Regular Finance Committee Meeting - Last Monday Mon, Jan 26, 2026 ยท Finance Committee https://santafeminutes.space/meeting/948 == Executive Summary == The Finance Committee met to approve their agenda and consent calendar, both passing with a 4-0 vote. A significant portion of the meeting focused on the city's grant management, with discussion around a budget amendment to continue contracting with the New Mexico Grant Association (NMGA) for these services. While a councilor questioned the long-term need for external grant management, staff explained that NMGA is crucial due to a large backlog and increased workload, and is also helping to develop internal processes. The committee also received updates on the FY27 budget development, the status of the financial audit, and the rollout of new fleet management software. The recruitment for a new finance director is underway, and the Audit Committee is seeking a new CPA member. The Chair outlined a plan for future presentations to educate committee members on key financial topics. == Key Decisions == - Agenda approved as amended (4-0 vote) - Consent Calendar approved as amended (4-0 vote) - A motion was approved by roll call vote (Councilor Casset: Yes, Councilor Garcia: Yes, Councilor Falner: Yes) == Motions & Votes == - Approval of Agenda as amended โ€” Passed 4-0 - Approval of Consent Calendar as amended โ€” Passed 4-0 - A motion (specific content not detailed) โ€” Passed by roll call vote (Councilor Casset: Yes, Councilor Garcia: Yes, Councilor Falner: Yes) == Public Comment == Councilor Cassett questioned the long-term necessity of contracting out grant management, suggesting it was previously handled in-house and asking about plans to bring it back internally. Interim Public Works Director Sam Bernett and Interim Finance Director Andrea Phillips explained that the contract with NMGA was initiated due to a significant backlog and increased workload in grant management, and that NMGA is also assisting in developing internal processes to improve efficiency. They both supported the continued use of NMGA for the near to midterm. == Topics == - Grant Management Contract - Finance Committee Education - FY27 Budget Development - Financial Audit Status - Grant Process Streamlining - Fleet Management Software - Finance Director Recruitment - Audit Committee Membership - Agenda Approval - Consent Calendar Approval - Meeting Logistics == Full Transcript == That's good. There you go. That's fine. Okay. It's 5:00. Are we live yet? We are live. Okay. I call to order the Finance Committee meeting at 5:00 p.m. on January 26th. Could we get a roll call, please? Certainly, Madam Chair. Councilor Dam Cassett. Here. Councilor Almacroe. Councilor Lee Garcia. Here. Chair Par Faulner. Here. Madam Chair, you have a quorum. Thank you. Let's do approval of the agenda. Anything from staff? Madam Chair, we do have one change to tonight's agenda. Item 8A, Public Hearing Code Enforcement Case, will be postponed to the February 9th Finance Committee meeting. I'm sure that's to the disappointment of all members. Move to approve as amended. Second. Okay. Call for the vote. Councilor Cassett. Yes. Councilor Castro. Yes. Councilor Garcia. Yes. Chair Faulner. Yes. Madam Chair, that motion passes. Okay. And then, can we go on to the consent calendar? Anything from staff? Madam Chair, item Y was pulled for discussion this evening, and that is the only change for the consent agenda. Anything from the committee? Y was me. Okay. To approve as amended. Second. Okay. Can we call roll the vote? Councilor Cassett. Yes. Councilor Castro. Yes. Councilor Garcia. Yes. Councilor Faulner. Yes. And that motion passes. Okay. And then we're on to presentations. I'm going to make this brief. I just wanted to say a few words to the committee and staff. I'm going to focus a lot on presentations that are going to educate us as a committee so that when we have to make some of the major decisions, we are as educated as we can be. Some of the target presentations I have are around audits and what kind of audits are appropriate and necessary and how we can use those to kind of probe a little deeper into the city and some of the problems we might be having or have had. Fiscal agency is something that I'm also going to get us up to speed on, as well as the anti-donation clause and some budgetary stuff. So I really want to spend the first two quarters, or the time before we go into the budget discussions, getting our committee on the same page and educated as much as we can be. With that said, I've already told staff I'm more than happy to take any recommendations they have, and any member of the committee who would like to see a certain kind of presentation, let me know and we will get it in our presentations. With that being said, can you take us to the next point? Certainly, Madam Chair. The next point will be a discussion item 7Y, or 6Y, I'm sorry. It is a request for approval of a budget amendment resolution, BAR, to reappropriate $137,416 of the unspent FY25 one-time appropriation from the General Fund balance to FY26 Public Works Administration Professional Contracts for Capital Management Program. We have Sam Bernett, Interim Public Works Director, with us this evening to discuss this item. I know that Councilor Castro and Councilor Cassett pulled this. Just council. Okay. Hi. Thank you for being here. I'll be super quick. If I recall correctly, we started this, oh gosh, whenever it says that we're going to, in FY25, but this was