you
[Music]
you're on okay well good morning
everybody welcome to our special work
session of las cruces city council
today is tuesday september 22nd 2020
that's approximately 8 35 a.m just want
to wish my beautiful wife
rosie a happy birthday this morning i
doubt if she's watching but nonetheless
just thought i'd
share that so today we're going to
really listen to
um what's that at hand the discussion is
uh the minimum wage on january 1st 2021
the state's going to be increasing their
minimum wage and with that
is regarding to wages as well as the
city is also
looking to do ours automatically
increases as well
so there's going to be a presentation
from staff and we've invited several
business owners
and or employees on the second part of
this
to join in and share with us their
comments
and so i'm going to turn it over to
leandy moosh who's going to be
us kicking this off so leanne you want
to take it away
good morning and council and mayor let
me share my screen this morning
okay
okay do you see the full page
yes okay great so this is a very similar
presentation from the one that i did
last week
made a few little adjustments added a
slide took a
slide out but it's pretty much the same
i just told the mayor and the probably
the mayor pro tem as well just to let
you know
that this past week i did talk to
cabinet secretary bill mckimlin
i did invite him to our meeting today he
is hoping to join us
approximately at nine o'clock um he will
have a little small presentation i think
for any questions that council or um
the mayor may have so i'm gonna go
quickly through this presentation
you'll notice how similar it is but this
is about the minimum wage adjustment
that will as the mayor's
stated we'll start january 1 of 2021
just to give you a very brief background
and i'm going to try to go through this
a little bit more
not quite thoroughly but just
understandingly the
ordinance that we developed back in
approval
of 2014 approximately this month
uh stated in there that in the fisc
in the year 2015 january 1 of 2015
the minimum wage will increase to eight
dollars and forty cents
and then in january one of 2017
it will increase to 9.20
and then in january 1 of 2019
it will increase to 10 10.
of course our tipped wages are at 40
percent
of whatever the minimum wage is
so starting in january 1 of 2020
we had we didn't actually in the
ordinance state
an exact amount for the minimum wage
what it stated was that we will be using
an
adjustment a cost of living adjustment
using the consumer price index
the cpi and we will be using the cpi for
august and whatever that change is
from year to year that is what we will
adjust
uh the a minimum wage by so for january
1 of 2020
using the consumer price index
our minimum wage went to ten dollars and
25 cents per hour
however the state implemented a statute
for their minimum wages as well for the
whole
state and theirs started at nine dollars
per hour
of course ours was higher and so we
remained
with ours you always use what is higher
so now we are moving towards as you know
january 1 of 2021
we used again the cpi to make the
adjustment
and the adjustment from the 1025 went to
10 40. but as you can see the state
is now at 10 50. since they are higher
we will need to adopt
the state's minimum wage and as you can
see their minimum wage
in 2022 january 1 jumps from 10 50 to 11
50 and then in january 1 of 2023
it will be 12 now on the tipped
employees and here's where i need to
apologize to council
i went straight from the 2020
to 2023 and i apologize for that because
there are some increases
in the state tipped wages as you can see
for january 1 of 2021 uh the state will
be adopting an increase of
2.55 cents per hour and then at 22
it will be 2.80 cents per hour and then
in 2023 it will be three dollars
and of course ours is 40 of the minimum
wage
which starting in january 1 of 2021
will be 4 dollars and 20 cents that's 40
percent
of the 10.50
so this is an example this is a new
slide that i put in i did
briefly go through this with cabinet
secretary mccamley to make sure that i
had this correct my correct thinking and
so i gave you
an example two examples for the city and
then two examples with the state
minimum wage and this is using the
minimum wage for january 1 of 2021
okay so for the city we have a base wage
i'm calling it a base wage of four
dollars and 20 cents
now if an employee working and i'm
basing this on a 40
hour work week okay if they
make in tips let's say six dollars and
30 cents
the base wage and the tip wage per hour
they come together and they equal a
subtotal of ten dollars and fifty cents
well the employer has to pay the minimum
wage so at this time
since the tips are higher the employer
will not need to make any difference
up from that tipped wages
so he will only be paying out to the
employee
the four dollars and 20 cents per hour
so the next example that i gave for the
city was of course
same base wage four dollars and twenty
cents
let's say the tips for this forty hour
week
only equal two dollars okay so that's a
total of six dollars and twenty cents
per
hour so the difference there to make to
the ten dollars and fifty cents
is four dollars and thirty cents that
will come
from the employer so the employer
will be out will be paying to the
employee
eight dollars and fifty cents per hour
for that work week now going over to the
state
the state base wage as i just told you
from the last slide is two dollars and
fifty five cents
if they made if the employee made
tips of nine dollars and i mean seven
dollars and ninety five cents
then his total for his wages are ten
dollars and fifty cents
the employer does not have to pay any
difference and the employer only has to
pay the employee that base wage which is
two dollars and fifty five cents another
example using the base wage of the state
2.55 cents let's say the tips were not
good that week
they were low so let's say they only got
tips
of two dollars per hour so the subtotal
for that is
and fifty five cents the employer will
have to pay the difference to make
you know to make two the ten dollars and
fifty cents
five dollars and ninety five cents per
hour that means that the total
uh that the employer will be paying the
employee
for the tipped wages is eight dollars
and fifty cents per hour
this is the slide um i think the mayor
was
earlier was talking about this slide we
did add a number three to this but
here for discussion this was some
discussion points that we came up with
of course
we're you know getting guidance from
council today on
how we should move forward with the
minimum wage as far as number one you
can repeal
our local ordinance and we can just
utilize the state minimum wage
we can continue with our local ordinance
each year i can get to i can determine
the annual basis of the hourly rate
comparison between the state
and the city and of course we can adopt
whichever is higher
b would be that's a and b would be that
we would apply
this tipped wage formula on the hourly
rate
which is our 40 percent okay
or we can number three is this is one
that we just recently added
after the discussion from last week we
can do a hybrid um
our city attorney did say that we can't
adopt a hybrid
we can adapt uh we can adopt part of the
state statute
and we can adopt part of the city
ordinance if council and the mayor would
prefer um and with this this is the end
of my slide presentation i'm uh
like i said um deputy uh secretary
cabinet secretary bill mckinley will be
joining us
at nine so if you have some discussion
or if you want to go over
any of the other slides myself or
staff are available thank you leanne and
if i could just focus on number three
that's what i was suggesting
when this discussion came up can you go
back to your first slide
please
and oh or that one neither one don't in
fact the one that you have not that one
right there is fine
um and thank you for adding the the
state
what i was trying to get at is
i think if if we did adopt in the future
a hybrid what the way i look at it is
this
there are some restaurants that are
stronger than others i mean they have
more
capacity you know for whatever reason
they
may be able to absorb the
uh yeah they might be able to absorb the
420 an hour
but some that aren't and if we were to
to adopt the hybrid which is the state
tip
that doesn't mean that a restaurant
has to pay them the two the two
the two uh 55 an hour they can go
anywhere in between
they can pay them whatever they want as
long as it's over the 255.
um so so
you know that's one of the things i mean
you give that that employer that
flexibility
that some employees uh it may be a check
i mean some employers it may be a
challenge
and that's all i'm concerned about is
giving them that a possible option
um some may say you know what i can
still continue to pay you the 420 an
hour great
but there may be one that says you know
what i can only you know brings their
employees together and
and and tells them you know what i'm
this is a struggle here
uh i can do it at three dollars or maybe
325 an hour
but and by us putting if we don't do
that
give them that option or put it in
replace our ordinance they would be in
violation of the city
and you know theoretically could be
subject to to
sanction and so that's why i just wanted
to have this discussion
that's really all this was about and so
i appreciate
the council uh at least hearing the
uh that this idea as well as those
employers who
are willing to speak so
leanne i'm i'm ready to have uh those
that have signed up
i think we had about uh mr mayor um uh
yes bill camely is actually on so i
don't know oh yeah let's
let's talk to the secretary first
good morning mr mayor members of the
council can you all hear me okay yes mr
secretary thank you very much for
joining us
i appreciate you i appreciate you having
me on um i've been able to get home
a couple times a month to see my mom it
is great i was home last weekend the
weather was
gorgeous and i really appreciate the
work y'all doing i miss you all very
very much
um i came on basically for two reasons
and i was able to hear
i was kind of doing double duty on
another conference call but was able to
hear lian's presentation i thought it
was very good
i think there are two things that i
would like to emphasize coming from
the state perspective at workforce
solutions
the first is that when you look at the
tipped wage
the tipped wage is only what the
employer
must pay a server or anybody else on the
tipped
chart if uh their tips make over the
minimum wage so it is very vital to
know that every worker in the state of
new mexico
needs to come out of an hourly uh
part of work with whatever minimum wage
is there
and so if the um
the the city minimum wage i believe is
10 20 something an hour right now
is that is that wrong am i incorrect i
know you guys went up and 25 i believe
and 25 right so if i'm you know working
at a server at c senor
and i um only get
five dollars in tips and the current
rate is about four bucks for what i'm
getting in terms of the tip ways there's
still
a little bit of money left the employer
is responsible
for making up that difference so the
minimum wage needs to be something
that every worker comes away with okay
so that's something that's really really
critical to know i got asked by a news
organization
if unemployment could kind of make up
the difference and the answer is no
because everyone needs to come away with
whatever minimum wage is there
the second thing mr mayor remember the
council i would like to say is that
we here at the workforce solutions
department through our labor relations
division are
in charge of enforcing minimum wage laws
statewide and if people are not paid
minimum wage levels we call that wage
theft
it's a crime and we enforce it
furthermore mr mayor and members of the
committee the
the governor believes very very strongly
as do i that a fair day's work deserves
a fair day's pay
and in our department we enforce
whatever the highest
minimum wage levels are depending on the
level we're talking about either the
tipped wage
or the regular minimum wage i think it's
important to note as leanne talked about
that state law through senate bill 437
from 2017
determines that at the beginning of this
upcoming year
the state minimum wage will increase to
10.50 an hour i believe
that is going to be more than what the
las cruces ordinance will
uh propose i think you guys are going up
to 10 40 somewhere in that because
yes sir so next year the state will be
enforcing in the city of las cruces the
an hour level because that is the higher
of whatever wage is out there
in terms of this discussion today uh
y'all can
do whatever you want but the um
the tip wage we will enforce whatever is
higher so if it's
the state level which will be at that
255 level or whatever if you decide to
stay
for instance at where you're at right
now we enforce those higher levels
so mr mayor members of the council i
think those are like the two things that
i think are very critical
as a part of the discussion i know that
tip wage discussion can be a little
complicated
uh and hard to understand for some folks
but people really really need to be
coming away
starting on january 1st 2021 with that
10.50 an hour
and that tip wage is only part of that
but we will enforce the higher
of whatever is out there and mr mayor
members of the council uh
if i can be a resource and answer any
questions specific questions you all
might have
i do have a little bit of time and i
tried to get out here early so if you
guys had questions i could answer them
for you i would be extremely willing to
do so
i appreciate that mr secretary i just
have one quick question i don't know if
you heard my
uh example earlier but so basically
let's say the city adopted
the state's uh minimum wage for for
three months when i say adopted i know
we have to pay the 10.50
i'm talking about the tip wage portion
so let's say we did it for three months
and my suggestion or my thinking was
you know with covet in the wintertime
just a little little cautious here um
but anyways
so let's say we adopted the the 1050
that the state has and then the
235 i think tip wage
that doesn't mean that an employer if
they wanted to
could pay their server 3 or 350 an hour
as long as it's above the state
minimum that you set correct
mr mayor that that is correct an
employer can pay whatever they want as
long as they're hitting
both the minimum level for the hourly
rate for the servers as well as
that overall level if the tips do not
make up the difference
mr secretary looks like one of our one
of our
business owners looks like she has a
question martha lozano
do you mind taking a question from
members of the public not at all
okay uh martha are you there yes i am
um
and i'm the administrator for home care
income dona which is a home health
agency
and my question is um
if you're raising the minimum wage to
10.50 are you gonna
raise the rates that we're getting
reimbursed for the pcs services
waiver because that's my concern is that
the
minimum wage keeps going up and our
reimbursement does not but yet
