Commissioners consider county grocery GRT ballot option to fund EMS, 911 and behavioral health; no vote

County staff presented an option at the May 5 work session to ask voters this year to approve a countywide gross receipts tax increment (a 1/16th percent increment was estimated to yield roughly $4.3 million countywide) that could be dedicated to emergency communications, EMS services and behavioral-health services such as a crisis triage center (CTC).

Staff sketched a possible allocation: roughly 30% for emergency communications/dispatch (MVDA), 57% for EMS operations and 13% for behavioral-health services tied to the CTC. Jennifer Gorm, executive director of the Mesilla Valley Regional Dispatch Authority, emphasized that smaller municipal partners are struggling to sustain dispatch contributions and said dedicated funding would stabilize regional 911 operations.

Assistant County Manager Steven Lopez suggested the board could explore offsets such as sunsetting or redirecting existing local-option GRT (e.g., the Spaceport-related GRT) to limit net impacts on taxpayers; he also noted the ballot deadline for county measures (ordinance and publication) requires action well before the summer legislative session.

Several commissioners urged caution. One commissioner said the community is already facing other tax and cost pressures (GO bonds, property reappraisal) and opposed placing another tax on the ballot this year; another suggested exploring ways to expand CTC utilization and revenue (Medicaid billing or jail re-entry case management) to reduce the countys ongoing share rather than immediately raising a countywide GRT.

No final decision was made; staff will return with more modeling, potential offsets and an outreach plan if the board wants to pursue a ballot question for November.