Water authority approves finance committee adoption

CLOVIS — As the Eastern New Mexico Water Utility Authority narrows in on awarding a construction bid for its next phase of development, its board on Thursday approved the adoption of a finance committee to bring more eyes to its regular expenditure and budget reviews.

The committee will consist of ENMWUA Administrator Orlando Ortega and three others — authority chairman David Lansford, vice-chair Ron Jackson and secretary Robert Thornton, with the option for rotating alternates among the latter trio.

“I think it would be a healthy thing for the authority and I think it would offer due diligence on our part,” said Ortega, who presented the committee idea and typically does solo what the committee would take on as a group, such as preparing budgets and applications and reviewing expenditures as needed in advance of monthly board meetings.

More eyes means more safeguards on spending recommendations, Ortega said.

One of the first items for the newly formed committee to consider will be the forthcoming engineer recommendation of award for the Finished Water 2 project. Project Manager Jim Honea detailed some quantitative comparisons of two contenders, S.J. Louis Construction and Oscar Renda Contracting, Inc., with the numbers in favor of the latter.

Currently the FW2 project is slated for the base bid plus alternates two through four, amounting to a little over 5 miles of a 7 1/2 mile pipeline section between Cannon Air Force Base and an EPCOR water storage system in Clovis. Currently the price tag for those combined portions is about $20,622,000, but additional sections could be added with the upcoming receipt of more than $2 million in Water Trust Board funds for 2018, Ortega said.

The total FW2 project is valued at more than $25 million, Honea said previously.

The bid award still needs to be approved by the state and the ENMWUA board before construction can begin, expected for late autumn.

The board meets next at the Curry County Commission Chambers on Sept. 20.

Members Ladona Clayton and Josh Scioli were not present at Thursday’s meeting, which also included:

• Unanimous approval of New Mexico Water Trust Board funding application submission for Fiscal Year 2019, as well as the 4th Quarter Year report for FY 2018 and the 2018 ENMWUA Finance Plan.

• Reports from Ortega and Lansford.