we're expected to pay insurance over
time and
all this other stuff for those
homemakers
and we're not going to break even we're
going to lose
so mr mayor and ma'am i apologize i'm
not the person that can answer that
question
uh that is a different state department
and i'm honestly not sure
which one that would be our
responsibility at the workforce
solutions department
is to in this area enforce wage laws
and but i will i hear you and i have a
little cabinet meeting i'm going to have
later
this week and i will actually bring that
up with some of the folks who might have
a better answer for you and i will
pass your concerns along because it's
something we're not hearing from not
just hearing from you guys but other
uh agencies as well in terms of early
childhood centers and those
things so i will pass that along thank
you man
thank you
and let's see here counselor beta stewie
yes thank you mayor and thank you
secretary for joining us today
um i have a couple questions just
regarding state law as far as it
applies to things like credit card
charges
um our employers allowed um
i've been reading up on different areas
here in new mexico
do we address if employers are entitled
to um share processing fees or credit
card
search fees with um tipped
out employees or is that something that
is designated
as a charge that is between the patron
and the customer
mr mayor and counselor
it is my i don't know the specific
answer to question i'll have to ask some
of our attorneys on that
it is generally my understanding that a
tip is a worker's takeaway
and so the worker should be able to get
whatever
the tipped amount is now it's a fair
question because if the tip is part of
the
employer's process and there's a fee
charged with that
um i i'm not actually sure of that i
will write that down and hopefully try
to get you an answer it's a good
question
and i'm that kind of detail i'm not uh
sure about but i will ask
is that is that fair enough thank you i
know that's
you know it's kind of an in-depth but
i'm just looking at ways that
things are processed and i'm not sure if
you can
answer um but do we have any data on
servers
um i know a lot of the stuff that we
have is all based upon
a 40 hour work week um as a server
myself for
a very long time working in the
restaurant industry there were very few
of us
that were honestly a full 40 hours
in general it was anywhere depending on
if we were
we had second jobs um we were college
students
we were 12 and 32 hours and so
i'm not sure if we have any sort of
information
um that just says what is that
average rate here in new mexico for
servers
mr mayor council i'm sorry i don't
understand your question can you
restate it please i apologize i'm not
understanding what you're trying to ask
do we have any information on
what the average hourly
um or weekly uh hours worked by servers
uh mr mayor and council i don't have
that right now
i can ask our economist if we can come
up with an estimate
i don't know if
yeah that's going to be a hard one
because we would have to break out
the wages we had the reporting we have
uh into who would specifically be
serviced and that's really tough too
because within
for instance the restaurant industry not
everybody working those jobs is a tipped
worker
right you've got people in the back of
the house who may not share tips who
need to be getting paid whatever the
regular
women wages or higher let me ask our
economist if there's a way to break that
out because i don't know what i will say
is this
in terms of unemployment you bring up a
really good point
it's created a lot of consternation
especially as covet is hit
because the unemployment system was
created in the 1930s
when we had a very very different
economy you had a lot more people
working for one employer
for a specific amount of hours per week
and right now
what we're seeing is that for many many
new mexicans
many las cruces is just not the case
you've got people that are
you know working 20 30 hours a week at a
part-time regular job maybe serving on
the weekends maybe driving over
as a side hustle uh you know saturday
nights maybe working at their cousin's
yoga studio i mean
people are not just at one place they're
putting
different types of jobs together and
sometimes they're doing at the same time
sometimes they're working four or five
jobs in a year and so
this is kind of a bigger discussion
about what unemployment is
overall and is the system that we have
now that was built
almost 100 years ago uh working for
people right now that is
it's something that i've had to learn a
lot about over the last six months but
let me get back to your stuff let me ask
our our economist if there's any way
possible to break that down and i'll try
to get you what we can
i just don't know that's a very specific
question okay thank you
um and then uh one final thing and it's
probably something it might have to be
looked at later
um but are we tracking um industries
uh during this time of covet to see how
many
are um being either furloughed or let go
from the different industries like
restaurants or
their parts
thanks um and if we have any of the
demographics for here in las cruces
uh mr mayor madam councillor i don't
know if we have it for las cruces we
probably have it on a county by county
breakdown we can probably get that for
donate county
i don't know if we have it for the city
of las cruces per se i will say
because we just released the the press
release on this on friday
the two biggest private sector
industries that have been hit
uh by covid in terms of the unemployment
situation are the leisure and
hospitality industry
so restaurants hotels ski hills the
whole
run of the gamut there that that has
been by far the most hardest hit
industry
and the second one down is the um
the mining industry and that's mostly
when you go up to like silver for
instance uh the mines up there the
freeport mcnamara
they've really had to furlough a lot of
folks off so we definitely are aware
that those have been the two hardest hit
industries that we're looking at
you also look at local government
frankly uh in terms of the
public sector uh local government
non-education
has been the sector that has had the
highest amount of job losses so far and
i don't have to tell you all about the
difficulties there
but i i will try to get those for donate
county let me get you the leisure and
hospitality numbers
for dona ana is that what you're asking
because i know you guys don't have a lot
of planning so okay
i appreciate it thank you secretary and
thank you mayor
looks like we have counselor ben cuomo
has her hand up
thank you mayor hi secretary mccamley
it's good to see you
um thanks for being with us i wondered
if you could talk more about wage theft
um
if you could talk more about um perhaps
what industries you've seen
that um where those claims come
mostly from and then like what that
process is
like
sure um mr mayor and counselor
so the industry that we've seen most in
terms of wage theft complaints is
definitely the restaurant industry
um by far that is the highest industry
second is probably home health
where we've received complaints that way
we also receive some complaints from the
agriculture
industry from some farm workers so that
one's a little bit harder
as trying to get folks in that industry
the details they need to file these
complaints is a little bit more
difficult because of the transient
nature of the workforce and everything
like that we
i was actually down at hatch uh last
fall where we did a
we participated in a big uh workers
forum for the ag industry
letting people know what the process is
our people try to reach out and be a pro
as much uh of a proactive force as we
can in that regard to let people know
what's going on i will also say we
actually had
a video town hall with the restaurant
industry and
um the the restaurant association was
really working with us
as well as the association of commerce
and industry to talk about waste theft
because their argument is look
if some people out there are cheating by
not breaking the law
that not only hurts the workers it also
is a bad thing for the other businesses
that are playing by the rules and so
we've been doing everything we can to
really
uh show people what the rules are how to
follow them what some of the best
practices are and a lot of times i'll be
honest with you
um some of the things that we see are
not on purpose it's just
their paperwork issues and so uh some of
the efforts we have to make with the
business community have been really
kind of hey look here's some best
practices that you guys can do
to make sure your records are in place
and you're paying people the right way
we have had some bad actors i will say
that there is a restaurant in
albuquerque that was probably one of our
worst offenders we've taken them to
court
we have basically since the governor has
come
into office we have kind of retooled
what we're doing here
in the in the workforce solutions
department and started working with city
uh attorney's offices we are working
with the albuquerque city attorney's
office
to enforce the um minimum wage there
with the restaurant i was i was
referencing before
we've had outreach to the santa fe city
attorney's office to figure out
how we can work with them and we'd be
more than happy to work with your city
attorney's office
uh to figure out how we can partner
because let's face it um
the resources for these types of
offenses
can be very limited and the more
partnerships we can form to do things
better together
the more we're going to be effective in
enforcing these rules
thanks secretary i appreciate that thank
you great
okay well we appreciate that and so i
think now we're going to
go ahead and um and we recognize your
schedule mr secretary i'm just going to
open it up to the
business owners who have signed up first
that i'm going to allow
speak and then those that have come on
who haven't had a chance to sign up
uh whoever's left so you're welcome to
chime in if you hear anything uh
secretary mccamley or like i said
we know your schedule we appreciate you
uh doing what you're doing
and um on a personal note i have to tell
you
of all the secretaries i've worked with
you you you're a hustler you work hard
you work every day it looks like so
that's good i like that i like guys who
worked every day so
good i don't mean that like that i mean
i know you
you know you're on a salary and
everything okay
uh so we have here before we begin
there's a gentleman by the name of
charles clements
he asked he has the secret formula he
wanted to share with us
are you on mr clements
mr mayor he is i'll ask him to unmute
okay
hello all right good good morning so i
know you're in the morning
good morning i know you're not a
business owner but uh
it's very interesting you said that you
you you had the uh
perfect solution so i'm gonna i'm gonna
let you have a fight
i'm gonna let you have five minutes to
give us the okay
your wisdom well well i'm not gonna
give you a perfect solution because i'm
not our mission okay
yes sir i just need you to state your
name please okay
charles clements okay go ahead
and uh it taking this thing over and
watching
the uh events over the past while even
well the last 60 years probably uh
we've got a situation that is being
imposed upon the city of las cruces
that's
causing an awful lot of this stress in
the first place
and we need to understand that that
system that has been imposed upon us
is is a deliberate system so we have to
have a deliberate reaction that's more
than
a case of passing the pain which is what
i think we're kind of stuck with right
now
who gets stuck with the pain of this
uh situation and
i think that we need to look at
our economic development system
differently and this is something that
that could be used to address if we put
together a co-op
type of operation in this town to
address
these situations and help the business
people
work through uh situations that could
help reduce their costs and that sort of
thing
could help the employees
maintain a standard of living
you could work a lot of things out that
way because we have a smart community we
have a good sense of community
and but we need to involve everybody we
can
in making that solution happen because
we're
we're dealing with a hostile economic
system at the national level and we have
to
start correcting that where we can and
we have examples
uh the bank of north dakota is a is an
example of one
approach on that the uh mondergon
is a world-class example of how you deal
go from rags to riches if you were using
a cooperation
uh there's credit our own credit union
system is the same thing
i mean uh the banks fell apart in 2008
and the credit unions just sailed right
on through
we couldn't use a cooperative
method to address this and i think we'll
be far more successful
than if we try and pick which who gets
the pain
and i think that that's a mindset we
need to
adopt as we approach this whole
problem here you and i guess that's
the that's the
bullet that i'm offering is
let's step outside this framework
that we've been working with for the
last 60 years in this country that has
been
decimating most of the people in the
country
and go into this cooperative framework
and use the community to create its own
economy as it were
and that'll i think it'll solve a lot of
our problems
and that's what i got to say no i i
you know what mr clements i i fully
support what you're what you're trying
to say
i don't know if you believe this or not
but i've actually been toying with that
model
not at the city not not at the local
level but this is something there that
that i think it could be done from a
national standpoint
do me a favor um i don't know how i
think you emailed mayor potem gandaran i
think that was forward on to me
will you please leave your contact
information with the city clerk
because i'd like to have a discussion
with you in the future and i'd share
with you what
the ideas that i have and it's exactly
like what you're talking about a co-op
and then but my thinking was the co-op
is what gets it started
and then later it transitions over to
various
uh people who want to invest and then
they they become the the board of
directors and they become the owners
and then governments out of it we helped
start it oh yeah well i'm going i agree
we're out yes sir
okay but if you wouldn't mind leaving
that information with the city clerk
that would be great and i'd like to talk
with you
okay i sure will yes sir thank you very
well thank you for your idea okay
thank you bye-bye bye-bye okay next we
have
amy miller courtyard by marriott
is amy um available i just need your
teacher good morning i just need to
state your name amy and i'll give you
five minutes to start please
good morning my name is amy miller i'm
the general manager for the courtyard
primary at las cruces and nmsu
i wanted to speak briefly in opposition
regarding any minimum wage increase
uh first statement from our new mexico
is secretary of tourism
jen schroer the kobe 19 pandemic has
severely damaged the tourism industry in
new mexico
