In July, the Santa Fe City Council approved a new budget built atop a plan by Mayor Alan Webber to consolidate city government into three new overarching departments, even though the plan to reorganize had yet to come before the governing body for approval.
The reorganization seemed to be headed for a straightforward approval at Wednesday night's City Council meeting; it was approved by all three committees that heard it in the weeks leading up to the vote.
However, on Wednesday night, council members postponed the measure in a divided 5-3 vote. The main issue was that the proposal did not include a Fiscal Impact Report, though councilors brought up a host of other concerns as well.
The council voted instead to discuss the fiscal impact report at the finance committee meeting on Monday, Aug. 31, and to bring the proposal with the FIR back for a vote at the next City Council meeting.
Councilors Renee Villarreal, Joanne Vigil Coppler and Michael Garcia voted against the postponement on the grounds that two weeks did not give the administration and the governing body enough time to get input from the public and city employees. Councilors Signe Lindell, Carol Romero-Wirth, Chris Rivera, and Roman Abeyta and Mayor Alan Webber voted in favor of the two-week punt.
Representatives of both the general employees union and the fire union spoke against reorganization because they said explanations of how it would impact employees were insufficient and they had concerns about the timing of reorganizing in the midst of a pandemic and fiscal crisis.
The reorganization would have widespread implications across all areas of city government.
It would combine departments as follows:
The Economic Development Division, the Office of Affordable Housing, the Planning and Land Use Department, the Tourism Santa Fe Department and the Arts and Culture Department would become divisions of a Community Development Department.
The Organizing the Community Services Department, the Police Department, the Fire Department, the Recreation Division, and the Office of Emergency Management and Safety would be combined under a Community Health and Safety Department.
Constituent and Council Relations and the City Clerk's Office would become the Office of Community engagement.
Garcia said he "was shocked to not see an FIR," when he went noticed the exclusion. He said the failure to include the document was both a failure in transparency and went against city code.
"I am not against restructuring our government but I am absolutely against restructuring our government in a non-transparent, fast-tracked way," he said.
Webber proposed that the amended budget itself sufficed as a fiscal impact report.
Councilor Jamie Cassutt-Sanchez said she approved of the reorganization and felt the fiscal impacts had been discussed in depth at previous committee and budgetary hearings, but did have concerns about the lack of a formal FIR.
"I think it is important that we follow our rules, and even though this has been discussed there are going to be many members of the public who are only going to be tuning in tonight and perhaps will not be going through the budget," Cassutt-Sanchez said.
Other councilors brought up issues including lack of input from the director of the HR department, and Villarreal said the tone of discourse within the administration around the change felt "toxic." She also expressed uncertainty that the reorganization would have meaningfully positive results.
"I feel like this is moving deck chairs on the Titanic," she said.
