County hears plea for additional funding from SNMCAC Senior Citizens Program

With costs steadily rising and sources of funding dwindling, the Southeast New Mexico Community Action Corporation (SNMCAC) went before the Eddy County Commission Tuesday to plead for additional support in order to continue the vital services it provides to the county’s senior citizens.

SNMCAC Senior Citizens Program Director Belinda Lopez addressed the commission, outlining the services the program offers and recent increases in both cost and demand.

Lopez said that, as grocery prices and the cost of fuel have risen, more seniors are turning to the program’s meal and transportation services to save money. Around 100 to 125 seniors per day are dining at the SNMCAC MealSites, while the program’s food costs have risen 12%. And with the cost of vehicle maintenance up 48% due to longer routes in rural areas and the implementation of an extra route in Carlsbad, the program is serving an influx of seniors who are not only looking to save on gas money but avoid driving through oil and gas traffic.

In Fiscal Year (FY) 2023, the SNMCAC served 37,828 meals to approximately 650 seniors at congregate MealSites, delivered 73,762 meals to homebound seniors, and provided 5,008 transportation units to 56 seniors, 1,675 housekeeping units to 22 seniors, and 6,197 adult day care units to 13 seniors.

As demand for those services increases, Lopez detailed for the commission the associated costs versus what the SNMCAC is reimbursed by Aging and Long-Term Services:

• Cost of a congregate meal: $10.02; reimbursement amount: $6.17
• Home meal: $6.56; reimbursement: $2.81
• Transportation per one-way trip: $13.44; reimbursement: $9
• Housekeeping per hour: $24.34; reimbursement: $16.65
• Adult day care/respite per hour: $19.73; reimbursement: $15.56
  
  Lopez said that private donations within the communities the Senior Citizens Program serves are down, available grants are becoming harder to come by, and the program lost a significant portion of its United Way funding this year, down from $80,000 to $18,000.
  
  “We won’t be able to continue without help,” Lopez said.
  
  The SNMCAC will asking for $20,000 in funding from the county in FY2024-25 to help the Senior Citizens Program continue.
  
  In other business Tuesday, the commission heard a request for support from the Carlsbad Irrigation District (CID) in its efforts to petition Congress to amend the Title Transfer Act of 2000 to place financial responsibility for the replacement and maintenance of radial gates associated with Sumner Dam on the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR).
  
  CID Board of Directors member Alisa Ogden outlined the situation for the commission. Sumner Dam, constructed in 1936, serves as a reservoir for irrigation water storage for the CID, and its radial gates also function as flood control for the Pecos River. The CID assumed operation and maintenance of the facility in 1989, and in 2001, the BOR transferred the title to the dam’s irrigation infrastructure to the CID.
  
  The issue that has arisen is that the BOR has deemed the gates in need of replacement at an estimated cost of $30-$35 million, with the CID considered responsible for footing a 68.36% portion of that bill.
  
  “For our farmers to pay that amount of money, we’d have to take out a 50-year note,” Ogden said. “It would increase our cost per acre, per year to about $36 per acre. So I figured, just for the farming that my brother and I do together, we would be paying about $1.5 million extra, over and above all of our normal assessments to CID, to repay this cost.
  
  “CID contends that we should not owe that amount of money. We contend that it is a flood control structure; we are an irrigation district.”
  
  In its letter to Congress, the CID is asking that all financial responsibility associated with the radial gates be borne by the BOR. Ogden said the CID has had solid support from the county’s congressional delegation, particularly U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez’s office, and asked that the commission consider drafting letters to the delegation expressing support for the CID’s position ahead of a planned visit to Washington, D.C., in June.
  
  The county unanimously approved providing those letters of support.
  
  Elsewhere Tuesday, the commission voted to approve:
  
• the awarding of a multi-source bid for opioid crisis services for Eddy County to the Carlsbad Anti-Drug/Gang Coalition and Carlsbad Lifehouse, with contract negotiations to follow.
• the awarding of a bid for management of the Eddy County Fairgrounds to the Eddy County Fair Association under a one-year contract with the option to renew up to three times for a total of four years.
• a request from Planning and Development Director Steve McCroskey to apply for a New Mexico Clean & Beautiful grant in the amount of $10,000 with a 25-percent match by the county possible for costs associated with future Keep Eddy County Beautiful efforts, such as advertising, events, signage and youth litter clean-up functions.
• the February 2024 revenue report, which included gross receipts tax revenue of $5.8 million and oil and gas revenue of $7.4 million, related to production based on November amounts of 23 million barrels at $77 per barrel.