average visitor spending has dropped 403
million dollars each month according
to tourism economics cumulative loss of
revenue exceeded two billion dollars
from march to july
as of august there are nearly 24 000
unemployed workers from the
accommodations
and food service sector costing a
cumulative total of 271 million dollars
in unemployment benefits
all told the 2020 projected cost of the
state and lost visitor spending
taxes and unemployment benefits as 4.3
billion dollars
so bottom line is this pandemic has
caused
temporary and permanent staff reductions
and some of our business and
industries businesses in our industry
have closed and may never reopen
any additional expenses at this time i
think you know could really break
businesses in our industry
i would i would like to ask that there
is no minimum wage increases for 2021
as many businesses are struggling just
to stay open at this time
okay so thank you amy
we appreciate your comments yes um
next is uh renee rodriguez
says continual growth renee are you
available mr mayor she doesn't appear to
be online
no okay we already heard from martha
lozano
uh mr jerry silva from save mart
carry here
yes mr mayor and uh everybody involves
it thank you
good morning i really appreciate the
opportunity to
opportunity to listen in at this point
in time i really don't have any comment
other than the uh mr can you just state
your name please
i'm sorry jerry silva from save martin
las cruces
um i'm sorry for interrupting go ahead
oh not a problem
at this point in time we just uh really
just wanted to listen to what
see what everyone had to say i uh
i do agree with the individual that just
talked right before me at this point
time businesses are really struggling to
do any kind of an increase it would
really help us if
we could have a not have an increase
i mean the 120 next year is not that bad
uh i will be okay with that personally
but speaking with
other business owners especially the
smaller ones
would definitely have a hard time
they're having to lay people off
and that's kind of working against the
what we all want to do in the first
place we want to
help people have a better uh more money
to help them out
but having to lay people off as
you're losing jobs and having a hard
time finding other jobs
i've had people coming to me
trying to find anything they can and
i've been employing as much as many as i
can
uh but that's where that's where we were
at so if we can really
consider that and look at that and um
i don't want to take too much more time
but if you
my phone number is available if you want
to talk to me further
i would be more happy to get more
information on that
thank you very much uh we have counselor
sora who has a question i don't know if
it's for
for you uh mr silva counselor sword
yes thank you mr mayor and um
this is for uh secretary mchamley
and anyone else that uh can add
to the answer uh this new uh
increase in the minimum wage starting in
january
uh of a 10 50 an hour
uh is not something the city of las
cruces can change
can we mr mchamley mr mayor councillor
no that is state law
it was passed in the session of 2017
and that is the first increase i believe
in over a decade
the one we had at the beginning of last
year and like i said
earlier the um we enforce whatever
higher
wage there is so there's there's
actually four excuse me there are five
local government entities in new mexico
which had different higher minimum wage
levels the city of santa fe the county
santa fe
the city of albuquerque the county of
bernalillo and the city of las cruces
it gets a little complicated mr marin
councillor and i'll just let you know
that over the next few years
if everything stays status quo
we're going to have a little bit of
shifting wages that we
enforce because you all have a cost of
living increase that gets tacked on
at the end of your your wage every
single year
whereas because the um the state hadn't
had an increase in so long
the the compromise that was passed in
state law was to go to 9
10 50 11 50 and then 12 in consecutive
years so this upcoming year for instance
um if this if the city uh
wage stays the same the law stays the
same then the state
minimum wage will actually be higher and
that is the law that we would then
enforce
and as it goes up to 12 if state law
stayed the same
it would take a while for the city to
catch back up because
of your cost of living increases are
only going to go up x amount every year
so for a while in the city of las cruces
the the state minimum wage will be the
one
that that is enforced does that make
sense
yes absolutely uh and i would add to
that i
that i wanted to bring that up because
people don't understand
that the city doesn't have control over
the state
as simple as that and rather it's the
other way around
and uh except for the fact that we could
go higher than the
10 50 next year that's a possibility
anyway so um i just wanted to point that
out
uh so that everybody that's hope is
listening on this uh
in this meeting here understands that
thank you so much
secretary that's excellent thank you
sword
council store i don't know if you i
don't know if you heard this but
uh yes we do have to go to the higher of
the 1050 of the state
but we could also go to the the city
could also drop to the lower
tipped wages of the of the state you're
aware of that too
and yes i'm very much aware of it and
even though it was
if it was to be dropped an employer can
still if they choose to
pay whatever they want to pay as long as
it's at that minimum so if they want to
say you know what
um i don't need quite as much relief as
the next person
and maybe i'll pay if i can pay three or
an hour for the wages and see that
though the whole thing is
unless we were to change our ordinance
if we didn't change it
legally that employer can't do that
because that is wage theft
but one but if we were to do uh some
type of ordinance that allowed
us to i mean allowed uh employers to to
match the state tipped they can go
anywhere in between just like you said
they can pay more if they want to
because there's going to be some that
are going to be stronger they can do the
420 an hour
but they'll i'm i'm concerned that there
may be some that aren't
and they're going to just say you know
what i got to just i got to close up
and and you know but they might be able
to make it at the at the state
tipped yeah you know so
thank you mr mayor and i'm also
cognizant of the fact that just
yesterday we passed
uh uh a resolution that allows
uh businesses to get some financial help
in those cases that you're describing um
and so that helps every all the
businesses also
just wanted to point that out there i
have that option to get uh financial
help
that that's counselor that's not not
only
if it's possible if it's illegal a
one-time thing that's a that is truly a
band-aid
that's that that'll go that'll go by
real quick i mean look at the
look at the us government the two troy
and in no time it's
it's gone anyways uh let's see here
next we have marcy dickerson from the
game is she
is she available
yes mr bear oh there you are just need
you to state your name marcy please
this is this is marcy dickerson from
the game sports bar and grill thank you
mr mayor and counselors for hearing me
um what i want to talk about is i want
to give you some information on what i'm
going to call the economics and what the
server paycheck looks like
so our the servers come to work every
day and they generate tips every day and
they take those
tips home at the end of the evening now
every one of those
tips that they earn generate a tax
liability so you have to pay
taxes on your tips just like you do your
hourly wage
so what happens is after basically we
pay every two weeks
after 14 days of generating all these
tips and taking that money home
you have acquired a tax liability the
tax liability then
is paid out of the hourly wages
the reason i'm explaining this is most
servers and i've talked to several
restaurants in town
most servers do not actually get a
paycheck
on paper they get a one dollar paycheck
or a zero paycheck
depending on how the accounting works
but most servers their tax liability
for the income they earn every day is
paid for
by those paid checks the reason i want
to explain this
is mr mayor if you drop back
the tipped wage minimum wage
back to the states it actually will not
have
a negative impact on most of these
servers it will have a negative impact
on the government
because they have to collect those taxes
and they won't have access to that
but it does not actually have a negative
impact on those servers
because the servers don't see paychecks
anyway
now i'm sure there are some of those
servers
in the community that probably don't
earn
don't earn tips or are working in an
environment where the tips are very
small
we do know as you all have explained
multiple times over this call that the
employer is responsible for making sure
those servers
earn more than minimum wage for example
most of the servers
that work for me in my world if they are
full-time servers
they make anywhere from 36 000 to 40
thousand a year
if they are part-time servers like
counselors two-based uh
was talking about where they're going to
school or doing that and they work like
20 hours
um 20 hours a week that type of thing
they usually end up about 25 to 30 000 a
year
so it is you know there's a lot of money
to be made in the serving industry but
really their paychecks
don't like most of them don't even pick
them up because they're you know a
dollar two dollars they're not much
because that's how the tax liability for
their wages is paid
so realistically this proposal to drop
the tipped wage back to the state and
stay within the state guidelines
actually would help businesses because
the businesses will not have to pay
those additional wages
it really won't have a negative effect
on the servers because they're not
they it's just tax liability anyway so
they're not really seeing that
it really won't affect them in a
negative way it will help us
because something else to also let you
know for every dollar
that we pay in wages it actually costs
the business anywhere
from a dollar fifty to a dollar eighty
an hour by the time we are done
with all of the taxes on those wages
also our workman's comp
our insurance so many of our other
things is based on
what our payroll is that it actually
for every dollar we go up depending on
what your rates are on those other
things it's between a dollar fifty and a
dollar
eighty additional did it and mr mayor
i know it's kind of hard over the phone
to see but did that make sense
did did you understand what i was saying
no yeah i
you know i've never been a server but
that makes sense i i
um so basically they get paid
theoretically two ways their tips
primarily that's their big
bulk and then uh there's their the
regular little
what you refer to as a little paycheck
yes sir so there's some they're they're
hourly checks
well basically they're hourly checks so
they make you know 425 an hour
well most servers are incurring a higher
tax liability per hour off their tips
than the 425
so they don't actually get paid checks
that
that money that is paid to them hourly
goes toward their
tax liabilities so it pays their taxes
so it really doesn't matter if it's four
dollars or two dollars that tax
liability you know
all that's right there is the same you
can't write a negative paycheck and you
can't take it from the employees
so like our system writes a one dollar
paycheck vince from lorenzo system does
it
do a paycheck i've um i've spoken with
myself
well i'm sorry i i've spoken with vince
from lorenzos um
c senor el sombrero and several other
restaurants in town
just to make sure that it wasn't just my
staff that was not generating paychecks
because that that money pays their tax
liability so what i'm saying again is
that you can take the minimum wage
and minimum tipped wage from the four
dollars to the two dollar range
whatever those cents are and you
actually will not have a net effect
on the servers like those people who are
serving those
who are working every day you won't have
a net effect on them
on a side note you are absolutely
correct mr mayor on the fact that some
restaurants will continue to pay more
for example in our world our bartenders
make more per hour
our good servers make more per hour we
give raises to
servers the exact same as we do our
kitchen staff and the rest of our staff
so not
you know if you took this to two dollars
an hour i don't think everyone in town
would drastically drop it down
but it does give us an option to get
more servers in at a less cost and like
i say it has no
negative net effect to the servers
themselves
okay uh looks like counselor vasquez and
counselor beta stewie have questions i
presume of you uh you're willing to
respond to those absolutely okay
councillor vasquez and then counselor
beta stevie
thank you mayor um yeah i just want to
point to clarification so
uh marcy thank you for being here uh
today
and discussing um your position on this
so uh so from what you're saying if
a server's um wages
go towards paying the
uh the taxes on their tipped income
right um then essentially that offsets
uh like you said
their check to pay their wages so
wouldn't
wouldn't a server with lower wages lower
hourly wages
um have less to pay to cover their
tipped income
taxes versus if they had higher hourly
wages
they would have more money to pay their
their
their taxes on their tipped income isn't
that right
so here i'm sorry can you hear me sir
yes i can thank you okay so here is a
very interesting financial conundrum and
you may have to find somebody much
smarter than me we know they're out
there but what we see with our staff
is this so those servers you're correct
so they now there's two dollars to pay
that taxed income
they can't take it from them so what
happens is
basically it kind of goes away and the
reason why i say that
is so at the end of the year when they
are filing their taxes
they say they made this much money they
paid in this many taxes
well when most of these people go in and
they finish
all the rest of their taxes and you know
and putting in their expenses and their
child care
and everything else they all get money
back anyway
so there's i have never met a server
that ran into the situation to where
they owed money at the end of the year
so i don't know exactly accounting wise
where that
where that debt goes if you will i know
that the
servers that we deal with and let's say
an accountant would probably be a better
question
but the servers that we deal with
they're still getting money back at the
end of the year
and you know and that debt basically
just goes away
and marcy how how often would you
characterize um
that servers don't report their tipped
income accurately to avoid tax liability
how often does that happen well let's
talk about in the
i'm sorry let's talk about in the past
and currently so in the past i would say
that servers don't report their tipped
income a lot
and what has changed in the last five to
six years
is the restaurant industry used to be a
