E-mail Story
Print Friendly
Monday, June 15, 2009
Dona Ana County Official Critical of Funding Level
Associated Press
LAS CRUCES — Some Dona Ana County officials say they're frustrated by the lack of federal economic stimulus money heading their way.
The county requested about $80 million in federal stimulus funds in January, but so far it looks like only a $2.5 million road project will get funding.
"For Dona Ana County, that has over 200,000 population and is the second-largest county in the state, you'd think $80 million would be something seriously considered in its entirety," County Commissioner Oscar Vasquez-Butler said.
The projects the county would like to fund include nine road projects, $8 million for an arsenic treatment facility in Santa Teresa, $2 million for a wastewater treatment system in Chaparral, and $35 million for two flood control projects.
Former Gov. Toney Anaya, who heads the New Mexico Office of Recovery and Reinvestment, said that much of the $3 billion that will come to New Mexico is being directed to programs like Medicaid, schools or unemployment.
"When it's said and done, we'll be lucky if we've gotten $500 million for infrastructure," he said.
Anaya said local officials also might be frustrated because it can take some time to work through the process of approving applications.
Dona Ana County Assistant Manager Sue Padilla said the arsenic treatment facility for Santa Teresa was high on the county's list but didn't receive any funding.
Jaime Bari, director of the Camino Real Regional Utility Authority, the merged city-county utility, said the facility does not meet the shovel-ready requirement at the moment, but engineering plans are under way.
"If you ask me that three months from now, I'd say the project is there," Bari said.
Vasquez-Butler said he thinks the state hasn't done a good job of communicating to the county what its evaluation criteria are and how it ranks projects.
"Who got selected, which projects and why?" he said. "We were shovel-ready and we addressed the timeliness issues. We put the applications they wanted in place, and so not to hear anything is quite disturbing."
Anaya said there may be a second round of stimulus funding later this year. And, he said, there are new funding and bonding programs that are being overseen directly by federal agencies.
"It's not like there's only going to be one shot at this," he said.
Copyright ©2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
You also can send comments via our comment form
|
|
