County likely to give $2-an-hour raises

At least two members of the Quay County Commission on Monday said they were amenable to giving $2-an-hour pay raises to employees after the county manager said such increases were doable with the 2024-2025 budget.

The commission likely will approve its budget with those raises during its next meeting on May 27.

County manager Daniel Zamora said he examined the financial effect of giving $1 or $2-an-hour pay raises for hourly employees and department heads for the forthcoming fiscal year. Zamora said he was moderately surprised to find the $2 raises were attainable.

“After crunching the numbers, it works,” he said.

Zamora explained the county will see an increase in property tax revenue mostly due to an overall increase in property values. He said the tax rates for both residential and non-residential property will increase only slightly — mostly due to the state’s yield control formula.

Zamora said he also raised the county’s expected revenue from gross receipts taxes from $400,000 to $500,000 a year. He said last year, the county received over $600,000 in GRT.

He said after consulting with Quay County Detention Center administrator Johnny Reid, he lowered the number of budgeted positions at the jail from 20 to 18. Reid told Zamora the jail long has struggled to even hire even half of its budgeted positions and that a maximum of 18 was a more reasonable number.

In the end, “revenue is outpacing expenditures” even with the $2-an-hour raises, Zamora said.

Documents in the commissioners’ packet showed about a $230,000 increase in expenditures with the $2 raise. The county’s projected cash balance remained near $5 million.

Commission Chairman Robert Lopez said the $2-an-hour raise was “the best way to go,” especially with trying to attract and retain employees.

“In this job market, people will leave for more money,” he said.

Commissioner Brian Fortner also supported the bigger raise, saying the county needed to provide “a livable wage.”

Zamora said substantial raises were needed especially in the road department and jail. Wages were the biggest factor in the struggle to find workers in those departments, he said.

Commissioner Jerri Rush voiced concerns the bigger pay raise would lead to wage compression. Zamora acknowledged the county likely would have to return to standard percentage wage increases of 2% to 5% in future years.

In other business:

— Commissioners approved several budgetary increases, the first being $20,000 to cover the balance on a pothole filling machine.

— Another budgetary increase approved was $241,711.02 for engineering and renovations to the former Bob’s Budget Pharmacy building to be converted into new regional emergency communications center.

— The third budgetary increase was $60,000 to improve cybersecurity for county elections.

— Commissioners approved resolutions that states its sponsorship of an application for Transportation Fund Project funds. The county is requesting $2.92 million to improved Quay Road 63 and $344,676.15 for engineering to improve Quay Road AR.

— County assessor Dana Leonard informed the commission of the property-tax protest board members — Keith Bowen and Tonya Rigdon, with Regina Duplantis and Franklin McCasland as alternates.

— Rico Marano, coordinator of the county’s DWI program, said his office will be doing more programs with area schools. His brother, Carl, will be Tucumcari Public Schools’ new superintendent in July.