very big cash
industry which meant people paid cash
they tipped the servers in cash there
you go
right now just speaking for myself my
restaurants
run 99 to 98 you know depending on
what month it is credit card receipts so
now
even though you know now all their
credit card tips are automatically
reported because those are in the
computer
i will say there are people that leave
cash tips and those
i can't tell you whether those tips are
reported or not i'm pretty sure they're
probably
not we encourage our weight staff to
report all their tips because it's very
important to do
but you know i think we're all aware
that you know somebody gets handed to 20
they put it in their pocket
um but yeah now it's a little different
because of the fact that
you know most most all restaurants right
now are running off credit card debit
cards you know some type of electronic
currency
to where it can be traced it's not quite
like it used to be
did that answer the question yeah marcy
and i think
for me it actually it actually raises
another question because
um not condoning the practice of hiding
wages from the irs on tipped income but
because those wages now have to be
reported and are reported
their tax liability has gone up right so
servers are probably having a much
higher tax liability because of the
credit card
transactions and so to me that just
makes the case stronger for higher
hourly wages that allows them to offset
that additional
um tax liability that they have whereas
before that might not have been
a huge problem if you know they were
maybe not reporting their their wages
um accurately so to me it's to me it
seems like the servers need that higher
hourly wage to now pay for the
tax income that is all recorded through
the electronic payment systems
um if you will
so the point of this whole discussion
was that the mayor
was proposing a way to help businesses
and to help businesses by lowering
the payroll the potential payroll that
they have to give these businesses
a brief breather if you will a time out
a moment
for them to help catch up on the loss of
income for
2020 the loss of you know
incredible expenses that we incurred
while we were closed and that
is the benefit of lowering this so if
we're looking at it with
is there something that we can do to
benefit
and help the businesses without directly
hurting
these servers then that is what i'm
explaining
i i really you know like i say most of
those
tax liabilities float off into the
sunset and they're never actually
incurred and i know that sounds weird
but that's just how it works
so it really doesn't matter to them like
the servers don't see it there's no net
benefit to the servers
i understand the theory because all of
us have different types of jobs
so to us the taxes flow all the way
through we pay our taxes every month off
our paychecks and that type of thing
but with this level most of these people
get a tremendous amount of money back
anyway at the end of the year i mean i
don't have to be honest with you i don't
have a single person on my payroll
other than myself that has to pay taxes
at the end of the year
every one of them it it's a standard
party every year that every one of them
is getting
tons of money back because they have the
child credits they have
all these other credits um because most
of them have children and lots of them
uh you know so i really just don't see
there's a negative effect if there's
something you're going to do to help the
businesses which i believe is the goal
of the mayor i'm not sure of the council
but that is the goal of the mayor's
proposal is to help the businesses this
is a really good way to do it
without an incredible net
you know loss to anyone else thank you
marcie i appreciate um
your uh your comments and i think you
know for me personally i can't separate
helping businesses without helping the
workers
i think that that has to come hand in
hand i think a healthy business has a
healthy workforce as well
um i do have one question for secretary
mccamley um secretary i don't know if
you heard our discussion there about
increased tax liability for servers um
based on you know the electronic uh
payment for tipped wages and even
thinking about i think
also servers wages get treat or surgery
servers tips get treated as wages when
it's an automatic tip
so if you have like a party of six or
more or seven or more
and that fifteen percent gets tacked on
no matter what the bill is
i believe restaurants have to treat
those as wages according to new federal
law
um and so that often happens in large
settings
or in groups you know at restaurants or
you have um larger
larger groups of folks but anyhow in
terms of your experiences
um perhaps working with servers in the
industry or knowing that industry
how how might you characterize the tax
liability that they have and how
our higher hourly wages help offset that
tax liability
essentially producing more income for
them um you know without having to have
a larger tax burden and getting more
money back
yeah mr chair and counselor um first of
all let me just say that that i have
been on the phone trying to get
answers for counselor at bethesduve's
questions um i may have won by
the time i i've got a few more minutes
and if i get one on the leisure and
hospitality industry in dona ana in the
next few minutes i will give that to you
the other ones are a lot more
complicated i asked our the lawyer we
have in our labor relations division
about the issue with the credit card and
she was like oh my god that's really
complicated
so we're going to sit down and and
figure that out and hopefully get you a
good answer and then the census
department
counselor betas duvet has the
we think they have the information you
were asking for in terms of the
the average hours someone who is a
server in the state
is getting so we'll check to see what we
can get but that's why i was on the
phone i was trying to see if i can get
you the stuff if
i can't get you that information by the
time we get off i'll email it to you is
that okay
okay uh and for for counselor mr mayor
for councillor vazquez's question
yeah i i just want to
tell people kind of some of my personal
experience here which is that
my email got out to
um people for who are needing
unemployment and so i've probably gotten
in the 6000 range
of people that have emailed me over the
last six months
um having issues with unemployment and
the one thing that this
uh experience has taught me is that
every single dollar for a low-wage
worker counts
big time huge let me just give you an
example
about four or five weeks ago we had
an issue with our office where
uh because of the volume of people that
were on our system
we had a delay what we call the batch
that we ran on a sunday night which
which at the end of the day for workers
meant that there was a 24-hour delay
in unemployment gain i was just one day
but in that
day we got tens of thousands of phone
calls
i got hit with every email under the sun
saying where's my money i need this
money
um literally that money goes right out
the door
within an hour after i get it i mean we
have people that that literally check
their debit cards at seven in the
morning
on a monday morning that know generally
when the bank
uh transfers it into a direct deposit
and and
that money is spent i mean there's
there's not any cushion for these folks
and just as
a more recent example uh the 600 extra
unemployment
payments the last of those went out uh
in july
and then we were able to get the extra
through the lost wages program out we
sent a chunk out two weeks ago we were
able to get the last 300
payment in addition to unemployment out
last week
and when that
when it became public knowledge that
we're getting this money out we got tons
of call i mean we have 120
223 000 people or so in the state that
are receiving
unemployment benefits right now and
these dollars are critical
and it has just been a a
crash course for me and how fast people
at the lower end of the income spectrum
recycle those dollars back into rent
food
uh supplies for their kids to go to
school i mean that money does not stick
around
and so i guess counselor vasquez just
from a personal perspective in terms of
you know i hear where the businesses are
coming from and and
we're all in a tough spot right now and
i get it and it's rough
but i would also say just from my own
personal perspective dealing with from a
worker perspective
every dollar counts every single dollar
counts so much and and it's it's not
it's not not recycled back in the
community that money is spent
right away and i don't know if that
answers your question counselor but
that's
kind of where i've been here um over the
last six months and what i've seen
thank you secretary um i appreciate your
commentary and i think that's to my
point
in trying to figure out exactly where
those hourly
increased hourly wages go towards the
overall income
the overall earning power of a server
who's making
you know according to the new mexico
restaurant association at least 13
an hour on tipped wages that's twenty
seven thousand dollars a year
that is that is scraping to get by if
you could even afford
one of the you know i mean five hundred
dollar one bedroom apartment
with utilities and car payment and
insurance and
hope and probably your own health care
you can't do it on twenty seven thousand
dollars a year and so
that income uh tax return that you do
get
if you can offset um your tax liability
through two more dollars of hourly wages
is a big deal because that means you
might get to make that big car repair
you know from your car that broke down
um on the way to work it might mean that
you get to pay for two months of child
care
it might mean you get to pay for a half
of a semester of
you know community college and so that's
a that's me is a big deal those two
dollars i think ultimately go a long way
um if i'm thinking about how this
actually impacts the overall earning of
of a tipped um wage earner so those are
all my my comments and questions for now
thank you uh mayor and thank you marcy
thank you secretary thank you uh
councillor beta stephen
thank you mayor and thank you marcy you
actually
you get on something that um i think is
really important and we
we talked about that how little those
checks are
at the end of the week um we used to
laugh with me and my colleagues back
when i worked
as a server we had two different
categories we had people that were
i would say they were more well-off a
lot of them were getting assistance from
family members or things like that
and they left their checks behind
because it wasn't worth it to grab
two dollars or four dollars for the
checks
um and then you had people like myself
and my sister who
had to pick up those four dollar checks
and we didn't even have a bank account
and so uh because we didn't we couldn't
make minimum thresholds because
we were really turning out everything
just straight to
you know those basic necessities of life
food
rent and basic utilities and so we would
go
and um drive to a pawn shop that had a
check cashing place
and that's how we would we'd save up for
a couple weeks and then we'd go
and turn in our checks and get that
money which we would then budget for
stuff like that so
you know i think that's the reality that
you do have those two different groups
um some they don't need it but you do
have
a lot that it is every single dollar
that really does
count um and then i think and i'm not
sure it varies between restaurants
um not every hour worked is a typical
hour
um we had stuff like side work um
prepping
things like that and in those moments
you're doing um
service items but those aren't tipped
hours either
and so i'm pretty sure that's still very
standard for
the restaurant industries where you
gotta roll your silverware do your side
work you know take out the trash
and so i think there's just um
there's still differences uh and we have
differences in rates of what
the restaurants have for pricing for
meals
and so if you have high-end places
or in i do consider mercy i think your
the games are
they're very well known and so i
consider you guys like a staple here in
the community
um and so they're regular spots for
people
but if you have items uh places that are
not quite as well known
um it's they're not gonna have the same
sort of prices so you're not gonna see
the same tips
either and tips vary between shifts
lunch shifts you're lucky if you get
those two to five dollars
per meal per customer if you're lucky
um dinners are better and sometimes you
do get little bonuses
uh from people but that usually happens
i would say towards the night shift so
it does depend
for the servers on when they work where
they work
um marcy this is a question i do think
you can ask
if you are able to hire new servers
i'm imagining that things are going
fairly
go ahead counselor yes
um i was going to ask if you're able to
hire new servers
um things are and your financial
stability as a restaurant is doing
decently or at least um isn't on a make
or break for
failure if you're able to hire new
employees
can you hear me yeah okay
so a couple things um first of all
yes the the games are doing fine you are
correct the games are large restaurants
and and i want you to know i am not here
necessarily speaking
for the benefit of myself i am here
speaking for all those smaller
restaurants
for the other restaurants that are
struggling tremendously and may have
missed this call
i know that we didn't have all the
business people sign up but i think a
lot of people kind of missed what was
going on because they're so busy
working in their restaurants and
struggling on a daily basis one of the
things that i appreciate your
comments counselors to be as well as
vasquez but one of the things i think
that we're
we're missing here is the point of this
yes i get all the things that you're
saying about the servers
but we're talking about you know those
servers only get benefits if those
servers
have jobs they're only able to earn tips
if they have jobs
the only way for them to have jobs is
for
all of those small struggling
restaurants to stay open
we are looking at that we are on a
serious crisis threshold
that there are so many of these smaller
mom and pop restaurants
these you know little restaurants that
are really struggling to stay
open and this possibly could provide
that little bit of relief that they need
to continue to work because we have to
remember most of those smaller
restaurants
are inside only and they are only at 25
capacity right now you know the games
have been done well for one reason and
one reason only
we have patios we have giant patios we
built those patios years ago and that
certainly has been a benefit to us
during these mandates but we're still
looking at the majority of these
restaurants
do not have patios despite the fact we
went and built tents for a lot of them
they still are very much struggling
because they're only at 25
capacity and we don't see that easing up
anytime soon
so if there is a way to give a small
amount
of what i'm going to call business
saving relief
