Proposed federal funding cuts to tribal colleges spark fear – Bella Davis, New Mexico In Depth
Kaiya Brown was at work last week when she started getting the texts. Her friends were asking if she’d seen the news: The Trump administration wants to cut funding for tribal colleges by nearly 90%.
Brown (Diné) is in her first year at Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute in northwest Albuquerque, one of 37 tribal colleges and universities in the country and four in New Mexico, many of which offer free tuition to tribal citizens.
If Congress approves the administration’s budget request released last Monday, funding for the schools will drop from over $183 million to about $22 million in the next fiscal year, starting in October. Federal funding makes up 74% of total revenue for tribal colleges and universities, ICT reported in January.
“It’s really scary,” Brown said. “I don’t think enough people understand the importance of tribal colleges and what they do for our communities. They provide opportunities that many students would have never had. It makes me really emotional, honestly, because they don’t understand how this would impact so many lives.”
Brown is studying early childhood education with hopes of going into social work to advocate for Native children.
Part of why she chose a tribal college was because she didn’t feel safe or supported at her Rio Rancho high school. In one instance, Brown wore her regalia, including moccasins and jewelry, to school, and a teacher asked, “Where’s your feathers?” Another time, she and a couple other Native students were carrying frybread for a sale, and a group of their peers started mocking them. One of the students told them, “I thought we killed all your people.”
Her experience so far at college, Brown said, couldn’t be more different.
“We’re all so close to one another. We all want to see each other succeed,” she said. “And I truly feel that from the staff and from my instructors. These are Native instructors, people that look like me and know my ways.”
She’s also enjoyed the small class sizes. Last fall, 215 students were enrolled, according to data from the college, which was founded in 1971. The largest class Brown is in right now has five students total. Instead of getting lost in a lecture hall with a hundred other people, she’s able to get more hands-on help from instructors.
But the mood on campus hasn’t been the same lately, Brown said. The community has been reeling from a round of layoffs earlier this year.
The institute, along with Haskell Indian Nations University in Kansas, is federally operated. In February, the Bureau of Indian Education laid off dozens of faculty and staff members at the two institutions in response to Trump’s directives to reduce the federal workforce. Many classes were left without instructors, and a power outage in Brown’s dorm lasted 13 hours because there weren’t enough maintenance workers available to fix it. A few weeks later, some employees were re-hired, but it was unclear whether the hirings were permanent or temporary.
That’s according to a lawsuit against the federal government brought by the Native American Rights Fund in March. Brown is a plaintiff, along with four Haskell students and three tribal nations, including Isleta Pueblo.
“Tribal nations and the federal government should be working together to best serve our Native students,” Isleta Pueblo Gov. Eugene Jiron said in a statement. “Instead, the administration is randomly, without preparation and in violation of their federal trust responsibility, taking away teachers The layoffs worsened problems caused by chronic understaffing at the schools, the lawsuit argues. Congress has underfunded tribal colleges by $250 million a year, ProPublica reported in 2024.
The re-hirings brought some relief, Brown said, but the proposed cuts have stirred up fear among students and employees again.
“These schools have done so much for our people,” she said. “So many passionate people and talented artists have come from these schools. They give us the tools to pursue our dreams. It’s like our stepping stone into the world. And taking that away will be devastating to a lot of students, including myself.”
New Mexico is home to three other tribal colleges: Diné College, which has campuses in Shiprock and Crownpoint, as well as in Arizona; the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe; and Navajo Technical University, with a main campus in Crownpoint. In fall 2024, an estimated 3,378 students were enrolled at the schools, according to the state Higher Education Department.
In a statement last week, Robert Martin, president of the Institute of American Indian Arts, said, “I know that we will prevail in the end, but we can’t take that for granted. We have strong Congressional support but they need to hear from all of our constituents.”
Possible measles exposures at Sunport; other locations from traveler cases – Danielle Prokop, Source New Mexico
Two travelers visiting New Mexico may have exposed people to measles at the Albuquerque International Sunport and other locations across Bernalillo, Santa Fe and Sandoval counties over the past two weeks, health officials said on Friday. Other locations included Walmarts in Albuquerque and Santa Fe and an indoor pool in Rio Rancho.
The New Mexico Department of Health reported that two separate travelers were diagnosed with measles cases in the state: an adult with unknown vaccination status and an 18-month old with at least one vaccine.
