Rio Rancho WESST office closing, services continue despite funding cuts

RIO RANCHO — The local WESST office is closing in October, but New Mexico WESST will still provide services to the Rio Rancho and Sandoval County areas.

WESST, a service for small businesses and people in need of business instruction, announced July 29 it is consolidating its operations. The move is in direct response to major grants that WESST relies on being cut by President Donald Trump’s administration, according to WESST President and CEO Lindsey Kay.

“I do want to just clarify that WESST Rio Rancho, as far as WESST presence in Rio Rancho, that’s not ceasing. We’re having to close the location, the physical office location, but we will still have a presence working with clients in person, as well as virtually and through other means,” she said in an interview July 31.

She added that rather than requiring clients to travel to WESST offices, the company will go to them.

Most of the impact will be felt by WESST and its employees, however, not the clients.

“Essentially, we’ve had a lot of changes. Some initial significant grants that we were supposed to be receiving at the beginning of this year were cut. So we’ve been navigating essentially the tumultuous federal funding landscape all year,” she said.

“We’ve had various sources of public funding, both state and federal, that have changed or are not continuing. Around 60% of our (resources) come from public funding sources, so grants and contracts from state, federal, local. That makes a big difference.”

Two of the more significant grants account for about $2 million in funding for WESST. One was five years’ worth of funding for child care businesses, which WESST had maintained for about 2 1/2 years.

“We’ve been working really hard to develop programming to support child care businesses because New Mexico has a child care crisis we need to address,” she said.

WESST was notified of the grant’s renewal earlier this year from the Small Business Association, but when the new administration entered office, that “didn’t come to fruition,” according to Kay.

“We had budgeted for that. We had planned for that, and then that got cut,” she said.

The other major grant program they were expecting was for Minority Business Development Agency funding.

“Grant recipients nationally are either having to close out their programming attached to that funding, or they’re essentially tied up in a court injunction that was filed because there’s been aggressive effort to shut down that entire agency,” she explained.

She felt clarification was necessary, however, because people can get confused about the impact of those grants being cut.

“I want to first acknowledge that I recognize that WESST has had a very specific footprint and structure to how its presence has really been set up across the state for three decades. And I think that it makes total sense that initially, by restructuring and shifting the way that we’re implementing service delivery is probably going to feel really huge, and I know it might take a minute for folks to really understand what that’s going to look like,” she said.

She said the next few months will be focused on communicating with current clients about changes coming their way, which will be minimal. Accessibility is a priority.

“Because 99% of our state is small business, that essentially is our economy that we depend on, so it’s critical that, especially in this moment, while things are really tumultuous, that we’re being mindful about: 1. How are we all working together to make sure that there aren’t major gaps in what the folks across the state need for their small businesses, because it’s critical to the social fabric of the entire state of New Mexico. 2. How are we being mindful and strategic about changing the way and adapting the way that we’re doing the good work we’ve been doing for a very long time, and that we do very well so that we are really shoring up our ability to continue doing that long term?” she said.

Kay also said WESST has shown up for the community for decades and has “every intention of really ensuring that this change is going to demonstrate that we are still that same organization, with the same commitments.”

That commitment in the Rio Rancho area includes Sandoval County and beyond. Kay said just in the last year or so WESST Rio Rancho has helped 20 new businesses. That help isn’t going away, she stressed.

“We’re with you, and we’ve recognized that things are challenging right now,” she said.

She encouraged people and businesses in Rio Rancho and Sandoval County in general continue to reach out to WESST for services.

Effective Oct. 1, WESST’s Rio Rancho and Santa Fe offices will close, and Roswell operations will relocate to Hobbs. Farmington, Albuquerque and Las Cruces offices will remain open.

“WESST will streamline our services, reduce overhead and enhance team collaboration, ultimately allowing the organization to direct more resources where they matter most: to our programs and entrepreneurs we serve,” the announcement states.

The Rio Rancho office is located in the Rio Rancho Regional Chamber of Commerce off of Crestview Drive. For more information, visit wesst.org.