[Music]
okay good afternoon welcome back this is
uh part two this is our work session of
las cruces city council today is monday
august 23rd 2021 it's approximately 304
pm
so we have two items on the agenda first
one being the city strategic plan
implementation
and the administrative officer barbara
deleon will be presenting
and sir jana i believe as well
good afternoon mayor and city council
for the record barbara deleon chief
administrative officer for the city and
i'd like to introduce you today to
srijana basnett of course you know her
in a previous role but she is now our
performance manager and srijana is going
to be walking us through this update to
the strategic plan implementation so
thank you very much
thank you good afternoon mr mayor city
councillors
again srijana basnet a performance
manager for the city
so this presentation today is intended
to be brief but hopefully informative
um uh in terms of an update to
what we're doing right now in terms of
transforming our planning efforts into
implementation
so as all of you are aware um earlier in
february or earlier in 2020
the city council unanimously adopted
elevate las cruces the city's
comprehensive plan
and then earlier this year the city
council also adopted the city strategic
plan
what we're doing right now is
creating an implementation program
to
trans transform those goals into
actionable items
so the one uh missing piece right now
uh that we're working on is the
department strategic business plan and
that is a third planning level that
needs to also get aligned with these
other two plans
and the implementation program
also needs to have a feedback loop that
actually
informs the department plans as well
so there are several implementation
tools uh that we employ at the city uh
in terms of
accomplishing or achieving our goals in
our plans
the city strat plan of course is one of
them we have the city's budget we have
the capital improvement plan and program
we also have the municipal code
so here are a few questions that we ask
in terms of
what we can
or what we use these tools for
so the strategic plan asks the question
what are our goals
at the budget can ask what's our
capacity
the cip can ask us what and where
to invest
and of course the municipal code as you
all had this entire special work session
earlier can tell us what to regulate and
enforce
however
we do need to challenge our thinking and
approach to
understand how we can better use these
tools in response to the different
approach to city growth and management
as defined in these new plans
so a little bit of refocusing we might
ask ourselves what are our targets or
focus areas
the budget could ask what are our
priorities
the cip can ask are we investing in
projects that move our goals forward
and then the code can ask how do we
predict and facilitate outcomes that
align with all of these plans
now let me share with you an overall
picture of how some of our major
planning and implementation tools can
all work in conjunction with one another
so this is the implementation program
timeline
so implementation can be a massive
project and will take proper phasing to
get buy-in and build capacity within the
organization
so right now we've
completed one round of action alignments
or alignment
and we're approaching a second round in
early september
and i'll talk about that a little bit
more in depth in
forthcoming slides but the city's
capital improvement planning process is
also geared up to start again this year
and then so we're predicting that in
november of this year we will enter um
or rather we will have somewhat of a
completion of
establishing key performance indicators
and benchmarking for the city that also
works in conjunction with the elevate
las cruces performance report
that is presented to uh pnz eventually
and shared with city council
and then
hopefully by the end of the year we will
have a realignment of the department's
strategic plans
it's going to take a little bit of work
but the idea is to get that coordinated
with any changes to
elevate las cruces
but also be
very consistent with the budget process
so both of them can inform each other
then further out um
there are some milestones uh in in march
of next year we pre or
the same fiscal year but next calendar
year um we
see that the city council is
in temple or
it was proposed initially that the city
council would have a work session for
elevate updates
and then that would follow with budget
presented to the city council
there will also be actual amendments
that city council will perhaps adopt
kind of mid-may
and that will be followed by
again
the budget cip but also the final
updated department strategic plans
so eventually we want to end this first
initial phasing
with the completion of performance
reporting
dashboard and also establish an
evaluation process
so
to detail out some of those steps a
little bit more
we have
uh
kind of these three uh broad
steps uh one is to identify align and
communicate we also have a research and
design and then measure and evaluate
so just real quickly um what are we
identifying we're right now we're
actually identifying actions
that uh would actually implement the
strategic goals
then we want to align
and make sure that across these three
levels of planning elevate strategic
plan department plans that we have
consistency
and then this third piece
is not emphasized enough sometimes but
communication
among the departments between programs
it can also be
communication
through the different planning efforts
but to strategize to create partnerships
and identify any barriers that
prevent us from achieving what we need
to
so you all probably know this
elevate las cruces
had
a total of 46 goals and 36 out of those
goals plus a couple of actions and
specific
goals created by the mayor and city
council
really made its way into the city
strategic plan and formed the 45 goals
that we see today
now our first order of business was
really to go back to the elevate las
cruces work program and look at
what actions that are already identified
in that work program
would actually move these goals forward
so
there are a total of 411 goals or 11
actions
that came out of elevate las cruces now
in addition to those we also have other
actions from say the peak performance
plans or the department strategic plans
that could help us achieve some of these
goals and what we need to ensure is that
all of these are not only
feeding back into the loop
for strategic planning
but also we're not neglecting other
plans and policies in the city that can
also move these goals forward
so the missing piece here is the policy
level and that would be the next step to
really look at what policies city
council has adopted there might be other
internal policies that also drive these
actions forward and we need to make sure
that these are tying pretty closely
together to make sure that our process
is seamless
and moving us in the right direction at
all times
so um i'm going to run through just a
series of
actions um
it'll show you the hierarchy of the gold
policy actions as exists currently
in elevate las cruces and we're bringing
to the strategic planning effort so this
one is an example
on energy efficiency
so each goal has several policies that
are already identified and adopted by
city council
each policy also has a series of actions
that move that policy forward and help
us accomplish those goals
and so for each each policy there are
going to be several action items and for
each goal there are going to be several
policy items um and i'm not really
expecting you all to read this but i can
always stop and go back
if you do in the future
and this is just trying to give you a
glance of the working document we have
