City to consider $346M budget
With $33.7M more than FY 2021, plan includes raises, funds for pandemic-disrupted projects
In the end, it’s about revenue, and as the city of Santa Fe embarks on its budget process for the 2022 fiscal year, there’s more incoming money — a lot more — to spend.
Buoyed by a looming and perhaps booming economic recovery, and with $15 million in unallocated federal relief money on the way, Mayor Alan Webber unveiled the highlights of his 2022 fiscal year budget plan Friday in an interview with The New Mexican. It’s a $346 million proposal that includes raises for city employees and is full of financial nuggets for several cherished projects that were either abandoned or downsized when the coronavirus pandemic disrupted the current budget.
In all, the budget recommendation is $33.7 million larger than the current budget, an 11 percent increase, city Finance Director Mary McCoy said.
“I’m really pleased with the overall shape of the budget, the values and the story it tells,” Webber said during an interview in which he offered a big-picture look at the proposal. “But I think if you look at some of these small gestures that send big signals, or small allocations that send big signals … there’s a lot to be written about big numbers, but there’s also a whole sidebar on small allocations that make big differences in people’s lives.”
Webber’s sweep of big-ticket items includes:
◆ A salary increase equivalent to 4 percent for Santa Fe Police Officers Association members, plus two unions (IAFF Local 2059 and AFSCME Local 3999), which will be allocated through the collective bargaining process.
◆ A 4 percent raise for nonunion employees and a 3 percent raise for city department directors.
◆ A $2.3 million increase for health insurance rates will be funded from reserves, without increases to employees’ current rates.
◆ A $ 3 million infusion into the Affordable Housing Trust Fund.
Less expensive but potentially controversial expenditures include:
◆ A variety of new full-time employee positions in the city’s Land Use Department.
◆ Five new full-time employees to build capacity for project administration.
◆ $326,000 to conduct the city’s CHART process, its effort to conduct community talks on culture, history, art, reconciliation and truth after social unrest in the country and the toppling of the Plaza obelisk in October. ◆ $112,000 for a “police workload assessment” intended to evaluate the Santa Fe Police Department’s call loads.
◆ $200,000 for a growth management study.
On the last point, Webber defended the study — which currently does not include Santa Fe County — as a starting point for long-range planning on an issue that bedevils a city where median housing prices are exploding.
“The heart of the issue is how do we continue to build housing and grow without losing the essential character and essence of Santa Fe,” he said. “You find that essence of Santa Fe when you look at a growth management study that looks at not just how much housing we need, but how do we house people in ways that keep Santa Fe, Santa Fe?”
Other proposals, Webber added, are simply about trying to do things that will help city residents, including:
◆ $255,000 for fire department training, crisis intervention, de-escalation training and mental illness recognition.
◆ $75,000 for an eviction prevention hotline.
◆ A $71,000 allotment for a domestic violence and sexual assault coordinator to work with the police department.
◆ $70,000 to help reestablish a Drug Court within the Santa Fe Municipal Court.
Webber, who is running for reelection in November — City Councilor JoAnne Vigil Coppler is the only announced challenger — is nearing the completion of his term. The city recently held budget hearings to allow the public to offer input on priorities and wants. The process now heads to the City Council’s Finance Committee on Tuesday, when it will hear presentations with big-picture perspective and from individual departments. Those will continue for the next two weeks, with the governing body scheduled to vote on the budget April 28.
Gil Martinez, vice president of AFSCME Local 3999, said he didn’t know enough about the details of Webber’s proposals for raises to make a judgment, adding he was alerted to the possibility in a memo late last week.
“It’s an election year,” Martinez said. “I’m not saying that’s what this is about, but I’ve had thoughts that this [raises] could happen because it is an election year. When I read the memo, it rang a bell.”
Martinez, whose union has been highly critical of Webber in recent months, said Local 3999 has taken its case to the City Council in recent weeks, asking policymakers “not to forget about us.”
As the pandemic took hold just as the fiscal year 2021 budget was taking shape, McCoy created several different proposals — “pre-pandemic, pandemic and pandemic-plus,” Webber said. The final product, he added, was a “scarcity budget” that reflected the economic realities of a tourism- and entertainment-driven city devoid of tourists and entertainment.
But the revenue picture for 2022, McCoy said, is much more promising, much of it juiced by federal relief funding that is being showered on the private and public sectors. McCoy cautioned, however, it could take two to three years for the city economy to recover to pre-pandemic levels.
“What does that mean for our economic recovery? That means businesses are opening up, we’re allowed indoor dining, bars are allowed to open, facilities like Meow Wolf and tourist attractions are opening,” she said. “This is really a big boost, and earlier than anticipated, to our economic recovery in Santa Fe. … This picture paints a very different portrait than where we were at back in July. When we had originally estimated in July gross receipts tax revenue at $90 million, we’re now estimating revised revenue estimates at $97 million because of that economic growth.”
And then there’s direct federal stimulus money. Webber and McCoy said $15 million is expected, but rules for spending it have not been issued and the money has not yet been allocated.