“These two cases remind us that travel remains an exposure risk when it comes to this contagious virus,” said NMDOH Chief Medical Officer Dr. Miranda Durham in a statement. “The measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine remains the best protection against measles.”
The travelers’ diagnoses do not impact New Mexico’s measles infections, which remain at 81 cases Friday.
The reported cases may have exposed people at the following places, dates and times:
Rio Rancho: 1 to 4 p.m. on Monday, June 2: Rio Rancho Aquatic Center, 745 Loma Colorado NE
Santa Fe: 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Thursday, June 5: Walmart Supercenter, 5701 Herrera Drive
Albuquerque: 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Friday, June 6: Walmart Supercenter, 2550 Coors Boulevard NW
9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Friday, June 6: El Super, 4201 Central Avenue NW
9:30 a.m. to 1:40 p.m. on Tuesday, June 10: University of New Mexico Hospital Adult Urgent Care, 2211 Lomas Boulevard NE
3 p.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 10: Albuquerque International Sunport, 2200 Sunport Blvd
- Main terminal and TSA Security Checkpoint
- Terminal A: Gate A-6
NMDOH urged anyone who was possibly exposed to check vaccination status and to stay home if symptoms such as a rash or fever develop. Further questions about testing, vaccinations and potential treatment can be directed to the NMDOH Hotline at 1-833-796-8773.
Measles symptoms do not develop immediately, often between one to three weeks from exposure. People are infectious several days before and after symptoms such as headache, cough, runny nose, red eyes, fever, and spotty red rash appear.
Additional information, such as vaccine clinic hours, is available on NMDOH’s measles webpage.
Conservation groups worried about how Senate public land sale plan could affect New Mexico – Cathy Cook, Albuquerque Journal
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee released the text of its piece of the Senate budget bill Wednesday night. It includes a mandate to sell 2 million to 3 million acres of Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands over the next five years in 11 western states, including New Mexico, for the sake of building housing. A similar proposal in the House was stripped shortly before the lower chamber passed its budget package.
“Senate Republicans have finally said the quiet part out loud: They want to put millions of acres of our public lands up in a fire sale, destroy the investments that have created thousands of manufacturing and clean energy jobs — including in their home states, and obliterate programs that lower energy costs for everyday Americans,” the top committee Democrat Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico said in a statement.
Committee Chair Mike Lee, R-Utah, has spearheaded recent efforts to sell federally owned public lands.
“We’re cutting billions in unused Biden-era climate slush funds, opening up energy and resource development, turning federal liabilities into taxpayer value, while making housing more affordable for hardworking American families. This is how we make government smaller, freer, and work for Americans,” Lee said in a statement.
The states that would be eligible for land sales include New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Alaska, California, Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming. Montana is specifically excluded.
The legislation also excludes national monuments, recreation areas, conservation areas, historic sites, memorials or battlefields; units of the national wildlife refuge system, fish hatchery system or national park system; and components of the national wilderness preservation system, national wild and scenic rivers system or national trails system. Land with valid existing rights, like mining claims or grazing permits, would also be excluded.
Compared to the dead House proposal, the Senate plan includes more land and broadens the sellable land from just BLM land to include Forest Service land.
Under the proposal, 67,500 acres to 100,000 acres of BLM land and 46,600 acres to 70,000 acres of National Forest land in New Mexico could be sold off, according to an estimate from Michael Carroll, director of the BLM campaign at advocacy group The Wilderness Society.
The legislation says any interested party could nominate public lands for sale, language that concerns Carroll.
“There’s a lot of questions of who qualifies for ‘any interested party.’ Does that include foreign governments? Does it include major international corporations?” Carroll said.
Local and state governments would have right of first refusal to purchase the federal land.
Chris Wood, president and CEO of advocacy group Trout Unlimited, is hopeful the legislation won’t make it through Congress.
“Because in the pantheon of bad ideas, this one sits pretty close to the top,” Wood said. “I think what the sponsors of this idea forget is that public lands are a uniquely American idea and ideal. These are the lands that literally formed the character of the nation as we made our way west, and they are the envy of the rest of the world.”
Wood is not opposed to trading low conservation value public lands with high conservation value public lands for the sake of developing housing for communities, but believes mandating land sales in a federal budget bill without a public consideration process is offensive.
Much of the remaining trout habitat for the 23 native U.S. trout, including the Gila trout and the Rio Grande cutthroat trout, is within federally owned public land, Wood said.
