County Adapts To PILT Shortfall

By John Severance

SOCORRO -- At a workshop Thursday at the County Annex Building, county manager Delilah Walsh unveiled a tentative list of budget cuts to account for the $500,000 shortfall in PILT money.
Socorro County was earmarked to receive $1.5 million in PILT money, but after a recalculation, it only received $1 million.
Finance director Roberta Smith made $295,000 worth of cuts with the hardest hit being the commission, the detention center and the clerk’s office.
Walsh presented the cuts to the commissioners at Tuesday night’s meeting.
The biggest cuts in the commission budget will come from capital outlay, which means $65,000 will not be used to repair any county buildings. In addition, $25,850 were cut in appropriations, which go to such organizations as Puerto Seguro and the bookmobile. Also cut was a $68,000 subsidy to the detention center.
Walsh said the detention center has five open positions and two will always be open.
“We have such a high turnover rate and we don’t have any applicants,” Walsh said.
The clerk’s office had $40,000 trimmed from its budget.
“My only concern is that it is not taken on a permanent basis,” county clerk Rebecca Vega said. “We need that money to run our elections.”
Walsh assured Vega that money would be there for elections.
Walsh told all department heads if they can not handle the cuts to let her office and Smith’s office know
All departments had their raises cut. The sheriff’s department lost one-half of a position.
Walsh said funds used by the emergency management and DWI departments are safe because they come from different sources.
Overall, Walsh said, “It’s gonna hurt. You guys were all lean and the only fat was personnel. I don’t believe in furloughs either.
“We are the lowest paid county in the state. But there are going to be no furloughs or layoffs. If we have layoffs, it would have a demoralizing effect on the community.”
With the cuts, the county still has a shortfall of about $200,000.
“Our reserves can handle that for one more year,” Walsh said.
Walsh said the county also make up the difference if there is an increase in property tax revenue or gross receipts go up.
Another way to make up the difference would be to cut down on expenses, so there was a discussion about possibly going to four 10-hour days. That would not affect the sheriff’s department, the detention center or the senior center.
Walsh said if the county went to the four 10-hour days, that would help bring down the cost of utilities, which run the county around $90,000 per year.
“We need to get employees more aware to turn off lights and don’t leave equipment on all night,” Walsh said.
It also was brought up that the county had not had a tax sale in 15 years. The commission drafted a resolution a couple months ago that would urge the state taxation and revenue department to hold such a sale.
“If we had a tax sale, we would be fine.”
There were a lot of glum faces, but assessor Val Anaya complimented Walsh near the end of the hour meeting.
“I have to commend you,” Anaya said. “You saw there was a potential train wreck and you are taking measures to correct it.”
The commissioners were impressed as well.
“I am amazed you could make the $295,000 in cuts and still keep jobs,” R.J. Griego said. “I want to say thank you to all the departments who have accepted the cuts.”
Chair Rosie Tripp said, “A lot of credit goes to the department heads. At least, we were not laying off anybody.”

County Adapts To PILT Shortfall