Financial report shows strong growth, recovery from pandemic

Revenues, employment, new business registrations, median home prices were all up for the City of Las Cruces in the fiscal year that ended last June 30.

And so was inflation.

The numbers were part of the city’s annual comprehensive financial report, which the city council approved at its Feb. 6 regular meeting.

The report, compiled by the city accounting department, including Comptroller Josie Trevino and Financial Services Director Leeann DeMouche, and independent public accountants Pattillo, Brown & Hill, LLP, certified public accountants based in Albuquerque, shows the city’s total budget, including all assets and liabilities, was $612.44 million in FY22, up from almost $600 million in FY21 and more than $556 million in FY20. The general fund balance was $62.3 million. The city’s enterprise funds (city utilities) were almost $250 million.

Gross receipts tax, property tax and franchise fees increased from $131.7 million in FY21 to $155.5 million in FY22.

City revenues come principally from taxes (81 percent), charges for services (six percent), grants and contributions (six percent), investment income (five percent) and franchise fees (four percent).

The city’s major expenditures are public safety (30 percent), general government (25 percent), public works (19 percent), parks and recreation (eight percent), economic development (seven percent), quality of life (six percent), community development (three percent) and debt and interest payments (two percent.)

“Revenues for FY22 exceeded budget predictions by 16 percent and remain strong into FY23,” DeMouche said.

During the first three months of adult-use cannabis sales (made legal in New Mexico beginning in April 2022), Las Cruces’ total cannabis sales reached about $10 million, putting the city among the highest sales numbers in the state. Recreational sales alone reached about $5.6 million, she said.

The city labor force grew one percent May 2021-May 2022, from 47,617 to 48,160, putting it at 0.2 percent higher than pre-pandemic levels. The number of people actively looking for a job decreased from 2,858 in May 2021 to 1,591 in May 2022. The city’s unemployment rate in June 2022 was 3.3 percent.

The city’s inflation rate was nine percent. The price of a gallon of gasoline in the third quarter of 2017, for example, was $2.08. It was $3.93 in the second quarter of 2022.

More new businesses were registered in 2022 vs. 2021, the report showed. The number of new business registration January‐June 2022 (58) was 24 percent higher than the same time in 2021.

The number of new home construction permits for the first half of 2022 amounted to 438, or 90 fewer than the first half of 2021.

The median housing listing price continued to move up, reaching about $285,000 for a single-family home in May 2022, the city said, a 15 percent increase over 2021.

The city’s Telshor Fund (TF), which has a current balance of about $40 million, had allocations of almost $3.2 million in FY23, including the Las Cruces Fire Department’s mobile integrated health/crisis intervention training and Explorer programs ($1.73 million); a match for the purchase of seven electric buses ($871,000), a health complex feasibility study ($200,000) and the city Police Athletic League ($104,000), plus allocations of $600,000 for health-related public services provided by local nonprofits.

In FY22, more than $9.8 million was allocated from the Telshor Fund, including more than $5 million for expansion of the Casa de Peregrinos emergency food program, more than $1.15 million for Mesilla Valley Community of Hope expansion, a $1.2 million building purchase loan to La Piñon sexual assault and recovery services program, $361,000 for a Families and Youth, Inc. youth shelter, almost $1.5 million for the city’s Mano y Mano employment program and more than $577,000 for affordable housing. As in FY23, the city awarded $600,000 for health-related public services.

The Telshor Fund paid almost $1.1 million to assist asylum seekers in 2021 and more than $3.8 million in Covid-19 emergency response funding, 2020-22.

The Telshor Fund was created in 2004 from proceeds from the lease of Memorial Medical Center.