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Village presses vendor to reconcile short‑term rental database as tax remittance concerns continue
Summary
Vendor Deckard (Decker Technologies) said the new STR platform is active with 'just south of 600' active licenses, but village staff and councilors reported legacy data closer to 1,300 and asked for follow-up reconciliation, training and enforcement to secure lodgers tax remittances.
Decker Technologies director Matthew Davis told the Ruidoso council the village’s short‑term rental (STR) platform has moved out of implementation and is now active, with licensing, tax remittance and an inspection module in place.
“We're just south of 600 active short term rental license within the village Ruidoso,” Matthew Davis said, describing the platform’s ability to flag listings that are operating without full compliance and a planned three‑letter enforcement campaign to prompt registration and remittance.
Davis acknowledged initial delays driven by incomplete data from the previous vendor: “The data export that we received from the village that was handed across to them by the previous vendor was corrupt or missing a lot of data fields in terms of expiration dates of current license that we then had to work backwards with Christie and the team to fill in those gaps,” he said.
Councilors and staff pushed back on the vendor’s active‑count figure. Village staff and other council members reiterated a legacy figure of roughly 1,300 registered short‑term rentals that they expect to see converted into the new system; the vendor said the 584–600 figure reflected what Deckard had ingested so far and agreed to double‑check the numbers. The discrepancy prompted a pledge from the mayor and staff to hold follow‑up meetings with Deckard, property managers and finance staff to reconcile the database and train managers on the new portal.
Officials also reported practical problems that have impaired compliance: at least one councilor said the business portal sometimes denies access and that some property managers had not yet remitted lodgers tax for recent months. Village finance staff said lodgers tax payments continue to arrive overall, but the system-to-bank reconciliation down to the property level is not yet fully granular.
Davis said the system’s enforcement sequencing (three warning letters spaced 30 days apart) and one‑on‑one training with larger property managers are intended to bring the remaining accounts into compliance so tax remittance and auditing can be tracked at the property level. He said the platform will continue to scrub listings from Airbnb, VRBO and similar services and that conversion issues should be resolved after targeted outreach.
What’s next: Council and staff asked for another meeting with Deckard, property managers and finance representatives to reconcile counts, address login issues and accelerate tax remittance; the vendor committed to follow-up and additional one‑on‑one training sessions.
