’ paychecks.

PERA Deputy Executive Director Greg Trujillo confirmed the city had failed to submit reports and remit contributions six times: on April 17, May 1, May 15, May 29, June 11 and June 26.

The Santa Fe Solid Waste Management Agency, a joint city/county entity, also failed to submit its reports and contributions May 29, June 12 and June 26, Trujillo said.

He did not respond to a follow-up email asking how much money the city owes and whether any other local governments or government agencies in the state are behind on payments.

The city of Santa Fe also did not provide the amounts of the missed payments.

When asked to explain the reason for the lapse, Kristine Mihelcic, the city’s constituent services director, provided an email City Manager Jarel LaPan Hill

sent Monday to Chris Armijo, a representative of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. LaPan Hill said the issue resulted from a newly implemented payroll system that is part of the city’s multimillion-dollar technology upgrade.

The city started the initiative, called the Enterprise Resource Planning and Land Use System Modernization Project, in 2016.

“We are continuing to reconcile our PERA uploaded data and complete payment during this transition,” LaPan Hill wrote. “Staff has corrected the errors and will continue to work with PERA.”

Trujillo said the city has until July 24 to resolve the backlog.

Although PERA has the authority to assess penalties for late reporting, he said, “Given the challenges that virtually every city and county in New Mexico, including Santa Fe, is facing as a result of COVID-19, PERA does not intend to assess penalties at this time.”

Howley said she quickly alerted Armijo about the issue after her July 8 phone call with PERA.

“I wish they’d be transparent,” she said of city officials. “I think we all would have understood because of COVID-19 that they were going to make the payments late, and they didn’t tell us anything.”

Armijo said the PERA payment lapse is part of a series of city payroll issues.

“I’m not saying they can’t correct it, but it is very important to our membership that their monies are accounted for, especially since they have been taken out of their checks,” he said.

AFSCME Local 3999 President Gilbert Baca and Vice President Gil Martinez also said the city has had several employee paycheck problems in the past year or so.

In February, the city deposited two paychecks into employees’ bank accounts and then withdrew the second payment, Baca said.

Last year, Martinez added, the city failed to deduct benefit fees from employees’ paychecks and then took the money back.

In this case, the missed PERA payments did not negatively affect any employees, City Councilor Chris Rivera said.

“I think the most important thing is the city is going to take care of it,” Rivera said.

But Councilor JoAnne Vigil Coppler called the issue “totally unacceptable” and said the failure to remit retirement contributions is “just flat out wrong — and to keep quiet about it, I think it is manipulative and it is very unfair not to disclose.”

Vigil Coppler said she has been asking for weeks for documents regarding the city’s massive budget shortfall as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic but has not received them.

She said she believes “there are several people who are asleep at this wheel.”

“I think if the mayor and the city manager were paying more attention instead of stealing statues in the night, maybe — just maybe — we would have a more professional government,” Vigil Coppler said. She was referring to Mayor Alan Webber’s decision last month to remove a statue of Don Diego de Vargas from Cathedral Park and to try to remove the Plaza’s obelisk, a controversial war monument, as Native American activists were preparing to stage a protest.

Howley said her main concern is making sure the PERA payments are made so she can retire next year.

“I’ve been excited to retire, so when I called and I got this information, it was a blow,” she said.