in place right now again i'm not really
expecting council to read this today but
if you want to just focus on the titles
we just
wanted to highlight
that there's a lot of
a lot of topics and dates and measures
that we're looking at right now in order
to figure out which actions the
departments and programs can accomplish
and when
so that leads us into phase two
the reset research design and estimate
so we don't need to necessarily reinvent
the wheel as far as research goes there
are best practices out there
and benchmarking can help us identify
what our peer communities
have done successfully there's open
benchmarking networks we can also
specifically target certain um
communities that we want to emulate or
we can create our own
and then that leads us to design or
decide what key performance indicators
and measures we're going to be using in
order to track
the success
of the implementation program
and then last but not least we also need
to figure out what the target initiation
or completion dates will be when can we
get these
tasks done
but also what is the resources that need
to be dedicated in order to make it
happen
so once that conversation is completed
and we make those um decisions
there's going to be this final phase of
measuring evaluating and of course
monitoring and evaluation is that key
piece that should always follow planning
that we need to kind of focus on now
so
the development of meaningful indicators
of progress will help us measure
success more carefully
we also need to evaluate what worked
what didn't
and then of course we need to have the
goal of transparency in all of our
reporting which ultimately can also
not only be a reporting mechanism but we
can also use it on the front end to
inform policy decisions and future
decision making at all levels of the
organization
it brings in
the public
and that is another thing that we are
investigating right now as you're aware
the city recently
purchased
an enterprise resource planning software
opengov
which is
web-based
and so i'm going to
run through a couple of examples
so this one in particular
is an opengov dashboard
that um the city of boston uses
if it'll open up for me
and so boston again they had their um
comprehensive plan which they call their
general plan and then they have these
broad goals of affordability of you know
access to opportunity inclusive economic
growth and they all have
a set of indicators um so i can click on
walkability
they have this commitment to increase
the walk scores that's their measure
that's how they're uh actually going to
report success that if they increase
their walk score that means they've
achieved better
walkability and then you have an active
or interactive platform to kind of see
how through the years things have
changed you can also compare again this
is this can be something that we do
through
our opengap platform um
but you can compare yourself to other
peer cities so in this case of course of
course boston is a much larger city
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but their peer communities um
are listed here and they can do a quick
comparison and anyone who has access to
the site which in their case is the
general public as i am accessing it
right now can use this data to inform
their decisions as well so a part of
this is also data sharing community-wide
and across peer communities
and that's where the benchmarking can
come in as well
so this one uses a different platform
but again it's an example
fort collins is a pure community for las
cruces and they have a climate action
plan that they're tracking
and what they're measuring are just a
few critical things but when they report
it
it just makes sense so they keep it
clean
but they are tracking this data and
they're collecting it and that's what we
need to be doing is the data that we're
collecting
we need to make sure that we are
analyzing that and reporting on it in a
way that is useful to everyone
and then here we have an example of our
own in-house gis
and i have to sign in sorry
gis
interface
and what they did is called story
mapping
and this is an example of the affordable
housing story mapping that they've used
so just because we have one software
doesn't mean we're restricted to it we
have all of these tools available
to the city
that we have invested in and so we
should be able to have multiple ways of
using data
showing data
and
tracking performance
so this is more informative the
storyboard
is intended to tell a story and so it's
not just dry numbers it actually talks
about
why things are being done what policies
and plans are in place
and some of the difficulties
so of course this particular site is
still um
not
publicly published it's still a work in
progress but we can develop things like
this
for
many of our
initiatives and efforts in order to
implement the city's strategic plan
and i will stop at that
and stand by for any questions
thank you
thanks shirjana
we have questions from council ben cuomo
thanks mayor
and thank you shadrana for that uh great
presentation i'm very excited about this
website for sure
but more importantly about the alignment
and just real quick is this a new
position to the city
or has it existed in the past
um
mr mayor councillor ben cuomo this is an
existing position
okay okay who was in your world before
you amber vaughn oh okay thank you
um thank you for clarifying that
i'm very excited of course that you're
in this position i think you um have led
the elevate las cruces process
incredibly well and and very excited to
work with you in this capacity
um and for ifo to keep building a really
incredible team
um
i
have just a couple questions i think um
sure jhana when you and i met i
definitely brought up the prcs as well
that i think need to absolutely be part
of
this process of realigning and alignment
from all of these different pieces from
elevate to strategic plan to peak
and i talked to ifo about this as well
in our one to one that um i really feel
like prcs
potentially are not being used to their
fullest potential
um when it comes to us really meeting
these action
goals and outcomes
and would really like to see
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that be included in this whole process
and how do we make sure that you know we
have laid out a lot of goals and a lot
of actions through all of these tools
how do we better make sure that we are
talking about them through the vehicles
at our
policy review committee so i don't know
do you have anything that you'd like to
add to that
mr mayor councilman cuomo um i think the
one suggestion
that i would make is that missing
policy layer
i think talking about that and using
that i do believe that the prcs have a
facilitation worksheet that was
developed that might be another way to
go um but there
there are quite a few ways that we could
again you know kind of refocus the prcs
and utilize them for
policy uh
discussions and i will differ uh to the
city manager if he has anything to add
i talked to ifo about this before but i
am
and i think i as the chair of a prc i
think that's obviously not on us as well
as counselors right to to set that
agenda but i just think it needs to be
a
an intentional piece in this
conversation about alignment
throughout
throughout the city especially as we're
talking about policies
um thank you suzanna
the other question not even a question
honestly is just a comment that i'm very
glad that you had that second set of
questions around
um
budget and all those and all those
pieces because i feel like i have
brought that up the last time we passed
a budget i talked about this i talked
about is this budget representative of
our priorities and i didn't say values i
said our priorities and the challenges
