By Mary Alice Murphy

The Prospectors' Forum last December featured local governments, non-profits and other area organizations laying out their needs in front of the area legislators, Sen. Howie Morales, Rep. Dianne Hamilton and Rep. John Zimmerman.

One of the repeating laments from the local governments was the delay in reimbursements to them for their capital outlay projects. The entities, especially the smaller ones, do not have the cash flow to pay their contractors without the reimbursements, "so you have cranky municipalities and cranky contractors," Priscilla Lucero, Southwest New Mexico Council of Governments executive director, and a member of Prospectors, told the Beat. Some of the larger entities, such as Grant County and Silver City can pay the contractors for work completed, but delays cause cash flow problems to pay for other services.

"One of the commitments made by the Prospectors on the topic of local government processing was to make sure the Local Government Division got reimbursements sent out in a timely manner," Lucero said.

She came home with money last week. She delivered a check for more than $200,000 to Grant County, and about $400,000 was direct deposited to other local governments that day.

"During our stay in Santa Fe last week for Grant County Day, we got a lot of the paperwork issues resolved," she continued. "The Local Government Division has committed to doing a workshop for local clerks, finance officers and engineers on the process and requirements of drawing down funds from capital outlay."

She said the processes had recently changed, but no one had made the local governments aware of the changes.

"If there was a problem with a request, the entity was not being told what the matter was," Lucero said. "It's all about communication."

She said one of the issues the local governments were having was that a notice of obligation needed to be completed before the LGD could do a draw down request.

"No whiteouts or erasures are allowed on the forms," Lucero said. "But when the form cells are protected there is no other way to correct them if an error is made. For instance, the LGD considers it an error if the entity puts in fiscal year 2015-16. They want only fiscal year 2016."

She said some other state departments are not as picky, but the LGD insists that all departments follow its model.

"One example was of an entity making six requests since June of last year," Lucero said. "The entity received no reply to any of them. It's alarming when legislators are looking at the balances and not seeing the draw down of funds, so they think the funds are not being used."

She said the current division director "has been the most responsive in a long time. He's trying to fix the problems. We have seen resolution in communication between the project manager at the LGD and the local governments."

"Rick Lopez has been the Local Government Division director for about a year," Lucero said. "He has committed that local governments should be receiving replies to their requests within a couple of days."