Tularosa Trustees Delay Employee Raises Until Finance Director Can Attend

TULAROSA, N.M. — The Tularosa Board of Trustees put off votes on a slate of village employee raises at a special meeting this week, after trustees said they could not weigh the budget impact without the village finance director in the room.

The board agreed to reconvene Monday at 6 p.m., when the mayor said the finance director would attend with figures. No raises were approved.

Court employee's raise already budgeted

During public comment, Vivian Lewis told trustees she had learned of the special meeting only that Monday. She said a raise the municipal judge requested for her at earlier budget hearings was already written into the court's budget, which took effect July 1, but she had not received it.

The village's legal adviser, identified at the meeting as Nan, said a raise inside an approved budget does not need a new vote. If the employee was told the raise would start with the new fiscal year, she said, the employee is entitled to it from that date.

Asked whether the roughly $2-an-hour difference owed since July 1 should come as a supplemental check, the adviser deferred to the finance officer, saying a lump sum or an adjusted paycheck would both work.

Raises weren't in the budget

The raises followed employee performance evaluations submitted by department heads. The police chief told trustees she had turned in her evaluations early and asked for raises, but they were left out of her department's budget. Police spending makes up more than half the village budget, she said, and "runs a little tight."

The mayor said the raises would come from each department's own budget, not the general fund. Several trustees pushed back, saying the raises were never budgeted and that they had raised the issue before the budget was adopted.

One trustee estimated that approving every raise on the agenda would add about $55,000, against roughly $170,000 the village has available. "We're not against giving raises," the trustee said, but the board needs to know where the money comes from.

Another trustee noted that some line items had already reached 157% of their budget two months into the fiscal year. He said he had asked at the prior meeting for the finance director, Valerie, to attend and had been assured she would. The mayor said she was unavailable.

Adviser: finance director needed

The legal adviser told the board it first had to make a policy call: whether the raises would be paid from the general fund or from department budgets. Without the finance director, she said, that question was hard to answer.

Raises that fit inside a department's existing budget could proceed without further action, she said. Raises that don't would require a budget adjustment resolution once approved.

The mayor proposed setting aside the police chief's requests and voting on departments that could cover their own raises, including the utility supervisor, the senior center director and Clerk Garcia's three requests. But the clerk said she was willing to wait "because I don't think it's fair for everybody else." The board then agreed to hold all the raises until Monday.

Other business

With time left before adjourning, a trustee raised questions about specific public works wages. She said two employees, Nathan and Brett, took on new duties at the water plant without a wage change. She suggested extra pay for Brett, the department's only backup commercial driver's license holder, so the trash route can run when the regular driver is out.

Staff said Brett already earns trash-truck-driver pay for hours he drives, but nothing extra for holding the CDL. The adviser noted that such pay is the supervisor's call. The supervisor also confirmed an error in one employee's proposed raise, which will be corrected to $2, and said she would like to give part-time worker Carlos a $2 raise after a strong evaluation.

The utility supervisor reported the village reservoir at 36.5 feet as of that morning. The village is not drawing from it because of recent rain.

The board meets again Monday at 6 p.m. to take up the raises.

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