that we're currently facing and so
for you to have presented that today
that feels i think really important to
me and and
i certainly don't want to assume that
the budget process is perhaps on like
autopilot right leanne might say
absolutely not it's very complicated and
i'm sure it is but i do sometimes feel
like it can get a little
autopilot-ish
and doesn't
and is that budgeting process is not
more intentional and
looking back at these pieces of elevate
strategic plan and saying where are the
priorities that have been set forth by
the council and are we investing in
those in a meaningful way and so i think
that's really important that you brought
that up
excuse me let me catch my breath
um and then the last thing i want to add
and i don't know when this can happen
but as i was looking through a strategic
plan
that we just adopted i do feel like
there are certain pieces in here that
are not fully thought out some desired
outcomes that i would like to see more
fleshed out and perhaps that's that is a
process that is
that will come out through this
alignment genre potentially write the
outcomes that can be flushed out by the
departments
and then through prcs but i do think
it's important that we revisit this as a
council
because some of them are kind of vague
and i think it's important that we
actually come back and say what are our
desired outcomes that get really really
specific
and that's something i would like to see
sir janna thank you
thank you counselor counselor resort
oh thank you mr mayor
um i just want to make a comment
i really like that climate action
dashboard i can't wait till we have one
here
that's really uh
tells a lot of information time and
many times i've
wondered well what's happening with this
and what's happening with that
and what is any actions being done and
and so on and so forth so i just wanted
to mention that that's all mr mayor
i think
other than that
i
this is good this is very good um
to to hear all this today
mayor potem
thank you mayor thank you sir jana um
we had a great conversation when you
called and we did our zoom
and i've been waiting for a dashboard
for
four years now
or so
and i i like the idea of connecting the
budget
one thing specifically i think that is
missing
is um i've been um
looking at
as per counselor ben gomo's
recommendation the the statistics
related to
um what what is the it's a dashboard
it's a
um
it's a particular um place to look up
where poverty is very specific to zip
codes right
and i started thinking about
well how much money do we
put into each of our districts and
connecting it to goals and objectives
outcomes and i don't think there's
anything
that exists currently
um
you know as it relates to
to that so
i like to see that i think that would be
an important way to move forward i'd
also like to align um
not only
as you're identifying or maybe
drilling down
each of the goals and the objectives or
outcomes if you will that then we
identify next to those which prcs would
be the most right appropriate ones
to
um
you know push the agenda through i think
is is would be very very helpful and
then
lastly around the strategic plan i i
really would like to see it and i agree
with counselor ben cuomo there's there's
pieces of that that certainly need to
um to be teased out some more and i
would recommend and mayor in the next
month or so that we have a work session
and especially because i feel time is of
essence
um
that we actually have
an opportunity face to face to move
through this and really drill down
some of those areas that are still
ambiguous um for for me anyway um
and and then um let's see what else
i think that's it i i really appreciate
the work that you're doing that stops
doing i know they're working on trying
to tie in their peak performance i think
those things are really important to me
and to the
former council that that put that
together and and i i want to see more
you know
alignment with that i think that's a
very important item so thank you
georgetown thank you barbara thank you
mayor thank you
anyone else counselor vasquez thank you
mayor thank you sri janna i just want to
echo what some of my colleagues said i
think
the strategic plan and the action items
are
kind of the bread and butter of how we
meet all of our other collective plans
especially on a shorter term basis and
it's what the public sees
when we are
making a case for how we're implementing
the
plans that we've all worked so hard to
put together
um so having a method to communicate
that with the public that is
um clear and and really allows us to
tell a story about what we're doing
collectively as a council and as a city
and staff is really important so any
number of these dashboards or gis story
mapping tools or
other ways to be able to tell that story
that aligns with what our strategic plan
is is really appreciated
and i think will help um will help all
of us communicate with our constituents
better when they ask questions about any
given issue um that's important to them
and to us so thank you srijan i think
you're doing a terrific job of putting
this together thank you man
hey anyone else
cosplaying cuomo thank you i am this
question might be more for etho but
certainly for surjana as well
i and again i don't want to make any
assumptions i know that peak
was a process that was adapted or
brought forth by a previous city manager
and so i'm just curious about
um
is
is the alignment going to be difficult
from elevate to the strat plan to peak
performance as it has been presented in
the past or do we assume that it'll be
smooth
you know i can let sherzana and i know
barbara's coming up but before they they
weigh in
because it was it was brought up to
maybe before
with especially with peak
when i first came i was a little
confused by everything there was elevate
strat plan
peak
there might be something else i'm
missing still but there was a but there
was a bunch of different
uh one of the
the main reasons for having chojana is
to bring it all together
um but of course the guiding document is
the elevate right so
if peak of our peak performance one
thing i was really fascinated by is that
we actually had
uh
we were actually meeting and we were
discussing and it wasn't just a plan
that was sitting on the shelf usually
when i
in the past my experiences when we come
up with these plans
it's just another
thing on the shelf and it you dust it
off
at the end of the year when you need to
update it
but i felt like we had something going
on here when we were having these
quarterly meetings
um
that that our
amber bond was was basically
facilitating so i felt like we had
something something there to work off of
but that's the most important i think we
start from elevate and then everything
else if it doesn't fit it's out
but i'll let ferzana and barbara
thanks shoshanna
yes thank you
mayor and counselors barbara deleon
again for the record um as srijana laid
out that
kind of planning hierarchy going from
the from elevate that you adopted to the
city plan that you adopted and of course
elevate being very long range
the city plan being that three to five
year time frame with a two-year
refresh
review and refresh
the the purpose of the
what we call peak our department
strategic plans is really to put your
policy into action
so
to your question counselor bencomo about
whether it will be
difficult to do i think actually because
elevate is so
comprehensive not only with the goals
that you adopted with the themes and and
the goals but with actions as srijana
indicated there were already 400 actions
we were able to bring down from elevate
to the department level what's complex
sometimes is that some of those actions
involve multiple departments or entities
outside of the city in terms of