“Hunters and anglers across the western United States, who don’t want to beg to hunt on private land, are going to turn out against this proposal in droves. The hunting and angling community is one that’s slow to anger, but I would avoid the hornet’s nest when they get worked up. And they’re getting worked up about this one,” he said.
New Mexico lawmakers, ACLU endorse petition allowing citizen complaints against police — Austin Fisher, Source New Mexico
The New Mexico Law Enforcement Certification Board will ask the state Department of Justice to weigh in on whether it can accept police misconduct complaints filed by citizens.
At the opening of the board’s regular meeting on Thursday morning, Vice Chair Cody Rogers Benavidez said it will formally request a legal opinion from the department.
The board’s decision follows a petition backed by state legislators and the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico that asks the board to adopt new rules, including ones that will address the issue of citizen complaints.
With some limited exceptions, New Mexico state agencies must adopt rules, also known as regulations or standards, which are used to actually carry out laws passed by the Legislature and signed by the governor.
However, the Law Enforcement Certification Board has been operating under rules that predate its existence for nearly two years, and which don’t address whether the board can hear citizen complaints.
Sen. Antonio “Moe” Maestas (D-Albuquerque), who carried the 2023 legislation that created the board, also noted during the meeting his hope that the board “moves forward with rulemaking.” The law creating the board requires the board to adopt new rules.
Maestas also said during public comment that police officers and sheriff’s deputies are government employees and should be open to scrutiny like any other professionals licensed by the state government.
“Anybody can file a complaint with regards to that profession, and the board can treat it accordingly,” he said.
Rogers Benavidez said NMDOJ is also helping the board write the new rules.
“We’re going to move forward with rulemaking and hopefully have something ready to go relatively soon,” she said. “Rulemaking is happening, it is underway and we will have drafts and other things to look at in the near future. It’s a priority for us, it’s a priority for the community, it’s a priority for everybody. So that’s not lost on us.”
What exactly those rules will say about police misconduct complaints also factors into the petition filed with the board.
“Until the LECB can operate as an independent body without conflict of interest, and until it clarifies its responsibility for all law enforcement licenses in New Mexico regardless of rank or agency, there will be no legitimate investigation or adjudication of law enforcement misconduct in New Mexico,” the petition states.
Rachel Feldman, chair of the Indivisible SOS Santa Fe’s Civil Rights & Law Enforcement Reform Committee, filed the petition on May 15, following her own misconduct complaint in January against Department of Public Safety Secretary Jason Bowie, which accused him of taking over the board’s staff and gaining access to their confidential files, making it impossible for them to impartially investigate police misconduct complaints.
Last February, Bowie — who has denied the allegations — told the board that accepting the complaint as an official police misconduct filing would “set a dangerous precedent,” and predicted legal challenges from police associations.
Christopher Williams, Portales Police Department chief and New Mexico Police Chiefs Association vice president, told the board that municipal police chiefs oppose allowing citizens to file misconduct complaints because they are already held accountable through other means.
“The accountability is there,” Williams said. “Our municipalities have put us in the positions to run the agencies, and if we’re not doing that, people can reflect that to our councils, commissions, mayor, city manager, whichever form of government we operate under, to take the necessary steps to hold us, as the agency heads, accountable.”
Other state lawmakers and organizations back the petition, however.
Rep. Andrea Romero (D-Santa Fe) in a June 1 letter to the board argues that pressure on the board members to not fully act on civilian complaints undermines the law’s intent and public trust in institutions.
“Civilian oversight is not a threat to law enforcement — it is an essential element of a healthy democracy,” Romero wrote. “To suggest otherwise is to disregard the very principles of accountability and public service that our laws are meant to uphold.”
Romero had asked the board to put the petition on the agenda for Thursday’s meeting; however, it did not. Feldman said during public comment she received a letter at the end of the day on Wednesday indicating the board wouldn’t consider the petition.
ACLU-NM Executive Director Leon Howard also wrote a letter to the board on May 27 endorsing Feldman’s petition, in which he argued they should rigorously investigate allegations of misconduct, regardless of their source.
“Constraining members of the public from reporting alleged misconduct to the Board does not serve the public interest,” Howard wrote. “We urge the Board to adopt rules that allow for investigating and acting upon any report of alleged misconduct.”
City's independent watchdog to be replaced as several reports remain under wraps — Colleen Heild, Albuquerque Journal
The city of Albuquerque’s inspector general is out of a job after months of conflict with an oversight committee that has yet to make public six completed investigations into alleged misconduct or malfeasance at City Hall.
