As the state legislature began its annual soiree in Santa Fe this week, a $200,000 capital outlay allocation from 2023 for a water project south of Tijeras remains in limbo.
And now village officials are seeing if the money can be re-allocated to their coffers for use.
Finger pointing abounded after the Green Ridge Mutual Domestic Water Consumers Association successfully, but apparently incorrectly, landed the money to build a backup well.
The association is a non-profit coalition of 61 homeowners within the Green Ridge Acres community off of NM 217, about 4.5 miles south of Tijeras within unincorporated Bernalillo County.
While the current well remains pumping strong, the association needs a backup, said manager Shirley Hughes, because other area wells have suffered diminishing returns, causing significant issues.
Somehow, that well-intentioned move went off the rails and no one quite seems to know why or how to fix it.
“I approved projects that were presented to me based on priority,” said state Rep. Stefani Lord (R-Sandia Park). “And water in the East Mountains is always a priority. Water is so important in the district.”
But it turns out that because of the anti-donation clause, the state cannot legally allocate capital outlay money to a non-profit, she said.
“I just want to know how it ended up on my list when it wasn’t supposed to be there,” Lord said, adding she relies on the local county commissioners for input.
Because Green Ridge officials listed “Tijeras” as its location, the money was awarded to the Village, which can happen when an outside entity uses a governmental agency as a fiscal agent. But that was not done in this case, and the village had no capital water projects on tap, so it could not use the money either, Nicolas Kennedy, Tijeras clerk/manager, wrote in an email.
“No one from Green Ridge ever contacted the Village to request that we serve as their fiscal agent, or otherwise to discuss the capital outlay request,” he wrote. “In addition, new information has come to light since the legislative session that makes it unclear if Green Ridge would have been able to access the funding, even if they had entered into a fiscal agent agreement with the Village.”
So $200,000 sat unused.
“It is somewhat of an unusual situation,” Kennedy wrote. “Leading up to and during the 2023 legislative session, we worked with Senator (Gregg) Schmedes and Representative Lord to secure capital outlay appropriations for several of our projects, including funding for roadway improvements, expansion of the municipal wastewater utility, and construction of a new maintenance building. When the first version of the capital outlay bill was introduced, it included an appropriation with the following language: ‘two hundred thousand dollars ($200,000) to plan, design and construct a water well for the Tijeras community water system in Tijeras in Bernalillo County.’”
It was a head-scratching moment.
“This surprised us, because we had not submitted an application for this appropriation,” Kennedy wrote, adding.”The individual at Green Ridge who submitted the request apparently listed the Village as the applicant. Representative Lord’s office received the request and, assuming that the Village had submitted it, appropriated the funding to the Village.”
Meanwhile, Hughes spent many hours last year trying to get to the bottom of the situation without success.
But the last time she heard from anyone about the issue was in April when a representative of the Construction Programs Bureau forwarded the mess to the Capital Outlay Bureau.
At a December meeting of the Village Council, councilors directed Grant Administrator Shaline Lopez to attempt to “re-authorize the funding for (village) purposes including additional remote monitoring equipment and replacement water meters,” according to its minutes.
“Therefore, the funding is sort of in limbo,” Kennedy wrote. “As it stands, Green Ridge cannot access the funding because 1) it was appropriated to the Village and 2) the state has determined nonprofits are not eligible for capital outlay even if an eligible recipient, such as a municipality, agrees to serve as their fiscal agent. The Village also cannot access the funding because we do not have any active projects that are applicable to the appropriation language. For that reason, Mayor (Jake) Bruton and the Council directed Village staff to seek to have the funding re-appropriated with new language, so that it might be applied to one of the Village’s active projects.”
And that, of course, does not please Hughes at all.
“We have $200,000 of taxpayer money just sitting in the coffers,” she said. “It’s going nowhere, I guess. I don’t know if it’s going back to the taxpayers, but it needs to be straightened out with these representatives.”