collaboration so we always want to
assign a lead so that someone
has the pleasure of being responsible
for coordinating actions amongst many
but those are some of the complexities
that we see in in implementing the plans
just where we
are in need of a lot of coordination and
communication
but really we we already have so many
things to find from elevate and as ifo
said that's the the um the benefit
certainly that we are happy to have with
srijana leading the implementation
effort because she's so knowledgeable
about the comprehensive plan that you
adopted and we can move right into then
just taking those action items making
sure they're assigned appropriately and
then as she indicated
making sure that we have the resources
available to then continue to get the
outcomes that we want based on the goals
that you've put forward so really that
it is quite the effort that she's
undertaking to help the guide the
departments
having those conversations setting those
measures but a lot of what you've
adopted have really has really it's laid
the foundation for on the roadmap for
where we're going at the implementation
phase so
hopefully that answers your question
thank you yes thank you both for that
that was very helpful
hey thank you anyone else
okay
i think that's your your total
presentation sure john okay well thank
you very much for that and as my
colleague said thank you for such a good
job in doing this as well
thank you okay so we're going to go next
to the
economic outlook and dr payadis will be
making that presentation
good afternoon mr mayor members of the
city council my name is francisco
pallares with the economic development
department
and
we will be presenting to you the
economic outlook of the city of las
cruces for the second half of
the year by at least the midpoint uh
time we usually present this to council
twice per year once in the beginning
right usually around february and then
once in the middle usually around august
uh so this is the second time in which
we're gonna present this it's quite an
interesting year
very very interesting year it's been a
recovery year as many of you have
probably seen it
and
it has a lot of implications
specifically on the labor market so this
specific outlook that you will see today
is very focused on labor market and and
some some of the the different data that
we can observe from it um from the local
economic perspective okay thank you
the first thing that i wanted to show
you is that we
traditionally we have always shown kind
of like the unemployment rate of the
city of las cruces and the unemployment
rate of the state of new mexico
and that's what you have in front of you
in that panel right the left panel is
the city of las cruces the right panel
is the state of new mexico
but for this
instance
this information is insufficient
right now the unemployment rate doesn't
tell us much
precisely because of how it's measured
right the unemployment rate is the
number of people that are unemployed
divided by the labor force and the labor
force is the people that are employed
plus the number of people that are
actively seeking employment that are
unemployed so
we have a very very very very specific
situation that we have not seen in a
long time we have a specific situation
in which individuals are in some
instances deliberately not going out to
seek employment they're seeking
employment because they have to
but they're not necessarily going out
and getting the jobs right it's quite an
interesting phenomenon and there's going
to be some descriptions as we continue
to move with this
that are going to be providing some
light into that so the first thing that
i just wanted to show you you have the
three years 2019 2020 and 2021 ah
note my apologies before even continuing
kyle eager was the city economist he was
supposed to present for you today but
his last day was on the 20th always the
20th
so he pursued better better
uh
fields working for for nmsu and also for
for um sandia laboratories so he's gonna
be he's gonna be working with them so he
sends his regards on on behalf of him
right so i just wanted to mention that
for him uh but mr eager is is doing well
and he sends his regards with regards to
this he apologizes he could not show up
uh so continuing with this uh the three
years that we have right there obviously
2019 we were very very good we were
actually in one of those good years that
we were producing a lot people were
finding jobs the unemployment rate was
coming down in a very traditional sense
we were looking at uh i mean one of the
lowest unemployment rates back in 2019
but then the pandemic hit and i don't
know if you can see it from from your
panel on the left but you have
january and february of 2020 those
unemployment rates are right around
there with 2019 because we were doing
good
right then kobet hits april boom jumps
to 10
and it continues to be like that for
almost at least in double digits for
april
double digits in july which was probably
the highest right the closures came in
people could not work people were um the
the health waters were were to to be
completely closed so so the unemployment
rate was quite high so the orange line
that you have and your panel on the left
shows you that right now to the latest
preliminary data that we have from royal
statistics is a 7.9 unemployment rate
for
june
for the city of las cruces which is
right about eight percent right so about
eight percent in in in a traditional
sense for us is a high number
but right now i just as i started this
we should be uh considerate of how we
look at the unemployment rate numbers
it's it's not telling us the whole story
right
so
then what i was trying to see is trying
to figure out how the
labor force looks like so on your panel
on the left you have labor force for the
three years once again
and as you can probably tell
labor force you cannot discern whether
there's a clear path of increases and
decreases and i actually didn't put it
in the presentation but i did this exact
same exact exercise and just put a trend
line
and it's just kind of like a flat line
our labor force is not growing
and this is not a phenomenon of las
cruces it's not a phenomenon of the
state of new mexico and is is a
phenomenon of the nation
labor force in many places in the u.s is
actually falling
so
the the amount of people that are
actively seeking employment or the
amount of people that are employed has
been decreasing
because of population trends we are
approximating in one of those instances
in which our population
seems to be shifting in a different
direction very similarly to what has
occurred in some instances in europe
right where they where the age or the
median age is quite high and you start
seeing some of those phenomenas there's
there's places in the us in which it's
behaving like that not in las clases in
the schools it remains flat
right so it's not growing but it's not
decreasing a lot either
so
labor force
is the sum of people that are employed
plus the people that are actively
seeking employment and then we have
employment right the panel on the left
sorry on the right and unemployment you
can see that on that
orange line that there's obviously
higher levels of employment compared to
2020 but they're not quite yet to the
2019 levels
as you can see of course we are in that
recovery stage in that recovery portion
of us
so then we requested some data from new
mexico workforce connections
unemployment claims in dona ana county
and this is dona ana county the entire
county not just the city of las cruces
we had at the highest peak of the
pandemic around 12 000 individuals in
donald county
having unemployment insurance claims
and in the entire county
that's that's at the peak right that