not how we previously took care of grants. Those were managed in-house. Can you remind me why we made this change to contract this management out? Absolutely, Councilor, Chair, Councilor. Happy to answer that question. So I think there are a couple variables here, and you'll have to excuse me. Part of it is a little before my time, but I understand that maybe 2024, 2025, there were conversations about making our internal management of capital grants more robust. I believe it was originally going to be managed in the Finance Department, but then because Public Works does so much of the day-to-day management of the ICIP process, there was a decision made that bringing somebody on, in this case, New Mexico Grant Association, lovingly referred to as NMGA, to bring them on to augment Public Works internal processes. Maybe I'll stop there and let you ask more questions, and we can elaborate from there. Yeah, I guess I mean, we've been having a lot of these conversations around, and I couldn't recall if this was because I know we had a vacancy in the grants management position for a very long time, and so I wasn't sure if this was filling in for that vacancy, grants manager, not management. But we've been having a lot of conversations around the pros and cons of contracting specific services out versus doing them in-house. And when this popped up again, I know that when we first, when this was a discussion, when this first was brought forward as a proposal, and at that time it was very necessary. We really needed to bring this contract in. Yes. I'm curious if this is something that you foresee long-term. We deal with a lot of grants. There's been a lot of conversations around how do we bring in more grant writing and more grant management. So I'm curious if we're maybe going to move forward with trying to bring this back internally. Are these conversations that are still happening with Finance? Seems like something that we could use a full-time person for. If they, and I don't know if there's enough work within Public Works specifically for, you know, one position assigned. I mean, what is it? $70 million, I think, was in the packet. Yeah. So it's a lot of money and a lot of grants, but seems like something that we could benefit from as a city at large. Yeah, absolutely. Chair, Councilor, great, great points and great questions. You're helping me remember the context. So one thing I will say about this current situation is, you'll remember there was a period of time where bringing in and being able to execute and move forward with grants was kind of put on hold temporarily. What that created for us on the staff side is, you know, we generally had a fairly steady, you know, kind of influx and processing of grants, but that dam kind of built up a lot, and they all released at the same time, which created a larger than normal workload for staff. Having to go through the process of bringing them in, getting them ready, getting them approved, getting the money out available to the project managers, opening up the notice of obligations with the state, reporting on them. All of a sudden, the workload really ballooned as a result of that. So I think that's one piece of what happened here. We do have two dedicated staff in Public Works, a Capital Projects Manager and a Grant Administrator, who work on the ICIP, but it was a lot for that team, and my predecessor, Director Wheeler, was doing a lot of the day-to-day work. So we really recognized there was a bandwidth issue. But then also, I think what we realized at the same time is that when you start getting into the nitty-gritty and you have an opportunity to do a lot of the work repetitively, we recognized areas where we could further develop the process internally. So that's a big part of what we're doing with NMGA is they're working with us really one to identify what our current processes are, how we document, how we track, how we report. So that first piece is, you know, documentation, but then kind of evolution of that process. So we one, we understand what we're doing, two, we learn how to do it better, we develop those processes, we train staff, we put the systems in place so that we get better at doing our jobs. So that ultimately will lead to a fork in the road. Will there come a time where we no longer need NMGA? It's possible. Or maybe it's possible that we'll continue to be very fortunate as we go to the state for these ICIP grants, and that extra help kind of managing the paperwork load will continue into the future. I think right now I say it's 50/50, but for the next couple of years, I think NMGA will be a big benefit to the city, to Public Works, to Finance, and as an extension, really, to all the departments in the city because one of the big pieces that kind of happen behind the scenes, and we're gearing up for this right now, is Public Works actually reaching out to the different departments, starting the conversations early, like what do you need money for, helping them put together their requests. So, yeah, I would say NMGA is super helpful. I see them being helpful maybe not indefinitely, but for the near and midterm, and I have a tendency of rambling, so I'm going to stop and see if you have any more questions. No, that was, that was actually very helpful. I really, I appreciate that context and that reminder as to what led to this contract coming on and that reviewing of the processes, and obviously we will have a decision at some point. So I think getting that information will be really helpful. As Deputy City Manager, Interim Finance Director, Andrea Phillips has mentioned, the fact that we don't, we don't have our processes written down. So I am hopeful, and I'm guessing based on knowing you, that that is something that we will be working on with this process as well, is making sure that it's actually written down somewhere so people understand what these procedures look like. So thank you for explaining the value at this moment, and to be continued when we get to that fork in the road. