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County seeks stronger grants capacity; creates separate grant-match fund to avoid general-fund matches
Summary
Taos County staff said reconciling grants recovered reimbursements and recommended separate grant accounting and grant-writing capacity. The commission approved a $2.5M grant-match fund to track match and temporary loans.
County officials told the commission they're leaning on regional grant-writing partners while building internal grant-accounting capacity. Chris, who has supported grant work, described recent reconciliations that recovered reimbursements the county had missed, calling the recoveries "easily a couple million dollars." "We requested easily a couple million dollars, and then we did identify a couple reimbursements we would have lost," Chris said, summarizing recent grant work.
During the budget review, staff proposed separating grant accounting (an ongoing internal function) from grant writing (a specialized contracted service). Commissioners and staff agreed the county eventually needs an in-house grants administrator plus contracted writers for complex federal grants. To reduce general-fund strain, the commission approved creating a dedicated $2,500,000 grant-match fund to track grant matches and temporary loans and reduce the need for ad-hoc transfers.
Staff said the county will continue using regional partners (North Central) in the near term while recruiting appropriate internal staff to manage grant accounting and administration.
