The Town of Bernalillo unveiled its preliminary budget at the May 13 council meeting, focusing on enhancing community health and safety, as well as improving the quality of life for town employees.
The proposed budget reflects the town’s conservative financial strategy to maintain a balanced budget. The budget includes allocations for a salary increase for town staff, funding for additional public safety personnel and improvements to parks and the library.
“For us, it’s about the health and safety of the community first and foremost,” Mayor Jack Torres said.
The preliminary budget for 2024-2025 is set at $12.2 million, reflecting a little over a 6% increase from last year’s $11.5 million budget. According to Torres, the town did not see significant increases in any specific departmental budgets. However, the town aims to expand the police, fire, parks and library departments this year.
“There has not been one single tax increase since 2010,” Torres said. “We didn’t request one again this year and we’re real proud of that.”
The budget includes a 5% salary increase for all town staff. This increase is designed to offset the cost of living increase, which was reported to be 3.4% in April for New Mexico, according to the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee.
“For us, one of the priorities is supporting staff because they’re the town, so to speak, and that’s why we included the salary increase for them. We think it’s a reasonable amount and you always want to try to do more for staff,” Torres said.
Who gets what
The police department’s budget of $3.8 million includes funding for an additional detective and enhanced technology to improve the town’s safety.
According to the mayor, the new detective is needed to assist the department’s sole detective, who was added to the town’s police force a couple of years ago.
Officials plan to allocate budget money for a second license plate camera, known as a Flock camera. This technology is particularly useful in monitoring criminal activity, such as felony pursuits. Police Chief Chris Stoyell is also exploring other speed detection technologies, though no final decisions have been made.
Bernalillo received seven new police units and tasers, funded by capital outlay, so this equipment wasn’t included in the overall budget.
The town’s Fire and Rescue Department has a budget of $2.2 million and is considering creating new firefighter positions to support the department’s growth. Torres said the department will need to resolve internal issues before the town adds additional firefighters.
Torres said the council unanimously agreed that the Parks Department needed more support. They allocated budget funds and added a new position in the parks department to address increased responsibilities over the last few years.
He also said the council had agreed to restructure the library’s operations and allocate additional budget funds for staffing to further its development.
Funding sources
“We’ve worked aggressively to find outside funding so that we don’t have to use general fund monies for everything that we need and we’ve been fortunate for instance, with capital outlay,” Torres said.
The gross receipts tax accounts for about 78-80% of the general fund revenue for Bernalillo, according to Torres. The town works hard to secure state and federal sources for quality-of-life initiatives, especially to minimize the impact on the town’s general fund.
Next steps
The initial budget was sent to the Budget and Finance Bureau for review. Once the council receives the budget with any comments, they will discuss them in a council meeting before sending it back to the state for final approval.
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