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Councilor Cassett, I mean, Castro. Thank you so much, Chair. Thank you, Director. I just wanted to give some space also to our finance staff here to talk to us a little bit about what it looks like to manage those grants and how much help this is. I am looking, as Councilor Cassett mentions, 74 active legislative grants. That's a lot of work. Is it generally going to be that many? We say it was ballooning. Are we going to generally see less of those active grants in the future? Madam Chair and Councilor Castro, members of the Finance Committee, thank you for the question. What we're talking about here this evening does dovetail with conversations I'm having with Erica Luhan, who is our Grants Manager in Finance, around staff capacity because, as you know, we're getting not just capital outlay dollars and those projects to manage, but we're getting grants from the FAA, from other state agencies, from other federal agencies, HUD, etc. So there's quite a bit in terms of grants management. We've been talking about our process and how we can streamline that maybe a little bit. So I think all of this really dovetails very nicely in terms of how we identify and apply for those sources of funding. How do we work with the departments in a way that provides a streamlined process for application, receiving the funds, and reporting? I think, you know, with the Public Works team managing such a heavy workload on the ICIP and the backlog of all of those 67 or so projects that you saw on the list at the legislative breakfast, we do have a lot of projects to manage. So I do appreciate the additional staff capacity that NMGA has brought on for us and managing all of that because we also have to do reporting to the state. So I do see it working very well together, at least in the interim period. And what I hear is we're also getting some support internally. They're training us on how to do some of these processes, and we're creating some SOPs, or standard operating procedures. Correct? Yes, absolutely. We may be coming to you with some ideas around streamlining approvals too. So, for instance, resolutions. Is there a way that we can accept a grant with one resolution or even do that administratively instead of having to bring it to the various committees and then to the governing body? Sometimes these grantors say, "Hey, the deadline is next Friday." So, we're having to quickly jump on these funding opportunities. How can we be more timely and nimble in our response? So, that's something that we're looking at as well. Perfect. No further questions. Any other questions from the committee? We need a motion. Move to approve. Second. Can we get a roll call on the vote? Currently, Madam Chair, Councilor Casset. Yes. Councilor Castro. Councilor Garcia. Yes. Councilor Falner. Yes. Madam Chair, that motion passes. Right. And I think that's all we had tonight. We are adjourned, and I believe our next meeting is the 9th of February. Madam Chair, if I may interject, we do have matters from staff. Oh, matters from staff. Sorry, new chair. Thank you, Madam Chair. You probably noticed that I'm not Emily Oster. I'm serving currently as the interim finance director along with the DCM role. I do just want to give a couple of quick updates to you all and for the public who's listening in this evening. We have kicked off our FY27 budget development process. So, we held training over two days with departments last week. We've provided budget templates and guidance for them. And as you know, we did a strategic planning process with you all last Friday to identify your budget priorities for this upcoming fiscal year and your four-year strategic goals. So, we'll be feeding that information back to the departments. On the financial audit, we are on track to submit the second part. We submitted the first part, which is the financial statement, by the deadline. So, we submitted it on that Friday, whatever that date was. And it was due on the 20th, so we were well ahead of the timing for that, and we're on track for the second part, which would be the single audit or federal funds. We're rolling out a new software, which is really exciting for fleet management. It's called RTA, and we have staff training on that next week. That's going to really help with modernizing our fleet and managing all of our assets. And then finally, we are advertising currently for the finance director. So, if you know someone with municipal finance experience, that is on our website, please send them our way. And then finally, the audit committee has met for the first time this year. Diane Rubin was selected as the chair once again. We're seeking a fifth member. So, if you know of someone who is a CPA, which is required by the code for that slot, please send them our way as well. That's all I have. Thank you. Any matters from the committee? Nope. The theme from the chair, and we meet on the 9th, and we are adjourned.