that happened back in in
june
of last year
right now we are approximately at 6 000
claims
in dona ana county as a whole so six
thousand individuals are still receiving
unemployment insurance uh claims
uh that that um as you can see it's a
clear tendency
going downward
and if i am not mistaken the individuals
and
our friends with with new mexico
workforce connections we're mentioning
that these benefits will expire on
september 4th
so on september come september
individuals will have to start
taking the the
employments the jobs
different instances so we're still
pending on what this would look like
come
two weeks from now when when people
actually have to have
a job rather than receive a an
unemployment claim like this and as a
share of the overall dona county that
takes about 10 and it's if you see it
from that that trend line that we have
on the panel on the right it's pretty
flat so that means that consistently
throughout the entire pandemic we have
accounted for about nine percent of the
state's unemployment claims which is it
is normal right that's the size of our
population it's the size of how
we would behave um
for us
now this
picture in front of you bear with me i
know it's a bit complex but this picture
in front of you
shows you first of all a table and then
a graph
the table describes the the
at the beginning of the pandemic right
uh and the the latest data that i have
so
let me see
yes so the second
column you have right there says weekly
average
from june to august 2021 so this is the
latest data we have available
on average for those three months how
many people usually claim
on insurance in
three
unemployment insurance benefits correct
and then on the on the third column
right there you have at the beginning of
the pandemic
from may to july 2020 how many people
used to be
just reclaiming
the the unemployment insurance
the tendency that you can see from both
of those by the different industries
tells you a lot of a story if you scroll
all the way down and none of you can see
the cursor
but right here is food and accommodation
services
at the beginning there was about 1 900
individuals
in this specific industry
but now look at this number
when you compare it for today well not
today but the average in this past three
months
is 563 individuals 564 individuals on
average right
so
you can see then from this graph on the
right
which
sectors and which areas have been able
to recover the fastest
from the pandemic
so the way in which you i wanted to
interpret this this graph on the right
is that it is a negative number that
represents a decrease in the number of
claims
and it's a percentage change so if it's
the greater the negative number means
the faster they've been able to recover
so from here we can see that arts and
entertainment food and accommodation
services
in the sequel in the dona county area
have been able to recover the fastest
right and and you can tell i mean
there's there's you go you go to their
restaurants and and everyone is hiring
everyone is looking for people
and and especially it's it's a hiring
sign in some instances there's there's
cases that i don't have enough stuff i
cannot serve you i apologize i can only
take this many tables
precisely because
there's
it has been one of the quickest
industries to recover
as we continue to go down there's
actually some industries that have
turned the opposite that started quite
well and at the beginning they were not
part of the bigger share but right now
they are
taking some of those claims such as
construction and public administration
now who are these individuals right
these are the industries in which they
are but who are they
when we look at the demographic
characteristics think of these numbers
and the the change and the percentage
change is that percentage delta
as the same fashion as i was describing
it before the larger the negative number
the faster they recover correct
so from here we can see and and again
the folks at
new mexico
workforce connections did a great job of
collecting this data so all the credit
goes to them
but the way in which we can think of
this is
this 68
means that individuals ages 22 and
younger were the fastest to be
reintegrated
from those two points in time
so it changed from having at the
beginning of the pandemic about 1200
individuals
to in this past three months on average
claim per week of 395
from here what we can see is that once
we start going to the working age adults
more than the 35 to 44 45 to 54
55 to 59 and 60 to 64.
almost all of them are right there at 30
that means that one out of every three
kind of return back or it decreased
so
that tells you quite the story
quite the story that there are in in and
it's
it's again it goes back to this
instance i was mentioning it's an
interesting place to be
analyzing things from
not nowadays so we can see that this has
been this reintegration has been a bit
slower
at least compared to the reintegration
of the individuals and a bit
of younger age
another interesting aspect
to see from here
is that females at the beginning of the
pandemic represented almost 1500 more
claims per month than males at the
beginning of the pandemic
but right now even though it's still a
larger number
they have been able to reintegrate much
faster to the workforce than the males
which is another interesting thing to
consider and now the difference between
these two numbers right in the average
that we have had currently
is right about a difference of about 300
individuals which is a lot less than the
1500 we originally had
so that's from the demand of labor right
so that's from the supply of labor what
about from the demand for labor right
for the employer when they want to hire
someone
from the demand for labor from the
employer's perspective we have seen that
they have published and again this blue
line represents 2019 green line
represents 2020
2021 represents the orange line
in almost in almost all cases
the orange line has been exceeding the
other two lines
these are new job postings that had the
keyword las cruces
attached to it
job postings that had the keyword las
cruces attached to it
new job postings in our community
are increasing
at very very rapid numbers compared to
what it used to be what does that mean
employers are seeking for people
that is that is in essence what it means
at least at a faster rate and it's and
it's expected right we're recovering
from where we were
so they're trying to hire they're trying
to bring back and bring it back their
operations at least to the level they
used to have in some cases in other
cases to potentially even increasing
more than what they used to have
on your right you're going to see a
table that has a list of the top 20
occupations
that at least in the first so in the
second quarter of 2021
showed up in the search that we did
the the occupation that is hiring the
most is registered nurses
at least 552 ads related to registered
nurses
retail salespersons
truck drivers
customer service representatives
cooks
administrative assistants
fast food counter workers
first line supervisors
and just continues down the list
this means
that these are the sectors that are
hiring that are bringing jobs that are
continuously continuously looking for
people at least in the second quarter of
2021 that were advertising their
positions
that's from the labor force standpoint
from the demand side and from the supply
side what it's telling you it is that
people are looking for people businesses
are looking to hire individuals they're
struggling
for multiple reasons
and this is why right but the message
that i wanted to deliver in in some
instances there is a change there's a
reluctancy for going back to work
and and maybe it's because you're not