to those businesses that's a good thing
to do because
it doesn't matter how we do the servers
or what happens to the servers
if there's no jobs for them and that's
really what we're looking at is how do
we
keep as many of these people employed
as possible you know how do we keep as
many jobs in our community as possible
we don't have that many big industries
coming into our town
we don't have that many big employers
looking to relocate to las cruces
or currently here you know every person
in this community needs to have a job
and in order for them to have those jobs
we must have businesses
open in order to employ them and you
know the purpose of i believe the
mayor's purpose of this
was to help these small struggling
businesses
so you know that's a big piece of it is
that how do we keep as many jobs
functional and open and available in our
community
versus just worrying about the workers
because it won't matter whether we pay
them two dollars an hour four dollars an
hour
or fifteen dollars an hour if the
business is not open
and those jobs are not available and i
think that's a very very
important point to focus on versus the
you know minutiae of you know how it
works and their tax liabilities and
those things
is the fact that we've got to help the
businesses stay open so that we can keep
these people
employed and so that they get a chance
to make
those tips they get a chance to make
that money
and to do that and i will also say yes
your analysis of
lunch versus dinner not quite most of my
lunch
i have servers that just work lunch
shifts because they have children at
home and so they've chosen to work lunch
so they can be home with their children
at night
and most of those servers actually end
up making more
than my nighttime servers because they
have their regulars and because they're
allowed to spend more time with their
customers because the volume is not the
same
um so just just some points of it but
the big piece of it is is we need to
focus on
what can we do to keep these businesses
open to keep these jobs
available to people and to keep
businesses from closing or moving out of
state or you know and that type of thing
and that that really is a huge focus
thank you if i can hear if i can jump in
real quick counselor and then thank you
marcy and counselor
just as a reminder i wasn't looking at
this being permanent
this was let's just use me for an
example i'm waiting for that vaccine
i i have yet to go eat at a restaurant
uh we'll go out
we'll have it or take out every usually
every weekend
and and have brought in i'm just
thinking you know uh if if things were
to go well hopefully
by march or april the vaccine will hit
and then
it'll give encouragement for people to
start going out and eating
in in restaurants and whether it's
outside or inside
i'm just worried about the wintertime
that it's gonna constrict
and not be out there so i'm not i'm not
looking i wasn't looking for anything
permanent
i'm wearing just a really short three
four month period
kind of let businesses come up for air
for a little bit
and and then go back at it again i mean
and and yes i agree with everything
counselor vasquez albeit the stevie
and como talk about how their they
struggle but you know what those three
or four months could mean the difference
of covering that
that rent payment uh that mortgage
payment because they could lose it
and as as marcy was saying they could
they'd be out
totally out so i wasn't talking and i
know sometimes it's hard to think that
oh this is future you know for months
and months for years and years now we're
just talking for a few months here
so anyway i just i'm sorry for
interrupting but i needed to uh
remind uh my colleagues of that so
counselor beat the student
thank you thank you i appreciate that um
and in mercy you do be
bring up a good point as far as you know
costs are different and
it has been very hard during this time
um i and i haven't
i've talked about being in the server
industry my brother-in-law
is a manager at a restaurant in
albuquerque as well and so i did
i went to him and i said what what are
the biggest problems that you're seeing
um and with that recognition and its
operational supplies have he said have
gone through the roof
um everything from the box of gloves
that he has to buy
to and really this is how you know it's
something maybe we can't address here in
the city but it's a state thing to look
at
but he said cost of food has gone up
which means
taxes have gone up on some of those
things too
and he said so those were the biggest
bills there that
just operational expenses have gone up
and we talked about this if it's make or
break how it looks and it's hard
you know i don't like to me this feels
like it puts people against each other
and i think there's ways we can help
businesses because
and i do think we've been trying to do
it in different ways
um without taking away from somebody
else
you know and because in the end there's
consequences to that too
and then we're going to in about a month
or two
after we take away from someone we're
going to have to be addressing those
needs as well
and so i know there's other areas that
have been
big cost issues with restaurants these
days and so
that's something to consider and to look
at and how to help with perhaps
um working with those modes but that's
all my comments i have thank you mayor
thank you councilman cuomo thanks mayor
um thanks to my colleagues for their
comments and questions
um i think you know i want to also just
push back
a little against the the brief comment
that was dropped in the conversation
about
um this council not the mayor perhaps
being the only one wanting to support
small business i think you know from
what i hear from my colleagues and i'll
certainly speak for myself
i want to make sure that we help small
business that's not at the expense of
the workers
and i feel like some of this
conversation is that
um i think we're centering the
conversation around
um you know and tipped workers making
minimum wage but right like bringing
them back to minimum wage
when if they're making more than that we
should be happy they're making more than
minimum wage that's a good thing
um for people who work in
um low-wage industries and so um i just
want to
push back against that a little bit and
then you know also i just want to name
i reached out to a couple folks tip
workers a couple of
folks reached out to me and here's some
of what i heard
this pandemic isn't over yet and
honestly people would rather be at work
than at home on unemployment right
we have made the dominant narrative
about people on unemployment is nasty we
have made this whole story about who
those people are
and something we should break away from
anyway right
the folks would rather be working and
what i hear from people is
every single day i go to work in the
back of my mind
i'm thinking what if this is the day i
get sick
what if this is the day i get covered
how am i going to pay for those bills
because sure maybe i'm making some good
tips but
i'm not making enough to pay for health
care to pay for my medical bills
i'm hearing folks saying there are a lot
of folks coming to
eat at restaurants that are not taking
it seriously
i'm watching my manager the owner of my
restaurant walking around without a mask
on right like what kind of leader like
that that sets a president
in your establishment about the
seriousness
of of this pandemic and i think we all
want
this to go back to normal i think
um there is not one entity who is at
fault
for closures there is not one entity who
is at fault for
the loss of jobs this is this is a
pandemic that isn't over yet
and the health and safety of our
constituents
should be number one of workers should
be number one
of of of all our folks
and i feel like that's a piece that we
haven't yet talked about and so i just
wanted to bring us back around in terms
of
what workers are experiencing as they go
and serve
and um are face to face with folks that
people are
very scared still every single day but
they go to work
many of who don't want to speak out
because they're afraid
they might get fired and so those are
those are the realities that workers are
living with
i'm i don't know when the conversation
with workers will be
mayor i'm um i certainly hope that
you are reaching out to workers as well
um
and and perhaps maybe my question is for
um some of our staff i know we have
attorney vega brown here dr pallades
mr maestas and ifo i am wondering about
what is a different conversation we can
have about how we support small business
in the next six months and next year are
there yearly
fees permits that businesses must
apply for at the city that we can reduce
the cost of those fees that we can waive
the cost
of those fees what are some of
the strategies ideas that we can have
to support small business in this time
that is not on the backs
of workers
you looking for the answer today or you
want this i would like to know if we've
had some of those conversations
if those are things that we've
considered
you know counselor but really okay
so let's use the example of what we did
um last month and and how the report
that we got in that where
we were only able to help about 20
different restaurants with
with different meals i i guess
theoretically
if if we were to shift the focus and i
just put a pencil to it right here
earlier
if we spent um what the equivalent
okay i think this if this this uh
reduction in my opinion would be
equivalent of about a thousand dollar a
month savings to a business
so if we were to do that for three
months um there's roughly 600
restaurants in the city
so that's roughly six hundred thousand
per month so times three that's 1.8
million
i guess if we were to theoretically make
sure
that we gave uh
remember how we do these uh meals for
those that can qualify
based on their income needs you know how
that's that's one of the things we're
doing the vouchers
if we were to do that i think then
then what you're asking that would be
the way i think we would do it
we'd have to make sure that you know of
course that they qualify from all
aspects you know health department all
that stuff
um and we make sure that everyone gets a
piece of the pie
and we make sure that they they're
allowed
whatever a thousand dollar you know to
somehow we we do that that's about it i
mean that
we'd have to really research it and
figure out which businesses uh
can qualify which the majority of them
will and we all
uh let them somehow
participate that way that's that's
probably the easiest
um way to do it it's the only thing
that's the only other way
with that that it doesn't run a foul of
the anti-donation clause
yeah mr mayor i just i know there's
other ways and i know perhaps we haven't
agreed on much throughout this
conversation but that is something
that i can agree on that is something
that i can get behind that is something
that
um actually centers
so you know you said the some of the
other stuff the
the stuff we voted on yesterday you said
it was a band-aid this feels like
you're pouring salt on a wound and then
you're putting a band-aid on it and so
i just want to make sure that you know
we're we're thinking outside the box
where
we're trying to come up with strategies
exactly like what you mentioned that
um are supportive for
um for businesses while still
honoring the work of the workers
okay yeah no that that's something there
but uh that's
just right off the cuff right off the
yeah i would love your front you know i
would love to see
something um come from staff on
on how we can do that uh before
it looks like evil wants to make a
comment before i do i just want to say
secretary mcconnelly had to leave but he
very much appreciated being able to
join in the conversation and i thank you
very much for that and so thanks for
staff for reaching out to him and
getting him on
on board ifo did you have a comment
you'd like to say
you know mayor thank you mr mayor
councillors and councilor ben cuomo
thank you for the question to staff
i haven't really sat down in uh
with staff to come up with anything yet
as far as a business
a plan to help business in general one
thing i do
propose though is that we look at it
from an individual
on an individual basis uh sometimes to
to have a a blanket approach or to have
a blanket policy
for all businesses uh to help all
businesses sometimes it
uh you know businesses certain
businesses are struggling more than
others
and they're struggling in different ways
and so whatever approach we do come up
with
as staff and we'll start we certainly
will we'll certainly take a look at that
and how we can
uh propose a plan uh that will help
business like you mentioned without
putting in on the backs of the workers
but i do think
uh it takes listening to these
individual businesses and their
individual needs
uh and trying to attack it with you know
the sniper approach and not a shotgun
approach
uh and so um maybe figuring out what
their problem the
individual problems are and i don't know
what they are yet
and so um i and that i think that only
comes from
from going and talking to these
individual businesses that are
struggling
um and you know there may be there may
surface
come to the surface uh you know some
some general policies or some general
plans that can help
everyone uh but but that would be
probably where i'd start is
is just kind of learning and talking to
these individual businesses and figuring
out what they're
what they're struggling with okay so
thank you iphone it looks like dr
payadis has his hand up mayor potem if i
could uh
go with staff first and then i'll go to
you and then council florida
uh dr payanas you have some comments
yes mr mayor good morning everyone thank
you for the question uh councillor ben
como this is francisco payette for the
record
the one thing that i wanted to to
mention with regards to to some of the
thinking that that was along the lines
of council of encomo
is that there has been a discussion
going around in the las cruces economic
recovery board
uh that that you created and in this
discussion there is
a proposal for a potential
reduction of the cost of business
registrations
so that is something that will be uh
discussed well not discussed actually
was discussed last week
but it will be voted to take as a
proposal to council
uh to be taken uh to potentially uh
reduce business registrations up to five
dollars
for the remainder of one year so so
having an expiration date with regards
to that specifically for a system with
regards to covet
there is also uh and that's specific to
the fees to the business registration
fees
also uh reducing the the cost of the
late fees as well so so on the late fees
the void on the on the late fees
for business registrations so the
this is this is going to be voted on for
the las cruces economic recovery board
on
thursday uh and it passes and if it
passes it it will be taken as a
suggestion uh that's one of the
potentially the second suggestion that
gets taken from this board to council
for you to consider uh remember that the
first one was the consumer
restoration of consumer confidence with
