CIBOLA COUNTY, N.M. – The Cibola County Board of Commissioners hosted a May 4 budget workshop which was attended by representatives from across the county.
Commission Chairman Daniel Torrez explained the COVID-19 state guidelines which allows counties such as Cibola with a “turquoise” designation to host public gatherings. The public retains the option of watching the meetings on Facebook Live.
County Finance Director Paul Ludi’s presentation described the General Funds, Special Revenue Funds, Debt Service Funds, Proprietary Funds, Capital Project Funds, and Fiduciary Funds. He discussed the purpose of each fund and how managing them accurately is crucial. The finance director acknowledged thinking about all of it at once can become complicated.
“That’s why it’s so important to... manage every fund like its own set of balancing accounts,” he explained and added that overseeing finances and budgets is all about finding things as they come up and cleaning them up if necessary.
It is especially important to clean up governmental budgets by the reporting deadlines of the DFA (Dimensional Fund Advisors). The interim budget report is due annually on June 1, and the final budget report is due on July 31.
County Manager Kate Fletcher expressed a desire for DFA to be more of a tool for the counties than they have been in the past few years. Ludi emphasized the importance of understanding how the finances work and how having the proper recordkeeping knowledge is what helps an area be successful. All the different government bodies need to be working together and helping each other, Ludi said.
Manager Fletcher presented some strategic planning ideas and priorities, which included pay equity and comparable pay among local and state governments, upgrading along with downsizing the county’ vehicle for general use, getting the road department updated, implementing a planning department in the general fund, and having the Northwest New Mexico Council of Governments, also known as COG, help work on a county strategic plan. Some of the community members and representatives who were present discussed the positive and negative aspects of a planning department. The positive aspects included having one place to go to make it easier for people, and the negative aspects were that an intergovernmental department comes with concerns about communicative and helpful personalities and dealing with politics.
The workshop included time for discussion and questions. One topic was how money is spent. Commissioner Ralph Lucero commented, “That’s one of the biggest downfalls this county has or any county has is that we provide money for the library, we provide money for the senior citizens... but we can’t provide no money for child- for recreation for the kids and that to me is absurd because kids in this community are our future... It hurts me that we as a county cannot provide direct money for recreational service for kids.”
Commissioner Robert Windhorst acknowledged the representatives from throughout the area who were in attendance.
“I think this is pretty amazing,” said Windhorst. “To be working together, to be able to understand all our budgets, to be on top of our budgets, to be able to spend correctly so that we don’t ever do what we’ve done in the past - overspend and misspend - and I just want you to know that we’re all very impressed with the effort that has been made by everyone who could be here tonight to work together and I’m just grateful for that.”
The workshop ended with representatives from the Grants-Cibola County Chamber of Commerce, County Extension Services, Grants MainStreet Project, Inc., Route 66 Transit, and Cibola County Economic Development Foundation presenting funding requests.
The financial requests from the Chamber, $25,000, County Extension, $45,558, MainStreet, $25,000, and CCEDF, $40,000, were due to Finance Director Paul Ludi on May 13 for the board of commissioners’ consideration.
The next regular commission meeting is scheduled for Thursday, May 27, at 5 p.m.