Serving the High Plains

Revenue likely to impact city jobs, services

Revenue shortages because of the COVID-19 economic freeze and increases in state minimum wage likely would result in loss of jobs, conversion of some full-time city jobs to part-time positions and reductions in city services, Tucumcari city commissioners learned during a public workshop Thursday.

Acting city manager Mark Martinez and city Finance Director Rachelle Arias on Thursday presented two versions of a bad-news budget for fiscal 2021, which begins July 1 and ends June 30, 2021, to the commission.

In one version, the city would change as little as possible in employment and services but end fiscal 2021 with a $851,000 deficit. In a second version, with cuts to personnel and services, the city finishes fiscal 2021 with, in theory, a $108,000 deficit, Arias said.

With the first option, Arias said, the city would mean the loss of 17 full-time, three part-time and five vacant positions on the city payroll to make ends meet.

With the second option, she said, the city would lose 10 full-time positions, convert seven full-time to positions to part-time and eliminate three part-time positions.

Martinez said to develop the second option, “we started thinking outside the box.”

The city could not make cuts in police, fire and emergency medical services, he said. Water, wastewater and garbage-collection services, he said, require state certification, and the city cannot afford to lose positions there.

The Tucumcari Senior Citizens Center is financed by state funds, “so we don’t need to reduce employment there.”

Crews who work the cemetery, city parks and clean city property could be consolidated and rotated to work where needed, reducing the number of employees needed for that kind of work.

Martinez said the city also took a hard look at staffing for recreation, Tucumcari Public Library and the city’s history and railroad museums.

In recreation, he said, some positions could be made part time and hours cut back and arranged to allow maximum opportunities for children. The library, he said, could reduce hours to make the library available when it receives the most use.

The museums, he said, could rely mostly on volunteers for staffing.

“Volunteers need to step up to the plate,” he said.

In other communities he contacted, city employees do not staff museums, Martinez said.

District 1 Commissioner Ralph Moya asked whether some employees could retire early to reduce the need to lay off younger employees with families.

Martinez said opportunities are limited because the state allows only the “buying” of only one year to bring an employee up to the 25 years required before an employee can retire with full benefits.

In addition, he said, “we’d lose the experience.”

Parks Director Thomas Gallegos asked whether the city should keep paying “contractors” who are not city employees.

Martinez said most contractors the city engages are engineers, attorneys and auditors, but a few positions could be re-evaluated.

District 5 Commissioner Todd Duplantis asked about overtime pay with staff reductions.

Sometimes, he said, it may be cheaper to add a few positions than to pay fewer people more in overtime.

Moya suggested more aggressive marketing of the Tucumcari Convention Center for business conventions and regional meetings.

Loy McSpadden, the convention center’s director, said the facility was fully booked months in advance before it was closed due to COVID-19. The center hosts many quinceanaras and birthday parties for residents.

Martinez said he still would like to see the city hire a full-time marketer to bring more out-of-town business to the convention center and other city facilities.

The city’s $58,000-a-year contract with the Greater Tucumcari Economic Development Corporation also was questioned.

“As contracts come up, we have to look at them,” District 4 Commissioner Christopher Arias said.

Mayor Ruth Ann Litchfield said she also wanted to look at the EDC contract.

One city employee who called in to the meeting pointed out the city still is staffed at about the same level as when Tucumcari’s population was double what it is today.

Martinez said some cities he surveyed had the same number of employees as Tucumcari, though Tucumcari is half their size.

Arias said discussion of the budget should continue before the commission’s May 14 meeting, and a preliminary budget should be turned in to the New Mexico Department of Finance and Administration by May 31.