fully
fully confident that the pandemic is
over
you're still scared
perhaps you are you are not feeling
trusted as to go i mean using in oneself
right not in anybody else
in going and searching for a job
that that could put you potentially at a
risk
so so that's that's something that is
telling us a lot second thing that we
wanted to mention from here
is prices and i think everyone has been
able to see this
a very important determinant when i was
talking with kyle of water we're going
to present to council
labor market and prices and prices from
the housing market are something else
right now from the data that we
collected from realtor.com
the median listing price and this is for
used and new homes at realtor.com and
sometimes those places are inflated
because people want to ask for more
right
median listing price and realtor.com
in july so june 2021
was 283 000
for median listing prices of homes in
las cruces
if we compare that same month to 2020
that's about 240 thousand dollars
that's a difference in one year of 40
000 dollars
40 000 appreciating from one year in 12
months
in median listing houses now
again
we have to take this with a grain of
salt because median listing prices are
in some instances inflated you don't
always pay what it is you ask for more
all of those aspects but that is one of
those uh rough measures that we have
for potentially gauging what is the
level of of of hotness right in the in
the housing market at least in this case
the
panel on your right shows you
kind of like a classic case in economics
high price leads to high supply at least
usually does and in this case is one of
those instances in which you did the
single family new residential permits in
the city of las cruces as you can see it
from right there
the pandemic did not necessarily affect
it
we can see
increased numbers
of
permits for house construction for home
construction for home building for
single families
to continue to go up
businesses
what about new business registrations
depending on your left has from january
to may 2021
kind of like the tendency that you have
right there
if i were to look at this and someone
asked me what's the tendency that you
can see on the panel of your left
i would say it's flat
there's positives there's negatives but
in general it's not changing
a lot it's behaving
kind of like normal so what is this
telling us that a lot of this hiring
that is occurring is not driven because
of new business necessarily it's driven
because of the existing business in las
cruces that needed to put people out
because the pandemic and then at the
moment in which they started reopening
okay i need to hire back right so it
tells us a little bit of a story with
regards to that the panel on your right
shows you the new business registrations
it's basically the same graph but
compare side by side on each of the
months that it has
retail trade how has retail trade looked
like in las cruces
since the beginning of the pandemic if
you were to look the panel on your left
would you be able to say that there's a
positive tendency on that
positive
positive uh
positive trend right
that that that it's increasing as time
passes by
and that is that is exactly what we can
see i mean even even on the pandemic or
in the period or in the pandemic which
let's say let's put it on
right around here
right there was a slight spike people
were purchasing people were buying
things you continue to go into the store
you continue to buy
necessities you continue to purchase you
continue to go out and
consume
so retail continues to grow
as you can see it on the panel on the
right shows kind of like the similar
tendency if you look at the green lines
that represents 2020. if we have april
2020 comparing it to april 2019
it was slightly above
correct
but there's other instances so retail
has been doing
good it's been selling
but then what about inflation
if even before going into the panel on
the left let's start with the panel on
the right which basically has the
inflation rate in the united states and
the latest data that we have available
for that is july of 2021.
inflation and i'm
certain that you will be able to attest
to this has been going up
prices for things are more expensive
i don't know if you've noticed in your
in your in your checkout
that things are more expensive and your
gas
and when you're buying something that
wait a minute
that used not to cost that much
i there's a specific brand of
chips that i like that increase 50 cents
from what they used to be a year ago
and i mean they used to be a dollar so a
dollar fifty cents to me was like what
that's 50 inflation rate of course
that's chips right but anyhow that was
just me being the economist while eating
chips
and
what we have to consider here is that
prices are going up
in the united states as a whole the
inflation rate from 2019 to 2020 for the
months of april may and june
it was
very very small
and just as a general rule of thumb
we kind of want to have two percent
inflation rate
but if you look at the growth rate from
2020 to 2021 you start seeing that those
are
at the five percent levels
in some instances
so in some of the webinars that the fed
has had they have actually indicated
that if this persists if this high level
of inflation continues to persist
that could potentially lead them
to increase the rates
and that can have other repercussions
across the economy
so
now that we're done with this panel on
the right let's look at the panel on the
left
how do we compare las cruces to the u.s
average city
even though prices are going up
we are still competitive compared to
other places in the nation because
prices are going up everywhere not just
in las cruces
but when we compare ourselves to
everyone else we're still competitive in
terms of prices
so that that is still an advantage that
we have for ourselves
looking ahead what are the things that
we have to keep in mind
the city of las cruces is recovering
from the negative economic effects of
the covet 19 pandemic we are recovering
however about 6 000 individuals are
still filing for unemployment insurance
in donand county we have to keep an eye
out for september once these benefits
expire we'll see what the what the labor
market does
we'll see whether that they'll be able
to fill some of these positions
or or what's going to be occurring right
and and just as as a general rule
uh well no it's not even a rule but just
as
a priority without testing this
experience
in in texas and in el paso the benefits
were very expired and they're still
struggling to find people
so this doesn't necessarily tell you
that it's because of the benefits but
rather because of other things that may
be affecting it
there's there's still a strong number of
growth of jobs particularly in medical
and retail sectors
prices are increasing but las cruces
remains competitive compared to the
average u.s city and lastly it is
important to keep an eye out for the
macroeconomy if the inflationary
pressures persist
the fed might consider increasing rates
amid fear of inflation
so that is something that would
definitely be affecting us if that is
the way in which it goes
and with that
we'll stand for discussion
thank you dr payalis
we have councilman como cancer sword
counselor flores
thank you mayor thank you so much dr
pallades your presentations are always
really impressive
um i think we're very lucky to have you
so i hope you don't go anywhere
anytime soon
um i honestly i really wanted to
honestly thank you for what you just
said because i think
we've been hearing a lot of
stories a lot of narratives being told
about workers currently and
that are
quite frankly offensive and i think it's
important that we push back with numbers
and data
