The Rio Arriba County fire marshal and the Velarde fire chief are blaming each other for a mix of confusion and bad communication that led to the County sending a $100,000 grant back to the state last week.
The grant was returned after the County and the Velarde Fire Department couldn’t agree on a way to spend the money by the Oct. 1 deadline, County Fire Marshal Jerome Sanchez confirmed. The State Fire Marshal’s Office awarded the grant to the Velarde department in May for the purchase of a water tanker, which firefighters use to transport water to the scene of a fire.
The department doesn’t currently have a tanker, and Velarde Fire Chief Eddie Velarde said the equipment would help fight fires where hydrants aren’t located nearby. The tanker would also improve the department’s International Standards Organization (ISO) rating when it has its next inspection in November, he said.
Velarde said he thought the deal was done until Sept. 28, when he got a call from County Commission Chairman Elias Coriz to inform him the County would not help complete the purchase.
Velarde had just turned in the final paperwork for the purchase, but he said some initial figures were sent to Sanchez’s office in June. According to the final quote from Artesia Fire Equipment in Artesia, the tanker would have cost $338,065.
Because the $100,000 grant didn’t cover the whole cost of the new equipment, the Department would have needed funding from other sources, such as the County, to make the purchase. Because the Department didn’t have enough money to buy the tanker by the deadline, the County was forced to give the grant back to the state, Velarde said.
“I assumed the County was going to help us,” said Velarde, who said last week he planned to run next year for Coriz’s spot on the County Commission (see related story).
Velarde said Sanchez should have told him earlier about the funding issue, although Velarde said he never asked Sanchez whether the County would provide the money or from where the County funding would come.
Velarde said he expected the money would be allocated from revenue brought in by the County’s fire tax, a .25 percent gross receipts tax the County Commission uses to fund certain projects for its volunteer fire departments. The Lindrith Fire Department will receive some fire tax money this year to buy a similar 3,000-gallon tanker, Sanchez said.
Sanchez said the County never agreed to pay more than $20,000, the matching amount required by the state, toward the purchase of the new tanker. It was Velarde’s responsibility to figure out how to acquire the rest of the money, he said.
“He should have been working to secure his funding like the rest of (the departments) did,” he said.
The Abiquiú Fire Department is also purchasing a tanker this year with a state grant, but the balance on the $345,000 purchase is to be paid with a state legislative appropriation and money from the State Fire Marshal’s Office, Sanchez said.
Once Velarde was told the County wouldn’t pay the balance on the bill, he said he scrambled to put together a different proposal, this time for a $180,000 tanker he found at Fotus Apparatus Company in Atlanta, Ga. Velarde said that with the $100,000 grant, $20,000 from the County, and $45,000 he said several Velarde firefighters agreed to donate, the Department would be able to cover the rest of the bill — about $15,000 — with money from their general fund.
But Sanchez said it was too late by then to do much about the problem, and he hadn’t seen any documentation from the donors. He said there wasn’t enough time to finish the deal, which would have required written approval from the State Fire Marshal for the department to spend money from the general fund.
Sanchez also questioned whether the tanker from Georgia would meet the requirements required by the State Fire Marshal to spend the grant money. State Fire Marshal John Standefer said the equipment did need to be pre-approved by his office, but he was not sure if the Georgia tanker would have qualified or not. He did say the purchase of a tanker would improve the Department’s ISO rating.
Coriz said he didn’t blame Sanchez or Velarde for the missed opportunity. It was a funding issue, he said, and the County was simply prioritizing.
“The priority for Velarde was the fire station,” he said, referring to a new station the department plans to build at least partly with County funds.
The architectural design for the new station, to be located on two acres along State Road 68 in the north end of the village, was sent to the County last week by architect Benny Martinez, Velarde said
Velarde said his fire department was being treated unfairly.
“To lose $100,000 is ludicrous,” Velarde said.