[Editor's Note: Grant County commissioners held a short special meeting right before a long work session on Nov. 14, 2023. This is the fifth of a series of articles covering the work session. It continues with a review of the regular meeting agenda for Nov. 16, 2023 and will include the GRMC monthly update and elected official reports at the regular meeting.]

By Mary Alice Murphy

At the Grant County Commission work session on Nov. 14, 2023, review of the regular meeting and after the public input and presentations and proclamations at the regular meeting on Nov. 16, 2023, commissioners heard the monthly report from the county-owned Gila Regional Medical Center.

The new permanent GRMC Chief Executive Officer Robert Whitaker noted that he had been in the position for two-and-a half weeks at that point.

"Thank you for letting me introduce myself and having me here as part of the Grant County Gila Regional Medical Center community," Whitaker said. "I'm excited about the opportunities at Gila Regional, about what's happening, and I just want to go through some of the numbers we reported at our meeting last night."

[Editor's Note: A comprehensive report on the GRMC Board of Trustees meeting will come when this author has completed the Commission work and regular meetings.]

"In the month of October, we had 80 discharges," Whitaker said. "We had 24 births ad 1400 ER (emergency room) visits, 2185 clinic visits and 258 surgeries. Our net operating revenue was right around $8 million and we had a net operating profit of about $133,000."

He talked about some of the projects ongoing at the hospital, which included several construction projects in different phases. "One is our orthopedic clinic. We haven't yet started on the renovation, but we are working with the general contractor. Most of our projects have lead time while we wait on the necessary materials. Our labor and delivery renovations, the general contractor is here today and we expect to start construction in January. We have lead time on those materials as well. On our HVAC project for the operating rooms, Trane was here last week for a final walk-through. They will be ordering materials, and again that project is due to start in January. We do have a few smaller projects we are looking at doing. One is expansion of the ER waiting area. It has to do with a rearrangement of things to allow better line of sight for patients and caregivers. The other has to do with our outpatient registration lobby area and it's again rearranging things, so there is more space for patients as they wait. I did submit to the Prospectors by the deadline for our projects that we would like the Legislature to consider next year. One piece of equipment we just purchased is an orthopedic shoulder positioning machine in order to get the arm and shoulder in the right place for the scopes."

"I do want to recognize a service we offer as a critical access hospital," Whitaker said. "It's called a swing bed service and last week, we discharged our first swing bed patient. We appreciate her allowing us to tell the community about the service. We do offer it and it allows the patient to stay in the community and get skilled nursing care without having to leave. "

On the people category, "we do have a permanent CFO (chief financial officer) candidate coming to interview. Mr. (Patrick) Banks is still with HealthTech so he will be involved here but in a different role. We have an interim CFO in place right now."

"We are in the process of our employment engagement survey," he continued. "This is important for us as a management team to have our employees be able to express and give us feedback. When it is completed, we will work on a plan and celebrate our successes as well as work on things we need to improve."

Whitaker said the hospital is also in the middle of a compensation survey. Once that's done, "we'll look at it and the levels of salaries and make a report to our board."

He announced the hospital would hold an annual Christmas party for the staff and the commissioners will receive invitations. "We feel we need to celebrate the employees for the caring and compassion they offer to community members when they come into our facility with their health problems."

District 3 Commissioner Alicia Edwards said she appreciated his detailed report.

Next came elected officials' reports.

Financial Officer Linda Vasquez gave the county expenditure report at the work session. It addressed the Grant County expenditures from Oct. 3 through Nov. 8, 2023. The total was $4,692,964.85, including three pay periods for a total of $727,454.58.

Please see the PDF below for the extraordinary expenditures above $10,000 during the reporting period.

Also at the work session, Vasquez presented the quarterly report ending Sept. 30, 2023, for the first quarter of the 2024 budget year. She noted the beginning balance of the General Fund was $7,107,013.41 in cash, with revenues collected $2,45.516.32, transfers out of $41,901.88, expenditures of $2,607,757.04, and investments of $13,322,457.30, leaving a balance of $20,423,328.11, with reserves of $651,939.26, and an adjusted balance of $19,673,388.85.

In the Road Fund, the cash balance at the beginning of the quarter was $ 438,067.00, with revenues of $210,286.37, expenditures of $481,698.79, leaving a balance of $166,654.58, with reserves of $40,141.57, and an adjusted balance of $126,513.01.

The beginning balance of the Detention Fund was $910,534.00
in cash, with revenues collected $281,317.71, expenditures of $1,064,574.05, leaving a balance of $127,277.66, with no required reserves, with an adjusted balance of $127,277.661.

