Subcommittee reviews $6.96 million in vendor payments; staff explains vendor descriptions and ACH conversion

Finance staff reported vendor payments totaling $6,955,003.70 for the reporting period and answered board questions about specific line items, procurement methods and the district’s continued conversion from checks to ACH payments.

Alfredo Pacheco (accounting staff) presented the vendor payments report and said $1,078,004.52 (15.5%) of payments were by check and $5,877, - - (84.5%) were ACH. In his presentation he walked board members through pre-submitted questions about several vendors: polos and pants for campus security, Shooter's Technology purchases (aiming masks and paper targets for an ROTC program), payments to the City of Las Cruces for school resource officer services and a false-alarm charge at Mayfield High School, federal utility payments for White Sands School, literacy instructional materials (Lazell), districtwide document shredding services, Uline purchases for migratory students, and physical-plant purchases listed to Kettner Enterprises for Oregon Mountain High School.

Board members asked for clarification on several entries. Member Frank asked about an apparent $16,000 line labeled “Board of Commissioners”; Pacheco clarified that payment was to the City of Las Cruces for SRO services and a small false-alarm charge, and the city utilities entries were separately identified. Chairperson Wofford and Member Tenorio asked about a Hercules Industries payment; staff confirmed the line was a warehouse lease at 1713 Billtech Court. Tony Chavez (purchasing/operations staff) explained why certain vendors received checks rather than ACH: contracts procured via internal RFP processes sometimes require traditional check payments if they are not on direct-purchase cooperative contracts.

Board members discussed encouraging cooperative vendors to accept ACH and asked staff to pursue additional ACH enrollments for direct-purchase vendors. Chairperson Wofford praised the increasing ACH adoption rate and staff’s work to move vendors to electronic payments to improve security and processing efficiency.

Pacheco and finance staff said they would pause on the vendor presentation pages in future meetings to allow board members to follow along with the packet and pre-submitted questions page-by-page.

No formal board action was taken on individual vendor invoices during the subcommittee meeting; vendor payments were included in the consent recommendation the subcommittee forwarded to the full board.