County Livestock Loss Authority catch up on 2024 payments

As of Friday, August 1, the County Livestock Loss Authority (CLLA) has for the first time in its existence processed every claim, according to Deborah Mahler CLLA administrator. She said that for 2024 they paid out $190,000 in depredations and conflict avoidance.

“I sent out the last of $70,000 on Friday the first, so that’s huge,” CLLA Admin Deb Mahler said. “I’m emotionally invested in this. This program has to succeed.”

She noted that if someone believes they haven’t been paid out to contact her, given that Sierra County was in charge until October of last year.

The CLLA held a regular meeting on July 24 and had discussions on conflict avoidance, website postings and creating budgets.

Legal Counsel

Pete Domenici was introduced as the new legal counsel for the CLLA. He said he has reviewed their Joint Powers Act Agreement and bylaws and was getting up to speed on the CLLA board. Board members welcomed Domenici and thanked him for helping them.

“We’ll look forward to your input, and you’re keeping us on track,” Jim Paxon, CLLA member representing Sierra County, said.

Conflict Avoidance

The board heard from John Oakleaf of US Fish and Wildlife on the status of the 2023 conflict avoidance formula.

They discussed the avoidance formula and proposed payments. The formula includes variables such as the number and type of livestock, their exposure to wolves, and the value of different livestock types. There was debate about how to weight different livestock (cow-calf pairs, yearlings, sheep, goats) in the formula, with some members emphasizing that the original intent was to reflect the duration of exposure to wolves, while others argued for using market value as the basis.

Dr. Kelly Ebert, Natural Resources Policy Analyst at New Mexico Department of Agriculture, reminded the board that the original intent of one variable in the formula was to represent the duration of exposure to wolves. She said her main concern was that the formula should be consistent, reproducible and defensible.

Document signing

Deb Mahler reported that some historic CLLA documents provided by Sierra County were not signed, or only partially signed.

“We have done a dismal job as a board signing documents. Generally, when the meeting is over, documents have not been circulated and everybody disappears,” Paxton said.

Domenici advised that the board could ratify prior decisions at a future meeting and have the current board sign those resolutions.

Website

The board discussed the need to make approved minutes and agendas available on the CLLA website for transparency and public access.

Mahler told the board that their website management has a lead time of about five days for posting updates. This means agendas and other items need to be submitted well in advance to be posted. She was concerned about the practicality of posting agendas, especially since agendas are often amended close to the meeting date, making it difficult to meet the posting lead time.

There was a request to post historical agendas and minutes, but it was noted that only documents from when the current administrator has been involved are complete and signed; earlier records are incomplete.

Legal counsel confirmed there is no legal responsibility to post past minutes and agendas, but the board must comply with public records requests to the best of their ability.

The board agreed that only final, approved minutes and finalized agendas should be submitted to the webmaster for posting, to avoid confusion and extra work.

New members

The board discussed if there would be a buy-in for new voting members and if that would include more seats on the board.

The CLLA currently formed between Socorro, Sierra and Catron counties each put in $100,000 when they were formed, Paxon said. The board discussed what, if any, obligation there would be for participating counties. It was agreed that there could be no legal ongoing financial obligations from the counties and that a budget would be created to present at the annual meeting.

Annual meeting

The CLLA annual meeting was scheduled for October 2 in Socorro at the County Annex at 10 a.m. The board agreed to discuss operating resolutions, letters of interest and appointments and the budget.