County approves $323M interim budget

Commissioners foresee $7 million funding gap

Santa Fe County commissioners on Tuesday unanimously approved an interim budget for the upcoming fiscal year that projects a $27.2 million drop in revenue.

The county government already has identified about $7.1 million in cuts officials say won’t affect core services. It also is applying nearly $13.3 million in savings from the current fiscal year to make up the shortfall, leaving a funding gap of nearly $7 million.

The county plans to use cash reserves to balance the books when it submits its interim budget of $323 million to the state Department of Finance and Administration by Monday’s deadline.

But before the final budget is submitted, county commissioners are being asked to consider a wide range of other cuts that could eliminate an additional $2.48 million in expenses, from axing $91,000 in radio contracts and a $350,000 renovation project at the behavioral health crisis center in Edgewood to closing satellite offices of the Community Services Department in Pojoaque, Edgewood and Eldorado.

Joey Rowe, the county’s budget

administrator, said more than 90 percent of the work performed at the satellite offices involves staff selling permits. Residents would need to purchase permits at the new county administration building in downtown Santa Fe or online, when the service is available, if the satellite offices were affected by budget cuts.

County Manager Katherine Miller emphasized that no decisions have been made.

“These items have not been taken out of the budget,” Miller said during the board’s virtual meeting. “We put these in here for you to consider over the next month as to whether you would like us to look at cutting these.”

While the novel coronavirus pandemic made financial planning for the fiscal year that begins July 1 more difficult, Miller said budget requests originally made by department directors were about $5 million over original revenue estimates.

“No matter what, if everything had been wonderful, we would’ve still been trying to pull about $5 million out of department and elected officials’ recurring budget requests,” she told commissioners. “But with the decline in revenues, we’re looking at pulling out something more like $23 million from requests to our new estimated revenues of $121 million. That’s a big stretch because that’s pulling it below even [fiscal year 2018 and 2019] expenditures. That’s why this is challenging.”

County spokeswoman Carmelina Hart said the county has “worked diligently” to create the interim budget.

“By definition, an interim budget is fluid, and for the upcoming fiscal year, we have been able to make predictions based on past financial crisis models, with a goal of maintaining core services while reviewing expenditures and maximizing revenues responsibly,” she wrote in an email, adding that the county would continue to “analyze and revise” the spending plan before a final draft is submitted to the state.

Miller told commissioners she anticipates giving them monthly updates after the final budget is adopted.

“It’s a continuous process because things are changing daily,” she said.