Federal officials gathered at the Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum in Las Cruces to meet with local officials and organizations as part of the Rural Partners Network (RPN). The goal of the federal initiative is to help people in rural communities find resources and funding being funneled from the federal government to organizations in rural areas of the United States.
Daisy Maldonado is the director of the Empowerment Congress of Doña Ana County. She said meeting with officials was a good first step toward addressing the infrastructure needs in rural areas of New Mexico.
“We’re the organization that’s on the ground, doing the most engagement with regular everyday folks. I think part of the intention of this gathering is also to think about how we can collaborate [locally] within Doña Ana County, within the State of New Mexico. And then looking at federal funding, how can we bring those different funding sources, those agencies, together to fund projects to actually serve those communities?”
According to the state’s recently launched Federal Funding Dashboard, New Mexico has been allocated over $6.5 billion from the federal government’s American Rescue Plan Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, with hundreds of millions of dollars still yet to be spent.
Steve Benjamin, a Senior Advisor to President Joe Biden and the Director of the Office of Public Engagement at the White House, said that the purpose of the massive influx of funding is to give rural communities access to modern infrastructure, from broadband to clean drinking water.
“This is a wonderful collection of local leaders who are doing the work every single day, partnering arm in arm with 20 agencies throughout the federal government, intensively focused on pushing billions of dollars into rural communities all across the country.”
Benjamin said that the Rural Partners Network is one way for the federal government to make sure that funds are getting to the communities that need it most.
“The resources are there to provide the infrastructure that they not only need, but they deserve,” he said. “We’re finding some very creative solutions, taking these federal resources provided by the Biden-Harris administration, pairing with state resources, using taxes [from] municipal bonds in some places, even private sector capital, and good, thoughtful, public-private partnerships to make it happen. But these are things that people of New Mexico deserve and should demand from their officials that they work with.”
Even though there’s a lot of money allocated by the federal government, it can be difficult for individual organizations to receive that funding, according to Patricia Dominguez, who works for the USDA as the State of New Mexico’s Director for Rural Development. She explained that the Rural Partners Network allows for collaboration that makes it easier for small organizations to put incoming federal funds to use.
“If there’s a group who’s really good at doing something, they can show others [how to do it], you don’t have to recreate the wheel essentially. [You] just need to meet your neighbor potentially and see how they’ve done something and been successful doing it,” Dominguez said. “So federal government dollars do require that you apply for them. Folks come to say that’s a big deal for [them], it’s a barrier. So we’re working on eliminating those barriers, and we do that with our partners. The state, municipal communities, and also organizations within those communities that will assist them. So we can’t do this work alone, we need partners.”
As for Daisy Maldanado, she said this is only the beginning of navigating obstacles for organizations in Southern New Mexico that need federal assistance for infrastructure projects.
“It’s a good first step in terms of rural communities and smaller communities being able to have a voice at the table with federal agencies. And now, let’s hold those federal agencies accountable to say you’re wanting to serve us, and you’re wanting to bring those programs here. Now, what can be done to actually get and facilitate that process in happening?”
Maldanado said she hopes that input from community members will speed up funding for incoming projects, so they adequately reach underrepresented areas of New Mexico that need it most.