The city’s Accountability in Government Oversight Committee put Inspector General Melissa Santistevan on administrative leave with pay on May 13 after deciding not to recommend she be retained for another four years. Her contract expires June 21, and three new OIG candidates are up for City Council consideration.
At the same time, the committee sent the six OIG reports to an outside contractor for a “quality assurance review,” according to a city spokeswoman. The city will pay the firm REDW up to $30,205 for the work as an “independent consultant.”
The reports may be made public after the committee’s next meeting on July 29 but could conceivably be revised by the next inspector general. The City Council is set to consider the OIG appointment at its meeting Monday.
“Rather than thanking the IG for pointing out problems regarding waste, fraud and abuse so the city could address them, they have chosen to get rid of her for doing her job,” said her attorney Edward Hollington on Thursday.
Her departure comes as city spending is at an all-time high, with $1.5 billion budgeted for the next fiscal year, and elections for mayor and five council seats set for November.
Santistevan was appointed in 2021 after owning an accounting firm and working for the State Auditor’s office. She supervised three city investigators.
“Although I was not given the opportunity to serve a second term as Inspector General, I remain proud of the work accomplished to promote accountability, transparency, and integrity in local government,” Santistevan said in a statement released to the Journal.
The OIG in recent years has looked into violations of nepotism, misbilling, abuse of authority and leave policies, and abuse of power.
Last November, for instance, the OIG reported uncovering nearly $300,000 in bonuses from a federal child care stabilization grant that went to 27 ineligible city employees, some high-ranking. The program was supposed to help child care providers defray unexpected business costs associated with the COVID pandemic. However, top city officials took issue with the findings and the oversight committee voted 5-0 against approval.
The five-member oversight committee, whose volunteer members are appointed by the mayor and City Council, oversees the Office of Inspector General and its employees and conducts searches and screens candidates for the top job. It also oversees the city’s internal auditor.
Under city ordinance, once the committee receives an investigative report from the OIG, it can approve, defer until the next meeting or vote not to approve the report. Unless deferred, the reports become public. City officials say the committee isn’t considered a public body, so its meetings aren’t open to the public or advertised.
Committee Chair Victor Griego, internal audit director at the University of New Mexico, couldn’t be reached on Thursday. Other committee members are Robert Aragon, an Albuquerque attorney; Johnny L. Mangu, a certified public accountant; Esteban A. Aguilar Jr., who serves as vice chair; and Lia Armstrong, an at-large member. Ex-officio members include two top city administrators and two city councilors.
The decision to hire someone new for the nonpartisan job comes after Santistevan went public with a notice March 31 noting that the committee had failed to consider and release a total of nine completed OIG investigations.
Santistevan stated at the time that the pending reports dealt “with fraud, waste, or abuse that impact our City. Some of these reports have been completed for months without citizen awareness.”
One investigative report, still unreleased, dated back to October 2024.
She urged release of the reports, but Griego, the committee chair, responded in an April notice that the committee had “multiple concerns regarding the quality of the reports and the underlying investigations.”
The committee released three of the reports in April, deferring action on the rest until May. But no release occurred at that time.
Instead, Santistevan was placed on administrative leave, which Griego wrote in a May 13 notice “is in no way a reflection of her work product or job performance. She was an effective manager of the OIG’s day-to-day operations, represented our community well as a certified member of the Association of Inspectors General, and is a strong advocate for transparency in government. Rather, the AGOC made this difficult decision to preserve the confidentiality of the work of the OIG and to ensure that work continues unabated during this transition period.” An interim member of the office is in charge until a new inspector general takes over.
City officials said neither REDW nor the oversight committee has the authority to edit the six pending OIG reports.
Asked whether the incoming inspector general will be able to change the reports once appointed, a city spokeswoman said in an email, “The Office of Inspector General has the authority to make any changes to its reports that the Office deems necessary and appropriate, until such time as a report is published.”
During Santistevan’s tenure, her office concluded the city had made an inappropriate purchase of artificial turf for the benefit of a privately owned entity; and determined that a contractor improperly billed the city for services to the homeless and near-homeless.
“The work of independent oversight is vital,” she stated, “and I remain hopeful that the office will continue to build on the strong foundation we’ve laid.”
Heat of the Moment; New Mexico’s rising temperatures put everyone at risk — but especially people without homes – Danielle Prokop, Source New Mexico
High heat can impact anyone’s health, but new research shows people experiencing homelessness face increased risk.
