State finance panel blocks PRC bid for relocation funds

Request tabled for $500K grant to help fund office switch, making way for new early childhood ed department

A state finance board has suspended consideration of an emergency funding request from the Public Regulation Commission to help cover the cost of moving to a new office.

The PRC’s current office will soon become the site of the new Early Childhood Education and Care Department, one of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s key priorities during the regular 2020 legislative session.

The finance board, an arm of the state Department of Finance and Administration, this week tabled the emergency request for a $501,041 grant, the PRC disclosed Thursday.

“The PRC believes the request meets all the statutory criteria to be granted an emergency grant from the Board of Finance,” the commission said in a statement. “A current emergency does exist which severely hampers the quality of government service to the people of New Mexico. The lack of office space to conduct day-to-day business incapacitates the PRC.”

The statement went on to say the commission is already making adjustments to its budget after a 4 percent cut to its fiscal year 2021 operating budget of $853,272 and is hamstrung by a hiring freeze for open positions imposed by the State Personnel Office, PRC chief of staff Jason Montoya has said.

The reduction was part of across-theboard slashes to the state budget Lujan Grisham approved after a special session prompted by the pandemic’s severe hits to state coffers.

“I am very concerned with the move during COVID-19,” PRC Chairwoman Theresa Becenti-Aguilar said in a statement.

“We have been working off-site since March, and it’s been very frustrating to get answers from General Services Department to find a new office space.”

In March, PRC commissioners expressed frustration with the order to vacate their longtime office, where they’ve held meetings and conducted business since 2009.

The General Services Department that month informed PRC’s Montoya in a three-sentence letter that said pursuant to the state’s authority outlined in the Property Control Act, it “intends to terminate the agreement effective June 30, 2020.”

The move-out date has been extended until Sept. 30, said Liberty Manabat, a spokeswoman for the PRC.