The city of Las Cruces has dedicated $10.4 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding to community and economic development initiatives. For nonprofits, this means additional resources to help those in the community recover from the pandemic.
But funding allocations for these local organizations are still up in the air, with the Las Cruces City Council electing to postpone a vote to adopt non-profit funding priorities. This will allow time for an audit on the application process to be presented to the council, as Councilor Gabe Vasquez described.
“It's in the best interest I think of the public to be able to go through this process and better understand how this RFP was taking place, what the communication was like with potential applicants,” Vasquez said.
Of the 21 applications received, the city’s selection committee recommends nine organizations should obtain funding. City Housing and Neighborhood Services Manager Natalie Green says applications were first evaluated for eligibility before being presented to the selection committee for scoring.
“The scoring matrix covered a number of items,” Green said. “The first was project justification, how does it address the response to the COVID pandemic or the negative impacts as a result of the pandemic? Did it meet city goals? What was the community impact?”
Recommendations include $600,000 for Mesilla Valley Community of Hope housing risk mitigation funds, $2 million for the Community Foundation of Southern New Mexico, as well as $1.7 million for a Community Action Agency of Southern New Mexico guaranteed basic income project.
Councilor Johana Bencomo says she is excited to see these projects gain additional resources to help better the quality of life for city residents.
“These are projects that are a direct injection into our community's well-being, to the quality of life of people," Bencomo said. “Because of the pandemic every single one of these projects to me feels right on the money, what ARPA was intended for.”
Lori Martinez, the executive director of Ngage New Mexico, spoke out against portions of the application process, calling for more transparency.
“The problem is, none of us knew that there was going to be a pre-screening committee of these three members ahead of time,” Martinez said. “It's not unusual to have a pre-screen committee just to make sure that nonprofits are eligible. However…there was no scoring matrix for us to know by what criteria those three people were using to determine whether or not the applications went forward.”
It’s a message Councilor Bencomo took to heart–advocating for additional review prior to a vote.
“I hear Ms. Martinez saying there is this sticking point, right. I feel like it's important that we review it,” Bencomo said. “Starting over, I'm not in support of that, but I do just want to take into consideration what our very trusted community partners are saying.”
The council will further review this resolution on December 20.
