Officials: No immediate, major impacts from cuts

Staff Writer

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Local city and county government officials say they are not expecting any immediate or major impacts from recently announced state budget cuts.

A week ago, Gov. Susana Martinez announced that she was asking state institutions to cut down on spending by 5 percent to compensate for the crash in oil and gas prices.

According to newmexicogasprices.com, gas prices plummeted from $2.70 per gallon in August 2015 to $1.56 in February 2016 with an increase to around $2.07 per gallon where it currently sits.

According to an Associated Press story published last week, Sen. John Arthur Smith cautioned a $300-500 million revenue loss this fiscal year due to the fall in gas prices.

Martinez said the cutbacks will likely involve changes to hiring practices, overtime, travel and more.

“If you were trying to get permits and doing business with the state government, that would be slowed down,” said Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Karl Terry as to potential local impacts, adding that contracts between the state and local businesses will not currently be affected.

Portales City Clerk Joan Martinez-Terry said on the city level, there has not been any talk of changing or cutting the city’s budget due to the announcement of the state cutbacks.

She said on the state level, services could potentially slow down because of the impact on state employees.

“Very many (state) departments are working on skeleton crews,” said Martinez-Terry. “It’s not an unusual thing, but it is unfortunate. It’ll be very general, and it’s gonna be a little slower.”

However, Martinez-Terry said, adjustments might be made to the city budget at a later date to accommodate for the state’s Hold Harmless clause, which takes away taxes on groceries. She said the loss from having no grocery taxes will accumulate over a 10-15-year period.

She said fees for certain city venues and services may have to be increased due to Hold Harmless, but it would be difficult to say at this point what might increase.

“There’s not a whole lot we can sell,” said Martinez-Terry. “There’s some challenges coming up in the future.”

Martinez-Terry said it comes down to the hiring of employees when accommodating for budget cuts.

“(It’s a matter of) evaluating services and the number of people to carry out those services,” said Martinez-Terry.

The Children, Youth and Families Department could potentially be a department affected by the budget cuts.

“We’re looking very closely at our budget to identify areas within the agency where money can be saved while maintaining our core function of serving and protecting our kids,” New Mexico CYFD Communications Director Henry Varela said in an email statement.