Portales, Roosevelt focusing on roads, infrastructure

The City of Portales and Roosevelt County have a lot on their plates this year as they focus on their ongoing road improvements and infrastructure capital improvement projects.

In Roosevelt, there are three major projects the county will pursue this year, as well as several specific legislative goals.

The county's road improvement plan is ongoing across the county, with projects scheduled through 2021 and a budget of $500,000.

“We only ask for the amount of money our team can complete for roadwork,” said Roosevelt County Manager Amber Hamilton. “We don't contract out our roadwork. Our road crew is second to none in the state and can accomplish above and beyond anything we need.”

The Road Department will also soon receive a new road barn facility this year. The current building was constructed in the 1960's and the county's insurance provider cited some of the materials in the building as concerns. Specifically, some are noted as being potentially flammable.

The county is working towards constructing a new, modern and code-friendly building at an estimated $400,000.

The Roosevelt County Detention Center is also receiving a security system upgrade. As it is, there are two incompatible systems that are unconnected, with video logs being kept at different rates from 30 to 90 days.

The upgrade would tie both systems together with the same video backup rates and would also include door and intercom improvements.

“We'll finally have one system and everything will be much more streamlined,” Hamilton said.

Roosevelt will be working with the rest of the counties in the state on different legislative goals this year starting in February. The two major items Roosevelt will be paying special attention to include the House Bill 2 appropriations and the Detention Center Reimbursement Fund.

Hamilton says that the fund is setup to provide $5 million to reimburse counties for holding, processing and transporting state criminals. The legislature has only appropriated $2.3 million of that amount and the accrued cost to counties is estimated to be over $8 million.

Roosevelt and other counties are pushing to have that fund increased and to have it pay out more to cover their costs.

“It's a serious financial concern for all counties because we're burdened with the responsibility of holding state prisoners,” Hamilton said. “All the counties are saddled with so many unfunded mandates that we carry a strong financial burden.”

Rural emergency medical services are also high on Roosevelt's list when it comes to legislative concerns. Hamilton said Roosevelt and other counties are pursuing more funding and the establishment of a working revenue model to be put in place to help rural EMS programs grow.

The county would also help pursue relaxed guidelines for volunteer EMS personnel, who Hamilton says are currently saddled with prohibitive costs and certifications to operate, despite doing so for free.

“There are a lot of great volunteers out there who would like to serve, but they can't have their hands tied by bureaucracy,” Hamilton said.

Hamilton added there are several smaller projects the county is still looking into, including purchasing new equipment for different departments, behavioral programs for local inmates and other quality of life improvements for county citizens.

“We're going to keep an eye on anything else that might be introduced, but for now we'll be focusing on our capital priorities for out funding request,” Hamilton said.

Across the county, Hamilton added they've been working to streamline their fiscal policies and keep things running smoothly so that the county commissioners have the information needed to make informed decisions.

Portales officials said their main focus for the year will be the top-ranked ICIP improvement plans outlined in the city’s current plan.

The top two priorities for 2021-2025 plan approved in August were to continue making wellfield improvements ($2,200,000) and upgrading the city’s fire protection and water circulation systems ($661,000).

An expansion of the Portales cemetery ($199,598) was the next-highest ranked project, with the purchase of a backhoe for the cemetery ($88,000) also near the top.

The widespread renovation of Portales roads is ongoing with Avenue A from First to Second streets ($208,656) ranked as the highest priority because of drainage problems, with improvements to University Avenue ($8,000) behind.

The purchase of a new dump truck ($100,000) and a new street sweeper ($235,000) were also ranked in the top 10.