um and i think it's what you've done
here today
and
you know i i do i keep hearing this
narrative that people don't want to go
back to work because they have
unemployment benefits but the reality is
that
and actually what i would love to see
next time dr payatis is perhaps um
there was a graph i saw last year in
terms of the sectors that were hit
hardest by covid i think a comparison
between the sectors that have the
highest
positive numbers
compared to the sectors that are
currently struggling with unemployment
and i would almost bet that there are
similar sectors right the restaurant
sector whether you're serving food or
packaging food are still being hit by
clover positive cases
and you know we keep talking about
workers as essential workers but we
don't treat workers as essential workers
wages are stagnant they don't have paid
sick leave particularly for people in
the food industry who work paycheck to
paycheck
who don't have the ability to say i'm
going to stay home and not lose my wages
which will in turn mean that i might
lose money for rent or utilities or
bills
and i was even
i was even stuck in this very optimistic
place a couple months ago where i was
like oh my god we're entering this post
pandemic world but that's not the case
at all we are still very much
in a pandemic
where we are asking people to show up to
work
and there isn't enough
safety protocols there isn't enough
of an incentive for people to actually
feel safe
at work from getting sick from covet and
then on top of that many of these
workers probably don't have health
insurance so
to me i think it'd be really important
dr payet is to show the graph of the
sectors being currently impacted by
covet next to that because i think
that can be part of telling more of the
story like you said
the data alone doesn't show the whole
story so
how can we you know do that
um how can we show that story a little
bit more right and it's not the whole
story but i think it's an important
piece of the story
and then that was just a comment i
wanted to make but i i wanted to ask in
terms of cost of living
what can we do as a city to remain
competitive in in terms of cost of
living
what more can we do
thank you very much councillor vancomo
in in terms of cost of living the um
and perhaps should mr mayor may
councillor
should i perhaps um
ask further clarification from the city
government perspective or as a city or
as a whole i was asking as a city
government perspective
it's a great question
that's a good question i don't have an
answer for that that's definitely
something that that is worth
what can city government do to reduce
the cost of living
it's it's quite a question that i would
need time to think about that and
provide you with an answer absolutely
and i would love to have that
conversation with you and with ifo but i
think it's an it's an important
conversation for you for us to have as a
whole because
i like that we're remaining competitive
and again it shows
people moved here people wanted to live
in las cruces and i want to make sure
that we do as much as possible to keep
that desire to want to live here and
ensure that people everyone from workers
to
single parents to young families they
want to stay here and that they thrive
here so i really appreciate this this
data dr payatis thank you
if i may counsel just a couple ideas one
would be community solar so if we can do
that
then i'm hoping that
it would reduce
our residents those residents that
participate approximately 20 percent
less on their electric bill
another one is and i think you've heard
me mention this is the i wanted to look
at increasing the franchise fee from a
paso electric that one percent which is
about
five dollars or so give or take
maybe 10 to go into a weather strip to
go to the city for weather to help
weatherstrip some of our lower income
residents
that would probably bring their electric
bill their their
utility bills down about 40 bucks maybe
give or take 40 50 so that
i mean these are some small
ideas that help
kind of reduce their overall
outflow of cash
so uh let's see next is uh counselor
sword
thank you mr mayor
and uh
francisco
i uh
i really enjoy your interest and your
enthusiasm and your
passion for this subject here it's
really cool
um i'm glad you're you're doing this
uh on slide five
uh you have the unemployment insurance
there is
um the right half of that
graph there
the insurance claims by industry
first to last three months
so in other words i'm trying to
interpret this
is it uh a negative percentage because
people aren't claiming in unemployment
insurance
okay so there's
for example in the arts entertainment
and recreation approximately 70 75
percent
less people are claiming employment
insurance
in the last three months compared to
when
compared to the first three months of
the pandemic counselor
and then but in construction
there's an increase in unemployment
insurance claims
that doesn't sound right to me
because
it seems like they're short
of workers in construction and i i'm
probably only looking at housing
construction rather than a total
pitcher
um so
explain that if you can
that that's a great question mr mayor
councillor and
it is uh
construction if we remember it was not
one of the it was considered an
essential uh so it was not affected by
some of the closures at the beginning
right so we did have a strong
construction sector even throughout the
pandemic as you can see it was evidence
in the number of houses that were built
right
um so some
and this is a long shot and this does
not necessarily mean that it would be
what i'm about to say but it could also
be the case that
workers in this industry have had to
work
throughout the entire pandemic in a boom
period
so that can have repercussions on
workers right you you can get exhausted
you can have
you you can be exhausted recessive
because of that so it could that's
that's one potential ability um another
potential uh thing that could be with
regards to that
is
that there are so much competition in
the in the industry
that perhaps you're you're moving from
one sector to the other one and in the
in between you are remaining unemployed
so there's there's different
explanations for this
none of them i can provide with
certainty for what it is i am not in the
industry right but that's one of those
things that i noticed i was like
why is it that towards now we're seeing
more individuals in the construction
site
filing for for their unemployment
insurance
whereas at the beginning it was not and
perhaps it has to do with maybe this is
also a normal amount of what you would
have in this specific industry but it's
just that during the beginning of the
pandemic the boom was so high
and for for the construction sector that
they were being utilized
so there's there's potential
explanations to that i don't know which
one's
out of those which one is the right one
okay if you know someone in the in the
construction industry
that's certainly a question that can be
asked well i'm trying to
rectify
what i heard from
a builder
of a house
um when i said oh i guess you're having
trouble getting lumber the wood
for housing building he says yeah that's
kind of a problem but we have a worse
problem trying to find workers to build
the houses
so i'm trying to make that connection
i don't see it
um
how it fits with this graph i mean
and then public administration are we
talking about
local government and so forth there can
be local governments that if i'm not
mistaken also encompasses some of the
schools as well
schools yeah
so it can you can have it has a broader
definition but yes
so if if we look at the construction
sector council's work
the calculation was made from
493 that filed their unemployment
insurance claim
um to 632.