"In our General Fund, we have collected 15.5 percent of our budgeted revenue for the quarter," Vasquez said. "We had expenditures of 19.3 percent of the total budgeted expenditures. In the Road Fund, we have collected 19.54 percent of revenues, and expenditures of 22.12 percent of what was budgeted for fiscal year 2024. For Detention, we have collected 26.7 percent of our revenues and expended 25.3 percent of our budged expenditures."

She also said in the General Fund, the county has collected 20.77 percent of the local gross receipts tax, 30.53 percent of its hold harmless GRTs, and 28.64 percent of the compensating tax.

The next item addressed the first quarterly lodger's tax report. Vasquez said the report shows "we had $210,089 in beginning cash balance and revenues of $25,941, expenditures of $49,119.22, leaving a balance of $186,910.78. The report shows where the money went in promotional and non-promotional events."

District 2 Commissioner Eloy Medina said that at a meeting the previous evening, the question had come up about the gross receipts tax in the Mining District, using the same zip code for what belongs to the county and what belongs to Bayard. Mr. Ramos said he had talked to you. "I think it's kind of a pressing issue to get the money out of Bayard and over to the county. Are you guys discussing this?"

Vasquez said: "Yes, I talked to Mr. Ramos and to Mr. Montief of the Department of Finance and Administration, who is the liaison. He said it is revenue that is collected and they're not sure how to determine where in the municipality or the county it goes to, so they send it to Bayard and Bayard has to turn around and reimburse it back to the state. It's already been given back to the county."

"I just want to make sure if there's money in Bayard that we give it back to the county," Medina said.

Edwards asked, at the work session, if the money in the lodger's tax report had all been allocated, and Vasquez confirmed some of it has, but not all of it, with some of it going for promotion of future events.

For Elected Official reports, Clerk Marisa Castrillo had no report at the regular meeting.

Deputy Assessor Raul Turrieta said with a shortage of staff, the office is addressing deed processing "according to state statute, just as fast as we can. For title companies out there, please be patient. We're also getting geared up for notices of valuation."

UnderSheriff Anthony Bencomo filled in for Sheriff Raul Villanueva who was unable to attend. "You received a copy of the report, but I'm just going to hit the highlights. Deputy Sherlyn Gutierrez attended the Women in Law Enforcement Summit in Dallas."

On Operation Stonegarden, he said the department is still active with the program, "as we are still having an influx of undocumented person encounters on highway 180 East. For the month of October, we are looking at close to 200 undocumented persons turned over the Border Patrol, not counting the individuals who ran from the scene. We are working closely with Border Patrol, so when we apprehend them, we can then transport them to the Deming or Lordsburg stations. We have just purchased six new units, three Ford Explorers and three Ford Expeditions. They are being outfitted in El Paso. For personnel, I would like to welcome back Lyle Pogue and Joseph Carlos, who have worked with us in the past. I also want to welcome Don Gatlin, who will be our resident deputy in the Cliff/Gila area. So we currently have a deputy in Cliff and also one in Mimbres. We would like to recognize all the deputies who participated with the D.A.R.E. program during Red Ribbon Week, and also for those who participated on Halloween for a successful trunk or treat at the hospital. Also I would like to recognize our veterans, who are serving at the Sheriff's Department. They are Lyle Pogue of U.S. Marine Corps, Alejandro Gomez of U.S. Marine Corps, Bill Maes of the U.S. Navy, myself of the U.S. Army, and our Chaplain Danny Castillo of the U.S. Marine Corps."

For Dispatch, Bencomo listed the various calls for a total of 1,593 calls for the month, with self-initiated 1,077 and 516 dispatched, incident reports 108, and crash reports 33.

With no questions and no more elected official reports, the regular meeting moved to minutes, which were all approved.
work session, please see above.]

The first financial report at the regular meeting considered the expenditure report Vaquez had presented at the work session. Commissioners approved it. Commissioners also approved the second report, which addressed the first quarterly report of fiscal year 2024. They also approved the first quarterly report for the Lodger's Tax.

The next article will get into the work session review of the new business items, as well as reporting the decisions made on the agenda items at the regular meeting.

For previous articles, please visit https://www.grantcountybeat.com/news/news-articles/81381-grant-county-commission-held-work-session-111423-part-1 ; https://www.grantcountybeat.com/news/news-articles/81427-grant-county-commission-held-work-session-111423-part-2 ;  https://www.grantcountybeat.com/news/news-articles/81509-grant-county-commission-held-work-session-111423-part-3  ; and https://www.grantcountybeat.com/news/news-articles/81548-grant-county-commission-held-work-session-111423-and-began-regular-meeting-111623-part-4  .