the las cruces safe promise
this would be potentially the second um
item that gets taken uh from this board
to to you thank you
dr payalis why do i um
think that the state had something to do
with setting of the
of that registration fee i don't know
why i have that popping up in my head
is that are you familiar with that at
all i
i didn't think that that was that was
set by us david
dalahan mr mayor having been here a
really long time david allen for the
record
the state statute is set
on the maximum that we can charge for
the annual
business registration that is 35
that's for an annual renewal we could
charge i believe because i've seen other
communities do it
an inspection fee for the first time
and we have a lower fee for non-profits
which is 20
a year i do have a question for staff
rather than refunding um
a previously paid business registration
fee i would think
hopefully a better course of action
going forward would be
that we set a lower business
registration fee going
forward for renewals
for a set period of time say the next
year
our business registrations are renewed
on an annual basis but it depends on
what month you applied for your original
business registration
so that's when your renewal is set we we
stacked they all used to be january 1
but
that was a lot of work at the beginning
of the calendar year so
i want to say in the late 90s we went
through the effort to stagger them all
so a better course of action would be to
reduce the fee going forward for a year
we're we're not breaking the bank or
funding a whole lot with 35
a year on a business registration
renewal um i i think it's less than
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200 000 total revenue
when you look at it but that but that
cap is set by the state not by us
okay that's what it was i i knew there's
the state had something to do with it i
just couldn't uh
remember um okay so thank you for that
david uh let me go to mayor pro tem
oh or dr payalis did you have anything
else you want to say
you had your hand up still
no okay mayor put him and then counselor
flores and then i think there's an
attendee
who has oh well we'll go to the
attendees after the council
uh mayor potem thank you mayor
um thanks everybody for your thoughtful
um
questions and comments um to the
business community that's with us
um you know for some reason our our
council
me specifically have been pegged as not
business friendly
also have been accused of continuing
to have our poverty rate as high as it's
been
and i tell you every day i'm working on
reducing poverty
um you know depending on which data
points you're looking at or sources that
you're looking at
our poverty or you know is around 24.5
um and i i
i feel like when we talk about this
that we're talking about real people and
those people and marcy has spoken
um you know very eloquently about her
employees especially those that have
children
um and and i guess what i i want to say
is that there are so many kids
especially
um between the zero to six
age group that are living in poverty now
and the 16 to 18 year old time
age group and so i i i am
i i feel like we have to look at
different strategies
to assist i'm in complete agreement with
councilor binkoma
i know that these are band-aid
approaches
and i i i just can't in good conscience
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agree to reducing somebody's income
you know by a couple of dollars i think
they're struggling
um and i think about all those kids um
that we are affecting um negatively
um and and i'm i'm thinking about
for example jardine de los ninos these
kids that are near homeless or homeless
with their parents that are working so
hard to try to get up and out of poverty
all the things that we're trying to do
to get to 100 community and that means
for everybody would would
you know how difficult it is for our
people to get back
up and out of and um
you know working and to try to
make up for the losses it's it's very
difficult
so um i am also completely
i i wanna um i don't recall i don't and
i don't see her on the
call anymore um
is the lady who made reference to being
in the home health industry
and um looking at reimbursement rates
um specifically to the home health
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business i i think that's something i
can get behind on
i think we need to support somebody who
provides um quality care
to our our our our family members that
need
home health care um that won't be me
soon
um so um and it could be my mom
or my dad or any one of our parents on
this call
and so um i i feel like that's something
else i can
i can get behind is really pushing to
increase the reimbursement rates
for our businesses that take care of our
sick and elderly and are disabled
and so i'd really like for um ifo staff
to explore a little further
um which reminds me during these kinds
of conversations it's important to me
to have a policy analyst that we can you
know
um
depend on to look at all these different
policies and strategies that could
assist us um all this data that is
necessary that we have at our fingertips
to be able to make
um these kinds of serious decisions
moving forward
um and with that mirror that i i will
close thank you
thank you i think uh mayor pro time i
think uh miss quran
is still available
in fact she has her hand up or maybe she
didn't martha are you still available
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yes i am okay um we hire
i sent you a letter yesterday i don't
know if you had a chance to look at it
but
we hire a lot of family members can you
can you excuse me can you just state
your name again real quick i know i just
sorry
martha a
and i'm the administrator at home care
in cape dona one of the administrators
anyway we hire a lot of family members
to take care of their family
because a lot have to leave their jobs
to take care of the elderly and the sick
and sometimes their children and so we
we under this program the medicaid
waiver program we hire them
to take care of their family members and
that way they get a salary
but with the minimum wage going up you
know when they first started before
homemakers used to be exempt from
overtime so homemakers could work as
many hours as they wanted
and then when the overtime went into we
had to cut their hours
and so now instead of just working one
job they're trying to work
multiple jobs to make the same kind of
money they were making
and a lot of them begged us not to pay
them over time and we told them
legally we have to there's no way around
it and so we cut their hours to
you know 40 hours and we're still having
to pay overtime because there's some
homemakers that are
willing to go above and beyond and so
they'll see more patients
and so we pay them overtime but in
in addition to that we've had to pay
insurance
they're typing between patients their
mileage you know a lot of other stuff
that
is not reimbursed and so that's why i
was asking the
um a guy from the workforce solutions
about
getting more reimbursement because every
time the minimum wage goes up it affects
us
and we're not able to pay the employees
more than the minimum wage because
we don't get very much reimbursement
from the different mcos
the ones making the money are the mcos
i thank you uh miss lozano um
i i really appreciate that and you know
for me is
um man those home health care makers god
bless them and the things that they do
um and those um that go beyond
taking care of our loved ones is is so
incredibly important to me
um and we should be paying them a lot
more than minimum wage that's for sure
absolutely and listen i've been an
administrator
for 17 and a half years i understand um
all the intricate right
um in terms of paying people
40 hours and overtime is also
um a balance right because when you
when you um ask people to work overtime
there's a lot of things that can happen
there's a balancing act that needs to
take place and
um you know especially being a homemaker
um or a guardian or uh of somebody
is it that's disabled and or
um you know sick
it's very it's very difficult so it's
all those things that i can appreciate
as an administrator that you are trying
to
um do to continue to
keep your business open and afloat but
also
making sure that people you know are
are providing quality care um and not
overworking themselves um as well so
mayor again i i think that's something
that i definitely feel like
we need to get behind as a council
encouraging health and human services
department
at a state level but also at a federal
level to start
increasing those reimbursement rates
for our population which
can be disabled and or elderly that need
this kind of assistance
so thank you mayor absolutely
um counselor flores
thank you mr mayor and um i'd like to
thank my colleagues for their
um uh profound
insight and compassion um
the you know and i'd like to thank you
mr mayor for
looking into this um i think that
it's it's a very difficult situation
all around um and it has forced us to
especially mayor pro tems
mayor pro tem gandalas eloquent
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statements regarding the
a global approach or a holistic approach
to remedy this issue i think that i
we're all aware that it's economically
based
and um and it's an economy
that precedes covid and will follow co
covid and we have to look at
how we um create an economy
if nowhere else at least here locally
and we have to look out
and that we we have that charge as
counselors
uh we are actually stewards in that
regard uh to assure that
um we do have an economic uh development
system
that really brings in industry and
that's why i'm
really looking forward to our new city
manager's expertise in that regard
mr peeley's experience in
economic development and
and we have to look at um not
you know what what we're doing right now
is is is we're
we're reacting to a crisis that um
was in unexpected we you know we never
expected a pandemic
and um but
um but then again as i stated um
and has been stated by my colleagues
it's that we are
forced to to really take a hard look at
what we're doing economically
for our city for our constituents and
for
the people who surround us not just our
city but
many people who live in the county um
and maybe even in octedo and
neighboring counties who uh benefit from
what we do as a city so i um
i too would like to um
i just say ditto to
everything amir pro tem
gandara has stated and i would like
our economic development
department as well as all of our
departments to work cohesively you know
our
our budget people our finance department
people
our community development people all
around
to look at what we can do uh to really
avoid this sort of situation um
and i and it's really heartbreaking to
think that um
that we're looking at reducing
um the minimum wage
for you know i mean we're looking at
this as if
and with all due respect mr mayor i
don't mean any disrespect whatsoever and
i
really appreciate your efforts but to
think that
um to think that somebody's wages are
going to be lowered
which are already pretty low as we've
addressed this before
how um tipped workers would prefer to
remain tipped
workers and what they do with reporting
or not reporting to irs
you know god bless them they have to do
what they have to do
but to think that that's going to remedy
a situation that i think is
is much the question is much bigger than
that
is uh really um
really sad and
unfortunate and
so i again encourage our city
all departments and mr i think with mr
peeley at the helm
who has vast experience in this regard
to really bring it together
and
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we and i agree that we need a policy
analyst someone who
has someone who has an economics
background
who would work closely uh with city
council and especially dr payatis and dr
martinez
and our new i think we're getting a new
economist in that department soon
um so i um i i just
want to say that i think it's
heartbreaking at this time
that we are here looking at
um you know all the issues that are
really touching us
and i think that um
i think all of us do work on a daily
basis
to reduce poverty my background has
always been
that if you have a good education
you'll go move forward in life and
unfortunately here in the state of new
mexico
and and as it happens i think nationally
now those opportunities are
really dwindling and has a lot to do
with technology with the way we live
with the way
you know technology is affecting how we
think
and how we live and it's changing our
behavior
um but going down you know but going
but achieving an education is very
difficult
and when children are going without
meals when they're going without health
care
uh when there's a parent missing in the
household
because in many situations
people are not able to receive any sort
of
any kind of governmental assistance when
there's two parents in the household
namely
the father is absent so it it forces a
lot of
families to be forced to to um
it encourages you know i think there's a
welfare system that
is really inhumane and so there's so
many
so many things that we can do locally to
alleviate that situation
um but i i'm not sure
that it's beneficial
as a matter of policy for us to take
something away from something
to take something away from something
that a um a person was earning and
expecting to earn
and um so i um
i you know i i i don't want to go on and
on and on
but um i but i think that
um it you know again you know i said it
before it's a hard call it's a tough
call
um and there are bigger issues greater
issues
and i hope that the powers that be in
our state and our representatives in
congress
um really work hard on this and um
and i hope they follow our lead uh at
least this
municipalities locally um
in so far as the remedies that we find
that are
that are long-lasting and not just turn
on something like a minimum wage issue
um i mean minimum wage is not a livable
wage we all know that
so um this is tough
and and what i'm really uh disappointed
uh
we're coming towards the end of the two
hours that we're allocated for
business owners to speak up and i really
i mean mr silva
ms dickerson and ms lozano
um they don't re really represent the
small
business owner the other small
businesses and i'm not saying that
ms dickerson's business is huge but it's
not like it's a franchise nationally but
um i you know i we haven't heard from
the mom and pop
uh type of restaurant so you know the
smaller ones that might really be
hurting
and i'm not saying that ms dickerson i
mean i'm not an accountant i'm not her
cpa or anything like that so i'm not
aware of her
record keeping or anything like that but
we do have
um we don't have those people speaking
up right now
and someone coming to us and saying you
know what i'm really hurting
i'm really really hurting and if you at
least put a moratorium
a hold on that increase for a few months
it's going to make a big difference
we haven't heard that mr mayor and i'm
just wondering why
um and i i don't know if we're gonna
hear from the employees
