Coronavirus aid for Las Cruces nonprofits sat unused for nearly two months

LAS CRUCES – The Las Cruces City Council unanimously approved eight contract agreements or amendments with local nonprofits to distribute aid money to administer coronavirus relief programs Monday. The approval allowing for the disbursement of funds comes nearly two months after the aid was approved in late August.

However, the city could have distributed the aid much sooner. Receiving the funding sooner would have helped, the director of one nonprofit organization told the Sun-News.

A $1.4 million sum of coronavirus aid was approved by the city council Aug. 27 from the Telshor Facility Fund in the city's largest and most recent relief package. Most of it is meant to aid a variety of local nonprofits in administering programs to help the people hurting the most from the economic effects of the pandemic.

Child care assistance, meals programs, housing assistance — these are just some of the ways the money is supposed to be used.

“Contracts were drafted and negotiated with various nonprofit agencies and organizations in early September,” a city news release following the council meeting stated. “To comply with the City's Procurement Code, City Council approval was needed to execute agreements of more than $75,000.”

Except that’s not entirely true.

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The city council passed an exemption to its procurement code in April which allowed the city manager to enter into contract agreements under $250,000 without city council approval when the city is under a declared emergency — like a pandemic. The move was meant as a tool to get more money disbursed to organizations quicker.

According to the exemption, “the city manager may authorize the purchasing manager or designee to make emergency procurement of supplies, services, or construction items when there exists a threat to public health, welfare, or safety, provided that such emergency procurement shall be made with such competition as is practicable under the circumstances.”

The city has been under an emergency proclamation since April, when Mayor Ken Miyagishima used newly created emergency powers to declare a citywide emergency in response to COVID-19. Later, the proclamation was tied to the state public health emergency declaration, meaning it’s in effect until the statewide declaration ends or the city council votes to end the citywide proclamation.

But the city said it "was determined” the recent aid package didn’t meet the exemption.

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“The exemption to the procurement code was made earlier this year related to (the) COVID response, but now that COVID has become our new normal, this is no longer a true emergency procurement,” wrote Las Cruces Communications Director Mandy Guss in an email.

The city did not answer repeated follow-up questions asking whether the city chose not to disburse the money using the exemption or if it was precluded from doing so. But according to city code, the exemption is allowed to be used as long as a declared emergency is in effect.

Guss only said "it was determined that the emergency procurement did not apply in this situation due to the ongoing nature of the pandemic."

The city’s statement came the same week the state announced tighter restrictions on businesses due to spiking cases and hospitalizations, after some of the highest days for confirmed COVID-19 infections in New Mexico.

In a text message Monday, City Manager Ifo Pili said he was unaware of the exemption.

"I probably would have still brought it forward to council though," Pili said. "Most cities have a standing emergency procurement threshold allowance in place for City Managers, but you typically only use it when you absolutely have to."

'COVID isn't going anywhere'

Included in the aid package is $150,000 to Mesilla Valley Community of Hope. MVCH will use the aid for rent and mortgage assistance and programs which address homelessness.

MVCH Executive Director Nicole Martinez said the city funding is badly needed. The nonprofit has received about $400,000 in pandemic-related aid from various funding sources — previous Telshor funds, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the New Mexico Mortgage Finance Authority and Community Development Block Grant money from the city through the CARES Act.

But now only a quarter of it remains, she said.

"COVID isn't going anywhere anytime soon," Martinez said. "We still have a lot of people living on the street and not enough apartments to put them in to help slow the spread. We are anticipating even more people being unable to pay their rent."

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Martinez said recently the organization has had to “ration” its remaining aid money. She said while she appreciates how proactive the council has been in approving aid, the way the August aid package has been handled has been “confusing."

“Mostly … we are piecing together other grants,” Martinez said. “So it’s money we could be spending on client transportation, utility bills, things like that. But instead we’re paying rents out of it because that’s the biggest need right now.”

Martinez said the city money will be useful because it’s allowed to be used more broadly than some other aid sources which qualify a more narrow group of people. For instance, aid received from the VA was limited to helping homeless and nearly homeless veterans.

Local nonprofit Families and Youth Inc. will receive $200,000 from the city with Monday’s contract approvals. Part of the funding will be used for a second round of the city’s pandemic restaurant voucher program, and another part will be used for a needle exchange program and testing for people with HIV and Hepatitis C.

Jolene Martinez, the clinical director of FYI, said the organization hasn’t been negatively affected from the delay in receiving funding. She said the extra time has allowed the organization to prepare for how it will administer its aid programs once the money is received.

“This time around it’s benefited us to have the extra time,” she said. “It hasn’t created any delay for us.”

Michael McDevitt is a city and county government reporter for the Sun-News. He can be reached at 575-202-3205, mmcdevitt@lcsun-news.com or @MikeMcDTweets on Twitter.