City of Santa Fe makes room for new hires in budget proposal

Apr. 17—The city of Santa Fe expects to add at least 36 new positions and unfreeze dozens of others in the upcoming fiscal year.

But the city says its overall employment number — 1,569 — recommended in the $346 million fiscal year budget for 2022 will remain five positions below pre-pandemic levels.

The city said it had 1,533 employees in the 2021 fiscal year, when it revised its budget several times to account for the COVID-19 crisis and its effect on the city's economy.

According to figures provided by the city, 58 positions that were frozen in fiscal year 2021 due to budget shortfalls across 11 different departments will be filled.

The numbers exclude positions for the Buckman Direct Diversion, a joint venture between the city and Santa Fe County.

The push to hire more employees was highlighted in early looks at the proposed budget, which would increase spending by $36.1 million.

On Friday, Mayor Alan Webber said the staffing changes represent a gradual march in the right direction, but the city is proceeding with caution when it comes to allocating funds for new positions.

"Even with the recovery we are talking about, we are not back to where we were before pandemic levels," Webber said. "We are gradually able to recover, but we're not going to get so far ahead of ourselves so if there is another spike in cases, we have overcommitted ourselves."

The Public Works Department is recommended for the largest increase in employees, with 10 new positions added to the department, including five project administrators and five street equipment operators.

Public Works Director Regina Wheeler said the project administrator positions will effectively help manage, track and follow through on capital improvement projects across the city, as the potential for more projects becomes more apparent.

"Some of this work [is] being done by existing staff," Wheeler said. "What I would really say is we are pretty much maxed out in our project delivery capacity with the funding we have now. What we see on the landscape is more capital funding opportunities. We want to really increase our capacity to delivery what we have now and also leverage more capital funding."

Wheeler said administrator positions are projected to be allocated to Public Works' Parks Division, the midtown campus project, and the Streets and Drainage Maintenance Division. Another project administrator position has yet to be assigned, she added.

Positions detailed to streets and roadways will help the city maintain Cerrillos Road, St. Michael's Drive and Old Pecos Trail, which will come under city control Aug. 1, Wheeler said.

"That is a lot of lane miles," Wheeler said. "So that is what this crew is for: addressing those new roads."

The Finance Department is scheduled to get eight new employees. In February, the State Auditor's Office said the city was three months behind in providing proper documents to an independent firm to conduct the audit, and it's the second time in as many years the city was late to file the paperwork.

Finance Director Mary McCoy was unavailable for comment.

Other notable additions include five new positions to the Recreation Department, four to the Planning and Land Use Department, and six new employees for the Information Technology and Telecommunications Department.

Earlier this week, Webber said the budget proposal would allow city employees to receive up to a 4 percent pay bump. But union leaders said exactly how salary and benefits will play out remains to be seen.

Nonunion employees are recommended for a 4 percent bump in pay, with a similar 3 percent increase for department heads.

Adan Lopez, president of the 145-member Santa Fe Fire Fighters Association, said a proposed salary increase goes a long way toward recruiting and retaining firefighters as the department battles an increasingly competitive job market.

Lopez said that when he joined the union about 11 years ago, the Santa Fe Fire Department was at the top of the list for pay and benefits. Since then, he said, Albuquerque and Los Alamos have surpassed the city.

"We are always looking at ways to make our department better, and sometimes, salaries have a lot to do with that," Lopez said.

The 2022 budget recommends $500,000 to hire 15 temporary employees for the department's Wildland Fire Division, plus $778,000 to fill fire department positions frozen in fiscal year 2021 and hire 15 to 20 cadets to send to the fire academy.

"The more candidates we have, the more people we can have out in the field," Lopez said. "I think that would be great, and I know that we typically try to have one academy a year. Every once in a while that does not happen; last year, we did not go with an academy."

Santa Fe Police Association President Rebecca Hildebrant said the union will begin internal discussions Monday on how to allocate the 4 percent pay increase, but she agreed salary increases help recruit and retain officers.

"The retaining is a big part of it," Hildebrant said. "We can't lose senior guys who have years of experience, because that hurts us."

According to the budget presentation, 13 police department positions will be unfrozen as well.

AFSCME 3999 Vice President Gil Martinez said he continues to take a wait-and-see approach as the budget process continues.

"Words are cheap," Martinez said.

AFSCME has been increasingly critical of the mayor's administration since Martinez and union President Gilbert Baca took the reins almost a year and a half ago. Martinez said he saw a memo announcing the raises, but he immediately questioned whether it was because it was an election year.

"All the members are calling us up, 'Are we going to get those 4 percent raises?' " Martinez said. "We have to see it to believe it."