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After a passing a tight budget, Doña Ana County Commissioner’s are working to understand one of the largest budget costs – personnel.
Doña Ana County Commissioner Billy Garret says after completing work on this year’s budget, it was important to make sure the staffing plan aligned with the county’s strategic plan.
“We’re making sure we get an alignment between how we’re spending money on personnel and those issues,” Garret said. “The other is simply making sure that we understand how the staffing fits within the overall budget and our capacity.”
He says one of the important goals was to determine whose job it is to add and remove positions.
“The practice in general has been that we left a lot of that to the county manager,” Garrett said. “What we’re I think understanding now, is that by approving the budget which has a list of positions that we are in fact approving those to be filled and used. And I don’t know that was exactly the way that all commissioners understood this. When you’ve got a budget book that’s 680 pages long, you just don’t pay that much attention to every single line.”
While discussions around staff usually lead to cuts, Garret says he is not anticipating any.
“I’m not starting out with the idea that we are going to cut,” Garrett said. “I may very well say that we need to cap and so that would put pressure on the numbers. But we have to be able to pay for the positions. And it does create a sense of unease, I know while we go through this. But, I’m not starting out with the idea that we’re going to cuts.”
Garrett says the plan is also necessary to help with the raises that county employee’s are asking for.
“We do want to pay our employees better,” Garrett said. “More fairly, and I think that’s a very important objective. I fully supported that, so, part of this is how do we work that in to the budget in terms of revenues that are to some degree uncertain.”
Another important part of the plan is making sure positions are aligned with appropriate departments.
“How the departments are organized,” Garrett said. “And how well they align with the budgets. So that a manager has a budget line, knows how much money is available to carry out the functions that that manager is responsible for.”
The staffing discussions at the county are expected to last till the fall.