so it's it's an increase of uh
relatively 140 individuals which is not
that many for the entire county
so
it looks like a very large change
because it's in percentages
but in terms of people it's about 140
people yeah that's not much right okay
got it and then on on
new job postings uh
the highest number is registered nurses
um what's your universe there
where are you gathering that number
is that donated county or someplace else
that that is a great question counselor
mr mayor
the job cq data that we have a
subscription to
basically does a job search among
different portals across different
communities right and they search all
from your monster.com to your indeed.com
to your linkedin to
your different established uh
already posting of jobs that go online
and then they condense it into a
database that can be used
that was searched for keyword las cruces
and keyword las cruces extended to the
metropolitan statistical area so that is
correct it's the entire county the msa
the msa okay
that's a lot of nurses that is a lot of
nurses
i tell every nurse how much i appreciate
them
and
i'm telling anybody who needs a career
nursing is a good career it pays well
too
um okay thank you um oh a little a
comment on the house prices that you
showed on and on the number you gave you
know 20 30 40 000 or something like that
increase whatever it was
um just to comment i saw houses in
spokane washington last fall
increasing 100 000
over a year
uh and and even more over two years
i was just shocked to see that not that
i'm buying a house up there but i just
happen to look at it thank you mr mayor
that's all i have
thank you counselor councillor flores
uh thank you mayor and thank you dr
fayades i too as my fellow colleagues
have nothing but accolades for you
um i love your passion and your
knowledge and your intellect and your
presentations are always very good
so thank you um
in in terms of
the unemployment insurance
the bureau of lbs
bls bureau of labor statistics uh takes
its information based on the uis uh
filed so um
once they
uh
run the course of their benefits which
they have paid into by the way i mean
people think unemployment insurance is
something that they're living off the
fat of the land or someone's taxes but
in fact ui
unemployment insurance is paid by each
and every individual who's employed
so those are just an earned benefit in
fact
um and i agree with dr uh
councillor ben como i mean you hear
these rumors that people just want to
live but you know off the fat of the
land they don't want to go back to work
and that's not true because the work
ethic of people
is that you want to work you know
there's dignity in working there's
dignity and earning a paycheck
my concern is that
once the person
stops the ui benefit
does that does the bls
track
the fact that it's ended and
has gained employment elsewhere
or
is there i mean
you know or does it just end and then
they take their employment uh data from
uh
unrelated uh source
mr mayor councillor first that's an
excellent question as well and actually
the the unemployment insurance claims we
get them from new mexico workforce
connection so that's a question i can
definitely ask them
because once they that's that's a
question that's a very good question
because once they are
done
come september 4th
how do you know
who
landed in a job and who did not
so that's um that's a that's a great
transitioning question and if they're
not already thinking about that maybe
that's something that we can discuss
with with them to see whether that's
even something trackable thank you yeah
i don't know if it is trackable but it'd
be great to see if
our state workforce solutions is in fact
tracking that uh thank you and my next
question is retail sales
are those retail sales that are
um like the brick and mortar or does
that include online a retail because i
think that they're
i think if i recall the number was high
in retail
and i think it's attributable i think it
might be attributable to the fact that a
lot of people were forced to go online
instead of going in store more you know
brick and mortar shopping
is that trackable too is that reflected
in our data the the
mr mayor council of flores the retail
data to my knowledge is brick and mortar
but that's also another thing that that
we we i know the state is tracking for
sure because we do get a portion
on on on grocery seats um as split by
the population right so i know that the
state is tracking retail sales somehow
um but to my knowledge this data in
front of you right now is is brick and
mortar because that's the portion that
we get the share from the grt as us
okay
it'd be great to see i'm sure because i
know i did
about a new computer and you printer
several items online because of covid so
i imagine if i did you know that then it
would i think that the numbers might be
different
but it'd be great to see to ascertain
and then i think some people who have
done retail shopping like a lot of
people are doing their grocery shopping
and i think have gone back to that too
and is grocery shopping considered
retail yes it is okay
all right and then my um
my um
question about
inflation adjustments you said the feds
would really have to you know look in
there and everything
so um i know ben bernanke you're
familiar with
ben bernanke
uh was asked a question it was i can't
remember where
how i came upon an interview
and he was asked how do you adjust
how do you adjust inflation
and i don't know if he was kidding he
didn't appear to be kidding and he said
oh that's quite simple all you do is
move the decimal
ben bernanke
so if we have somebody like that taking
it lightly well i don't think he's in
that position anymore it hasn't been but
how can we leave it to the feds what do
we do
and it i think that's just a rhetorical
question on my part
and um
but i don't think that there's been
serious consideration
and there's a lot of talk about how
you know anyway
just in terms of what the quote feds are
doing
um isn't really helping where we are
with the setback in covid
and um
and i have you know my own personal
opinion as to why that is going on but
so
do you
really see that
the feds would do an inflation
adjustment that would benefit the people
i mean we the people of las cruces being
in new mexico being the poorest state in
the country
thank you mr mayor
councillor flores
the
the fed is is known for making
adjustments depending on so the fit and
it's one of the few feds in the so one
of the few central banks in the world
that has this
has what what is called a dual mandate
system that means
i'm sorry duo duo dual dual mandate
system as in they have to seek full
employment which is right around four
percent while at the same time they try
to seek uh inflation controls that's
very peculiar for the united states
because it not not every
central bank in the world does that
right for instance in mexico and mexico
the only mandate that they have is
completely dedicated at controlling
inflation it's up to society to seek
economic growth it's up to society to
seek full employment
central bank just controls for inflation
not in the us in the u.s you have a dual
system right you have to keep that
balance as to how much is too much
inflation and how little is too much
or how how large is a large unemployment
right so they're constantly balancing
that
if
5.4 unemployment rate is high
it's very high
and and
i think that depending on what
economic measure they're looking at if
they think that the economy is strong
enough to
take a hike they could take it
precisely because 5.4 is is a high it's
a high rate
it's one of the highest we've seen in a
long time since probably the depression
no no not since the person in the 70s we
had a very high inflation rate remember
in the
80s right so so maybe one of the highest
we've had in 10 years okay so it's
pretty high so that can drive them to
um to take that action and again
i'm not with them right i'm not with the
federal reserve but i i could i have
hurt them at least at some point
with the potential of increasing it if
this persists
all right well thank you so much dr
payatis you've been very informative and
i always appreciate your analysis so
thank you very much thank you and thank
you thank you mr mayor
thank you
thank you dr payatis i think that's kind
of does it for questions from council as
always we appreciate your insight and
your ability to kind of give us an idea
of what what we're looking at so uh and
i think to answer the critics isn't your
phd in economics or yeah yeah so that's
why you like it you love it an economic
development yeah
exactly so we appreciate you very much
thank you thank you
okay so i believe that concludes our
work session items so um if there's
nothing further entertainment motion to
adjourn
second by flores okay motion made by
councillor bin cuomo second by
councillor flotus we adjourn christine
[Music]
this is on the motion to adjourn the
work session counselor abeda
yes
cancer flores
yes cancer canada yes mayor yes
okay we're adjourned it's 4 22 pm
i have a good rest of the evening
you