Santa Fe council begins FY27 budget hearings, hears HR, legal and finance highlights

Santa Fe's governing body opened special hearings on the fiscal year 2027 operating budget on May 16, receiving departmental presentations and directing next steps for committee review.

Human Resources interim director Sarah Bolater Gonzales told the council the HR request includes a proposed new HRIS manager position intended to reduce reliance on contractors and support human-capital-management work. "The proposed budget increased by 1,400,000 or 444.4% from the original budget," Bolater Gonzales said, and the HR budget includes $25,700,000 for employee health, dental and life insurance claims and $197,848 for tuition assistance.

City Attorney Marcos highlighted recent litigation developments and said public-records requests processed by the city fell from about 10,800 in 2024 to roughly 7,800 in 2025 after the city began providing more information directly online. Records staff later told the council that GovQA tracking showed 138 hours of video review in one recent month in addition to 417 hours of other IPRA processing, prompting discussion about shifting some video-review duties to the police department to reduce trauma and workload on legal staff.

Finance staff described continued implementation of financial systems, including Tyler Munis modules and a planned move to Questica for budgeting tools; they reported average monthly cash balances of roughly $3010 million in the city's Wells Fargo account and said one reason for a net budget decrease in some areas was payoff of certain debt obligations and recognition of additional railyard rental revenue.

Community engagement and the city clerk's office asked to convert a temporary translator role to full time and to add a broadcast/streaming production specialist to expand meeting streaming and relieve IT. Staff also outlined the OpenGov and Survey123 CRM integration to give constituents and councilors more live visibility into work orders.

Councilors asked follow-up questions about contract reductions, training and mentorship incentives, procurement timing and the shopping-cart retrieval contract, which staff said cost nearly $250,000 across the last four-year contract and will be revisited before the contract expires June 30. Administration proposed the finance committee review amendments next week with a governing-body adoption date to follow; staff asked that any proposed amendments be submitted in writing in time to allow processing over the Memorial Day holiday weekend.

The meeting concluded with staff noting the finance committee will meet to consider amendments and the governing body is scheduled to take up adoption later this month.