Dr. Taylor Weckstein, a graduate of Harvard medical school, last year worked for several weeks in residency at the Indian Health Services in Shiprock, New Mexico. Her work included outreach trips in triple-degree weather. She saw people experience burns from concrete, severe dehydration and heat stroke, and the experience stayed with her.
“After seeing the suffering of some of the patients, I thought it would be really important to try and have data to look at these really stark health implications,” Weckstein told Source.
On June 9, the Journal of the American Medical Association published research Weckstein co-authored based on national emergency room visitation data in 2021 and 2022, which found homeless people visited emergency rooms for heat illness or injury at a rate 27 times higher than other people. While Weckstein expected homeless individuals to face greater exposure rates, the stark disparity surprised her.
“Heat stroke and heat-related-illness are preventable conditions and it’s pretty tragic that all those individuals are exposed to such dangerous levels of heat because there’s a lack of affordable housing,” Weckstein said. “As we’re trying to combat climate change, we need to consider which populations are most affected and how we can advocate for human-centered policies to protect those who are at greatest risk.”
Weckstein said further research is needed to better understand the scope of the issue and possibly break it out into regional trends.
“If anything, this research probably was an undercount of the magnitude of the problem,” Weckstein said, noting researchers only tracked heat-illness specific codes, and didn’t capture how extreme heat worsens kidney or heart conditions.
The study comes as New Mexico braces for a hot weekend — and rising temperatures in the years to come.
WE HAVE TO BE PROACTIVE, RATHER THAN REACTIVE
Dangerously hot temperatures forecasted in the coming days have nonprofit advocates and providers bracing for “life or death” impacts to unhoused people in New Mexico’s largest cities. Advocates said governments at all levels need policies, funding and data to better address the threat.
According to the National Weather Service Heat Risk Map, Albuquerque this weekend could hit triple-digit temperatures for the first time this year, and Las Cruces highs are projected to reach 103 and 104 degrees for several days, with nighttime temperatures hovering at 70 degrees — making it harder for the body to cool off.
Local New Mexico officials said they’re monitoring for heat threats and ready to take action during extreme heat.
But it’s the overall hotter temperatures as a result of climate change that pose a continued threat, not just triple-digit days, said Nathaniel Matthews-Trigg, a board member for nonprofit Healthy Climate New Mexico.
“In New Mexico when the temperature reaches 90 degrees, we see emergency visits increase for heat, so really, any time you’re getting into the 90s, there is a risk,” Matthews-Trigg said.
Rio Rancho, Albuquerque and Las Cruces recently topped a USA Today analysis of cities with the largest increase of high-heat days — 90 degrees and upward — since 1985: 39, 36 and 31 more such days, respectively.
Matthews-Trigg said rising heat threats, particularly for unsheltered people with substance use disorders and mental illness, mean that cities need to do more to offer cooler spaces, water and support.
“All of those organizations that are working with those most vulnerable, we need to bring them in on the conversation and really intentionally plan,” he said. “We can’t just leave it for the emergency to occur and then we do something; we have to be proactive, rather than reactive.”
LIFE OR DEATH IMPLICATIONS
Local officials in Albuquerque and Las Cruces told Source they are monitoring the heat risk situation this weekend, but as of Wednesday did not plan to extend cooling center hours, unless a power outage or further needs arise.
Doña Ana Assistant County Manager Steven Lopez said recent temperatures have not reached a threshold of 105 degrees on the heat index, also known as the “feels like” temperature. The county requires those high temperatures for several days to provide additional cooling sites, he said.
Outreach teams, which deliver water, hygiene kits, food and other supplies will be out late on Friday to “help people get stocked up” for the weekend, according to Nicole Martinez, the executive director with Mesilla Valley Community of Hope in Las Cruces.
Community of Hope operates an outdoor tent-shelter area, adding more shaded areas and misters. Martinez described a couple of close calls, with people overheating in the courtyard.
“It seems like we’re constantly assessing for heat exposure,” she said.
In Albuquerque, which the USA Today report described as “one of the hottest places in the country,” city officials emphasized long-term goals to address heat, such as planting more trees to increase shade and the ordinance requiring landlords to ensure rental units have cooling systems.
Services for homeless residents include increased outreach with delivery of water and supplies, along with increased referrals and transportation to city and nonprofit-run shelters, said Matthew Whelan, the deputy chief administrative officer at the city.