or fear of being uh you know there might
be retribution i don't know
but um thank you mr mayor for bringing
this up because
um we i this is actually a very wise
move on your part
um it's a difficult difficult situation
to find ourselves in
but we have heard um my colleagues
have spoken up eloquently and
beautifully and
scientifically you know they're basing a
lot on empirical data
and what we see here and um
and it's raised this to a different
level so i want to thank you for that mr
mayor and thank my colleagues and
god bless us all on this one thank you
you're welcome counselor so um no
the we're that's why we're going past
our our uh
time limit because um didn't appear that
any employees have
were either aware of this or chose not
to sign up
so i figured we'll just have a little
bit more discussion here so
uh looks like um marcy is going to
speak or has the question marcy comment
um thank you mr mayor marcy dickerson
with the game
this is actually just a suggestion it
goes back
multiple comments um when counselor
steve
and councilor bin como suggested that is
there an alternative way
to possibly help businesses just a
suggestion
so every business in this community pays
you all utilities and pays you all trash
my thought would be is perhaps a
reduction in those rates
or a reduction or a gifting of those
services
for businesses that can prove that they
are
under 50 of their gross income for this
year we all know that there are certain
businesses that have thrived
during covid we know that there are
businesses that are doing okay
we know that there are businesses that
are absolutely devastated
and i think those should all be treated
differently for sure but
it may be something and that may be
easier for you than you know handing out
meals and that type of thing
is to look at it for example let's say a
business comes to you
they're able to prove their earnings
this year versus their earnings last
year are less than 50 percent
because of the mandates and perhaps they
can ha
that you know i know you had a small
grant program there at the beginning
but that maybe that it's something you
say okay for
you know the next year or a certain
period of time that you all determine
you know six months that their utilities
bills and their trash bills are forgiven
because that does help again we're
talking about every little bit helps
and that is certainly one way to benefit
the businesses but it doesn't hurt the
workers and i know that's a goal of
everyone and so
that may be something creative you know
i understand the registration fees but
the registration fees yes it's a gesture
but they're really low and it's not
really going to help a whole lot um but
something like trash and utilities
those are a major expense incurred every
month so
just a suggestion on that um to respond
to counselor flores question on the
small businesses
and the employees not you not hearing
from them
to be honest with you this this meeting
although it is wonderful
i do not think everybody knew about it i
found out about it last night at about 8
30 and as you know i'm a pretty vocal
advocate for small business and pay
attention to these things
um so a lot of people i don't think knew
about it i don't think they understood
it i don't think they knew about it i
know the employees didn't
not one of my employees knew about it i
certainly would welcome them to call in
and talk to you
um but i don't think a lot of those
smaller businesses
knew about it as well so it may be
something if you really want to hear
from those people
that maybe what you do is is set up that
you another meeting but call them
and tell them that you'd like to hear
from those types of restaurants and i
think they would be more than happy to
participate if they had the knowledge of
the meeting
thank you that's all i have thank you
marcy um
not sure how the city advertised uh
these meetings
um but i i i didn't know how
you know we just left that off to our
communications office uh
mayor pro-tem if you have a another
question
i do mayor thank you i appreciate
hearing
um from marcy um she always has a very
creative ways to
um come up with
you know different ways that the city
can assist
um i i posted this on my
social media accounts um asking
for um recommendations giving my
personal numbers
and email addresses especially if folks
wanted to remain anonymous because i was
very conscientious
about people's fear on both sides be it
business and or
the workforce um and i did receive
five um via emails or messages
um and of those five one person was
um against um
it agreed that we should we should
assist the businesses with not raising
the minimum wage
others were like we've worked so hard
this would be very difficult
some that this time honestly doesn't
work for folks
i was hoping that we'd have more of an
evening meeting and again
opportunities that would give folk
you know that people could have um
basically to comment um maybe there's a
comment period
that can remain anonymous on an email
that the city distributed and i was
hoping that again that we'd work towards
trying to
find alternative methods to receive this
information mayor so
i just wanted to say from my perspective
i really tried on because it's an
important issue and i wanted to hear
from everybody
or people who wanted to talk to me
thanks mayor
so annette says that the news releases
went out several times the chamber also
sent out information to their members
and if you recall mayor potem um i had
mentioned a few different times
including the night and
and and so this was the after looking at
everyone's schedule this was the only
time that most people had
uh council members had available so
that's why this time was chosen
and the reason why i took the i now i
did i will
tell you i put the business owners first
and i felt if there's anyone that could
do it earlier at 8 30 that would be them
and then the
you know sometimes the employees have a
lot of things going on at 8 30 in the
morning
employers do too but they have a little
bit more flexibility
um you know i i kind of i'm
point i like that idea what uh marcy
proposed i
we have to look into the anti-donation
clause that that stickler you know it's
always that you know
anti-donation uh so um and then we if we
were to do something like that
we would have to reimburse utilities
because as you know they run on an
enterprise zone and they can't afford to
you know they they run on cost of
service so we can't expect them to take
that dip so
that if there was a way to do that i
think that that's good because remember
we're looking
i i'm thinking a thousand dollars a
month for those
for those restaurants so and not all
restaurants are
are tipped so there are some that are
just flat out
per hour um
so mayor if i might
sure yeah i i appreciate that and i know
that anti-donation
thing that keeps like a thorn on our
side
but um i also want to remind folks that
publicly since
we may have a lot of folks looking at
this viewing this
is you know we put forth a lot of money
into that utility fund
not just once but twice for this very
um thing for folk their businesses that
are struggling
um to pay that um and that's
that goes through casa de peregrinos and
it might behoove us to
again um say this publicly
um all the non-profits that we gave
money to
how you know be contact information that
um that so that um people know
publicly um not only businesses but
residents
um the nonprofits that we have funded
and when that funding cycle will begin
i think that's really really important
that has been our coveted response and
we didn't just do something early on
there's
in terms of economic department and
helping businesses it's been ongoing and
now with the meeting that we had on
monday
with the the monies that we are
receiving from the state
it'll be some additional
additional help up to ten thousand
dollars so
i think this is a really good time for
staff to talk about it
and find again different ways to
communicate with
our constituency to include the business
the businesses and i know
econ develop development department is
sending emails and those kinds of things
but i i think it important to say if we
could mayor that would be helpful
sure okay so we have counselor ben cuomo
and counselor vasquez
thank you mayor um i i was gonna say
something else but just piggybacking on
um mayor protem's comments i'm looking
for my notes from
our utilities board meeting and um you
know i think there was about
excuse me maybe 16 businesses that asked
for that
utility support so um whether it's
maybe on our end that we're just not
reaching enough folks with this
information maybe that's something we
need to look at because
uh there is that utility support at
least on the city side right we don't
control
uh the electricity but at least on the
city side
um there is definitely that support that
has been
excuse me that has been not um minimally
used by business so we want to make sure
that that information is getting out
in as many as ways as possible um
and then mr mayor i was going to
actually say that there are
um other folks on the attendees that i
see that i would love to hear from i
certainly
i'm certainly really glad mr silva is on
i've been meaning sir to
if you're still on i've been meaning to
reach out to you i i've requested for
your phone number on the back end
already so you'll be hearing from me i
know
um you know your stores in district four
and i would love to meet you and get to
know you and talk to you but i see other
folks on here mayor i mean
elizabeth martinez
she just jumped on in fact that's what i
was going to do she i don't know we
don't know if she's an employee or an
employer
um but we did hear from martha
um yeah i
so what i was going to do is if it's
okay with uh counselor
vasquez go to elizabeth martinez
ask her let her speak and share whatever
comments or concerns that she has and
then go back to council is that okay
okay so okay
we're good with that counselor vasquez
yep okay great
miss martinez elizabeth martinez are you
there and if you are please
just need to state your name and your
comments
elizabeth
okay well um here she's unmuted
uh if you can hear us elizabeth you need
to unmute your phone
or however your
okay there's a new name here we'll come
back to you elizabeth
there's a new name itma felix
felix hi i'm here
i'm hi i'm uh the other administrator at
home care
inc of dona and i work uh you know
martha lozano cuaron and i work side by
side
uh running the business of home care inc
of donana
and all you know all the concerns that
she mentioned are
very valid to us and our heart does go
out
you know this minimum wage has always
been an issue regarding you know our
reimbursement
that is one of the biggest issues is why
why we struggle
and even giving raises uh fortunately
we've been able to do some bonuses
to our employees uh
one thing i did want to mention is
you know some of these minimum wage
employees
what happens is that in order for them
to qualify for
medicaid they have to stay at a certain
minimum wage to to qualify for that
insurance
and sometimes it doesn't
benefit them to increase them
and and you know they're the ones that
tell us because they
lose their medicaid uh so i just wanted
to give you that food for thought
i know it's a complicated issue but
thank you for hearing me okay
thank you irma and
before i get to martha let me just check
in on jason
silva
okay let me go back to see if elizabeth
martinez says elizabeth are you able to
jump on the call
elizabeth okay
one more one more here lupe aguilar
lupe yes i'm here okay just need you to
state your name please
my name is lupe aguilar
are you a employee an employer or
yes i work under martha and irma
oh okay i'm a registered nurse there so
uh i work under them
well you guys definitely got the message
that we're meeting today yes
how would you like to share some
comments with us
uh well um i really don't have any
comments since um
um what can i say uh
i i really don't i'm just really
listening and
you're there for moral support of martha
and
irma yes sir okay okay
um elizabeth martinez
you're there
okay let's drop back down to martha
lozano coron
martha do you have your hand up or did
you forget to put it down
so you may have forgot i'm sorry this is
martha lozano
no what i was gonna add is elizabeth is
having trouble to unmute herself
so she does work for us and she runs our
our
pcs which is that medicaid waiver i was
telling you about
uh the other thing besides what irma
mentioned about the employees losing
their insurance
is also their food stamps uh they make
more money so they don't qualify for
food time so a lot of times
when we ask employees to work more hours
they won't because they don't want to
lose their footsteps
and their benefits and that creates a
big problem for us
we have about 150 patients and
under that program and probably 197
employees
to service
okay no those are uh information
that definitely we can take away from
that you know we
i i can't speak for others but that um
was not aware of and it makes sense so
it sounds like
the the more they make so gosh if if
minimum wage goes to 12
an hour it's going to push some of
workers as well as
recipients um maybe not even qualifying
from
healthcare is that what i'm hearing
you're saying yes
yes that's correct so even those parents
who start getting paid more because
they're going to find themselves in a
different
different um yeah category
um they won't be able to use your
services because
the state or or they're going to be
looked upon as making
they will lose their qualification for
medicaid
and so they won't be able to be serviced
under that program
i gotcha okay interesting because we
also
have insights of pc under the pcs we uh
we have the disabled and elderly
uh program and we also have the ipstet
which is the kids under 21.
pcs is for over 21. if that is for under
21.
gotcha um
one more one more question from uh marcy
and then we'll go back to council
yes marcy
do you have a question marcy dickerson
oh there we go i apologize marcy
dickerson for the record
you all mentioned that you approved some
grant funding or other sources of small
business aid in yesterday's
meeting could you please say for the
record and for all the people listening
where does a small business or business
go to
apply for that assistance that you
approved yesterday
uh dr martinez griselda martinez
yes good morning council mayor grisela
martinez economic development director
for the record
uh we are currently finalizing the
application
if you want to contact us about this
grant program for our businesses
the email address to use this econdev
last hyphen cruises.org
wonderful thank you very much
thank you dr martinez okay
i think it's important that she talks
specifically about the matrix
like what you're asking folks to do
what the qualifications would be i i
think it's so important
can we get that information again
dr martinez did you hear the question
from mayor bill
yes mr mayor mayor patem the
qualifications are as per the cares act
it is businesses less than 50 employees
as of february of 2019.