“When there’s extreme weather, it is always a concern for everyone in the city, but absolutely folks that are experiencing homelessness or at the top of that list,” said City of Albuquerque spokesperson Staci Drangmeister. “The city has moved away from opening up temporary cooling centers, as we have built out some more permanent infrastructure to support people and keep people out of the elements.”
Access to the Gateway Center, located on the far Westside, presents a hurdle for people spread throughout the city, said Rachel Biggs, chief strategy officer for Albuquerque Health Care for the Homeless, a nonprofit that offers health care for unhoused people.
“I think there’s still a need beyond what the shelter is able to provide,” Biggs said. “Especially during these really challenging times when it’s very hot, it has life or death implications for people living on the street.”
Biggs said Albuquerque could learn from Arizona’s responses to extreme heat and homelessness. She pointed to that state’s strategy of prepositioning supplies before heat events. More water, towels and multiple cool-down areas required additional funding and resources, but the strategy contributed to lower heat deaths in Arizona last year for the first time in decades. Better responses for heat impacts such as education on heat safety, along with distributing sunscreen, water and protective clothing, help triage, but fail to address the root problem.
“We have the solution,” Biggs said. “It’s housing. If we all come together at all levels of government working together to provide access to affordable housing for everyone that needs it, we will see an impact on our health systems, on mortality.”
Federal agency “ghosts” City of Las Cruces on heat pump project funds – Danielle Prokop, Source New Mexico
Las Cruces is moving forward with a project to cool the city’s hottest homes, but on a much smaller scale, city officials said, after the federal government pulled funds with little official communication.
“I don’t want to say canceled because formally no one has told us that,” said City of Las Cruces Sustainability Officer Jenney Hernandez. “But no one has also told us or talked to us since announcing that they have been — so to speak — on pause.”
Since 2022, the city was committed for $1.5 million in state and U.S. Department of Energy grants to install the heat pumps with a plan to outfit between 130 to 150 homes in two years.
Between funding received from the New Mexico Legislature and some leftover federal funds and vouchers, the program has about $700,000, Hernandez said, nearly half of what the city had secured initially.
“Now that all of this happened, it just means we have to reduce the initial amounts of home we anticipated to serve,” Hernandez said. “Quite honestly, we’re limping a lot at this point.”
The cooling program is only becoming more urgent as increasing heat threatens Las Cruces residents’ health.“It’s a life threat for people experiencing high temperatures in their homes, with no other options for cooling,” she said.
In 2020, Las Cruces mapped the urban heat island effect by measuring the heat-trapping power of concrete and asphalt and the cooling impact of shaded green spaces. Las Cruces found the effect made low-income neighborhoods as much as 14 degrees hotter than higher-income neighborhoods, making it feel like 112 degrees when the air temperature measured 107 degrees.
These neighborhoods include some of the city’s oldest homes with many low-income families or seniors.
“You have a very sensitive population residing in these homes that have to deal with almost three months straight of triple-degree weather,” Hernandez said. “If you’re lucky, a swamp cooler in triple-degree weather and humidity will cool your house to about 90 degrees, which, after several consecutive days, is really detrimental to your health.”
Based on those findings, the city developed a plan to bring cooling into low-income neighborhoods by installing all-electric heat pumps. Despite the name, the heat pump also offers efficient cooling of outside or underground air. Heat pumps work in more conditions than swamp coolers and may be cheaper than air conditioning over time, Hernandez said, noting incentives for such pumps through both the federal Inflation Reduction Act and state programs.
In January, when about to sign one grant contract for $400,000, the city received an email from the grant contractors that said “The DOE team has asked us to reschedule all sessions for the rest of the month,” and which canceled all meetings booked into April.
A second DOE grant, which Las Cruces first won in 2022, and was anticipating securing another $400,000 from in March, was “postponed,” according to an email from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
Hernandez said federal agencies have told the city the funding is under review, but has no answers for a timeline or if funding opportunities will be restored.
“Our office of Sustainability has — I don’t want to say lost — but is being ghosted on the money that has been awarded,” Hernandez said.
Source NM emailed requests for comment on Wednesday to the U.S. Department of Energy, but had not received a response by publication time.
The city is committing to selecting 30 pilot homes in the first year, and anticipates adding another 40 in the second year, much smaller than the initial scope. Hernandez said she’s seeking additional funding from outside grant sources, but doesn’t know if the program can continue beyond the first two years.“
I don’t know if there will be a third and fourth year,” she said. “And if there is, the amounts the residents will have to pay out of pocket will be much more substantial than we ever wanted, because we don’t have the money to help any more.”