it is businesses with revenues less than
2 million dollars
that businesses that can prove a
hardship due to covet 19
and the city will be utilizing a matrix
given points for the different criteria
one of them
is having received assistance
from federal state and and other local
programs
the number of employees with a higher uh
ranking if they're smaller one to ten
versus those um 40 to
50 and if they are owned by socially
disadvantaged groups such as
minorities or veterans or
female owned businesses
and if they if they have been curtailed
by the public health order as well
as i mentioned yesterday the information
will be disseminated through various
channels utilizing our
partnerships in the community we'll do
radio spots in english and in spanish
we will do also
newspaper ads and social media all of
this
in spanish and in english as well
and we'll will continue we'll make sure
that this information
gets disseminated to as many as as many
people as possible
um i also mentioned that we will
send an email to you all and ask if city
council can share
among your networks so that that should
be coming to you
shortly if you could help us with that
as well thank you mr mayor
thank you dr martinez and if i may just
say to my colleagues i know
this is kind of a slight tangent but i'm
going to have to leave it at that
because
we can't be discussing any other
programs because our main focus was
minimum wage so if we can just kind of
circle back and and keep the discussion
of that so we'll just leave it at that
from dr martinez so i appreciate that
very detailed um explanation so
counselor vasquez and cuomo and rebeca
tv
council vasquez thank you mayor um
yeah i just want to say i appreciate the
comments uh sentiments of my colleagues
regarding
um some more creative ways to provide
business assistance that's not
neces that's not on the back of workers
and that doesn't pit
folks against each other um you know i
think we can do that i think we
continuously talk about the
the financial position that the city is
in how well-run the city
is we are in a better position than most
uh probably not just in new mexico but
across the country to really come up
within
oh we lost you programs especially using
the telstra fund
um that i'm breaking up a little bit i
apologize for that
a little bit and so so i think it's
incumbent upon
us to use um you know the city's
financial position
uh the city's um reputation for being
well-run and the talented staff that we
have
to create business assistance programs
using our existing funds
uh that that don't that don't have to be
on the back of workers that don't have
to go back to this divisive discussion
about minimum wage
and and that pit workers or members of
our community or
even political parties against each
other because i think that's that's what
we do
uh whenever we talk about lowering or
raising wages to benefit any one
particular
uh entity whether it's businesses or
workers and so
um i appreciate your ideas mayor um
and and thinking critically as as well
as as uh mr ifo pili said
about how how a business assistance
program rolls out to those communities
or to those businesses that need them
the most is important
um i continue to think about you know
the the franchisees or the
you know or even the national
corporations the applebee's and
uh ruby tuesdays and others who are in
better financial positions
um not not so much maybe the franchisees
but the national corporations
uh do they really need a thousand
dollars right so uh a month in
assistance and so
being sure that those dollars are doled
out responsibly to the small businesses
that that need the most
um i think is going to be an important
part of of how we might roll this out
so that it's not that blanket approach
and we're essentially giving money to
corporations that
uh probably pay no federal taxes anyway
because they're they're part of you know
large multinational conglomerates that
own all these different companies and so
we got to be careful about doing that
um in terms of that cliff effect you
know we've heard this
during the minimum wage discussions in
the past when it comes to child care
assistance
the child care providers have
consistently told us that
if we raise minimum wage that parents
aren't going to be able to
provide uh pay for child care uh
including some of their own employees
because they'll be making above a
threshold that that
doesn't allow them to collect that child
care subsidy uh this is so this is so
wrong
in some on so many levels and it's not
something that necessarily we can fix at
the city but
um the system i mean medicaid reform
child care assistance reform
um chip reform that all needs to happen
at the federal level
so that we are not in a position where
we are keeping people in perpetual
poverty just so that they can get
meet the basic needs for themselves and
their families um
that doesn't do that's not good for
people you know to think that
being poor is better than doing
something better for yourself whether
it's education or seeking a better job
or even demanding a raise at your at
work
it's just not a good way to live you
know for for folks i
i wouldn't want to be in that situation
but would understand the realities of
having
responsibilities like child care and
insurance and
and those things that are very important
to families and so uh we're working
in a broken system um that that starts
at the federal level and that's enforced
by the state
um that that always that perpetually
keeps people in poverty and that sucks
that's really
awful that's that's no way to run i
think these types of programs and so
um i will add um together with that that
you know the
the bind administration is proposing as
part of its platform
of 15 an hour national wage and
the same way we're talking today about
you know we're we're
we're beholden to what the state um
chooses to go with and we have to
enforce that if it's a higher wage
uh and secretary mccamley even said hey
the the state's minimum wage is going to
outpace
our cpi tied wage uh in the next couple
years
um so i think we have to seriously start
thinking about this in
in in the event that uh we do have a
congress that passes a
an administration that passes a national
an hour minimum wage we have to start
thinking about that now if that is
something that happens
um and because all these other programs
will have to be reformed along with that
and we should be prepared for those
changes if they do come
um and then lastly i just wanted to
comment that
um you know we i think we have to we we
always talk about
this in the sense of how how our people
are doing in in las cruces and knowing
that there's a lot of need out there
there's a lot of low wage earners out
there
and and so i continue to go back to the
conversation about
what can we do different as a city to
bring jobs and economic development
so that we're not constantly trying to
patch up this this issue of
how do we provide assistance to folks
rather than how do we target
you know economically depressed areas
with targeted assistance or economic
development efforts
um so that so that we're actually
creating and building wealth
in in our local neighborhoods and so
that's something i look forward
to ifo's discussion uh one of the ideas
i i didn't want to
automatically write off a tid right
because these are
opportunities that come to us and we say
if we say no
i'm sorry i don't mean to interrupt but
i think we're getting a little bit off
topic again
i i think what you're talking about i'd
like to have another work session on
because i think we do need to
really study that situation i the
comments you just heard from our
health care uh from those ladies um
is yes i agree with you that we
shouldn't have to
they shouldn't have to worry about not
being able to get raises
or they'll lose their benefits so we can
have a work session on that
and it's just that because you know i
don't want to delve into something
that we're sure if we you know go off
topic okay mayor i understand um my case
they're connected to the minimum wages i
i think if we don't do anything
different to bring economic development
and higher paying wages
uh to our city um then nothing will
change and so i i'm just
i'm looking forward to looking at you
know different ways we can incentivize
higher paying wages and
bringing in businesses that pay higher
wages uh in ways that we haven't
tried or done before um so i just wanted
to make that comment as we continue this
conversation
i i i want to have that that's good i
appreciate that thank you mayor
uh councilman cuomo honestly mayor thank
you i
am i won't be able to say what i was
going to as great as councillor vasquez
said i was just really concerned about
the comment that was made regarding
wages and people not being able to
um get food stamps and medicaid
we cannot live in an economy economy
that perpetually
uh puts people in that keeps people in
poverty right i agree
we have to look at anti-poverty programs
in our city
um i have some ideas that i'm not
totally ready to share yet but i think
but i'm excited to have a work session
where i could potentially
share some of my research and um we yeah
we can't
you know 12 an hour isn't living wait is
in a living wage and that's why
people are worried about making 12 as
opposed to seven or whatever because
it's still not a living
wage in new mexico arguably one of the
most affordable states in the country
yeah but um i just gotta throw this in
there this is that's not that's not the
state
city is doing it's the state's doing you
know they're the ones who control the
medicaid
the other ones to control uh these
reimbursement levels
uh counselor beta stewie
thank you mayor my comments were very
similar to my previous counselors
um i am wondering if it's something that
we need to consider as we talk about
minimum wages to make sure we're
utilizing our
lobbyists and other advocates and
champions for the city to make sure that
we look at those reimbursement
rates as well and that we're adjusting
because
as we've seen today it affects all
different um industries and especially i
i know health care is such a big one
here and i know
it's not even just this but there's even
you know
insurance reimbursement rates that
really affect us
and the type of care that people
can receive here the doctors that want
to stay here um
nurses everybody so um i i think that's
something that we definitely
want to make sure that we're looking at
and hopefully championing
uh later on thank you counselor sword
ah thank you mr mayor
you did some back of the envelope uh
uh mathematics on
uh businesses that how much they would
um
uh gain or lose uh doing what we're
asking
uh to be done here today um
i didn't quite catch it did you take
your
give me i want to use the example of a
small restaurant
that employs about 10 people a little
more maybe even a little less
um if this uh uh
tipped wage would uh change how much
would they
save how much would that business save
if if it was dropped you mean
if uh if it went down to the 235 an hour
is that what you're saying
yeah okay so that's what about a dollar
how much is that
dollar 70 difference so 420
minus 235 dollar 85 difference
so if you have uh well 1.85
an hour right and if you have let's say
you have 10 employees working
in that one particular shift
so that's uh 18 and 50 cents
an hour to the employer and let's say
they
average six hours that day so that's
1850 times six
so that's um
111 dollars a day
and if you were to do 30 days but
i don't think that'll be very i don't
know if every restaurant's open every
day but
maybe six days let's just say times uh
20 well maybe they are opening for day i
don't know
so 3 000 a month right there
okay roughly you know so all i was
trying to get
over three months we're talking about
nine thousand dollars they could
possibly save
but under that scenario sure yeah
that's something here so isn't that just
about what we're trying to give away in
grants
uh for the grant program for a
restaurant like this
so rather than take it out on the uh
employees
uh they'll they can get make it up from
the grant from
the cares act uh from the state
and so that's what i was trying to get
at and i think uh
mr feely and and uh pili and
and uh counselor vasquez and and ben
como et cetera et cetera
all we're trying to say is that um let's
target those businesses that are in
trouble
with these grants and um um just leave
the wages of the way they are
okay so that comes out to about 5.4
million dollars
so i just thought i'd let you know yeah
well we've got five million dollars to
give away
okay fine good let's do it okay so there
we are
problem solved maybe okay there you go
okay thank you yeah you're welcome uh
counselor vasquez did you
forget to put your hand down or do you
have another question
i forgot to put my hand down thank you
man okay well this has been a good
discussion
at least we're going to come up with a
another oh leanne damouche yeah
mayor councillor leanne damouche for the
record uh
chief budget officer i just want to
remind council that we
do need to communicate the minimum wage
uh starting on october the 15th
so we will need some guidance today sir
so that way we can advertise this on
october the 15th
yeah leanne most likely i would probably
say go with the
reminder that it's going to be 10 50 an
hour plus
what the city's um 420
an hour i guess so it's going to be a
combination of
the state's high high point and then the
city's uh
high point on the tip wages is from what
i'm gathering
i would think that's a fair assessment
and to move forward with that uh type of
advertisement okay thank you sir
okay so anyway so i think we had a good
discussion i think what we're going to
have at least another one or two work
sessions not on this but on
on some of the things that we've
discussed especially on the
workers that you know we can hopefully
somehow
come up with some ideas to send to our
legislature to
not allow them to always keep certain
residents
uh in under in poverty and then also
some additional ideas how we can help
businesses uh with through the cares act
yes
mayor putin sorry mary just procedurally
um do we have to vote on a resolution
that was presented to
us um last week or
yeah which a resolution
i thought it came in a form of a
resolution and
so would we have to um vote on that
result oh
i think that's what that's what leanne
was getting at they're going to re
re-design it and bring it forward for a
resolution on monday or whenever
okay i don't know if it's monday david
mr mayor i think david's all in for the
record i think it's an
ordinance because that's how minimum
wage is adopted
so we'll have to have a first read um
and an adoption
okay
very good well thanks again for
joining us uh everyone and uh for those
panelists uh or attendees thank you for
your
question did you have another question
mayor potem or you forget to put your
hand down okay
okay if there's nothing further
entertain a motion to adjourn
so move second gandara
motion made by councillor vasquez
seconded by mayor protem gandara that we
adjourn all those in favor signify by
saying aye
hi all right let's suppose hi we're
adjourned it's 10
57 a.m okay thank you
thank you mr leader
you