I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Both candidates for governor have told The Independent they support spending more money to strengthen the State Auditor’s Office.
Democrat Diane Denish and Republican Susana Martinez both told The Independent if elected governor they would support sending more money to the agency, which despite its oversight role and several high-profile corruption scandals has endured deep budget cuts.
The issue of beefing up the state’s auditing practices for local and state government, which is coordinated by the State Auditor’s Office, emerged during last week’s first gubernatorial debate between Denish and Martinez.
Both candidates said the state needed more auditing, especially of local school districts after the high-profile scandal at Jemez Mountain School District, a small northern New Mexico school district rocked by the loss of nearly $4 million due to a long-running embezzling scheme.
“Diane Denish supports increases to the Auditor’s budget, because accurate and aggressive audits of state agencies can locate waste, fraud and abuse and ultimately save taxpayers money,” a spokesman for Denish said Friday. “Increasing the Auditor’s budget is a proposition that can potentially pay for itself many times over.
Martinez sounded a similar note in a statement her campaign issued Monday.
“We must give the State Auditor as many resources as necessary to do an effective job,” Martinez is quoted as saying. “We should know where every penny of taxpayer money is spent. It is inexcusable that any government agency or organization goes unaudited and their expenditures unaccounted for. Properly accounting for expenditures should be a requirement for receiving additional appropriations.”
The operating budget for the State Auditor’s office is about $3 million a year and its staff numbers about 30 people, State Auditor Hector Balderas said last week. Of those 17 or 18 are auditors, he said.
A quick review reveals that the State Auditor’s Office is on the lower end of the funding scale for state agencies.
The New Mexico Livestock Board and the Gaming Control Board work with annual budgets nearly double the size of the State Auditor’s office. Meanwhile the Legislative Building Services at the State Capitol, at $4 million, possesses more funding each year than the agency, according to a breakdown of funding for state agencies.
In fact, the State Commission on Public Records, which gets nearly $2.9 million, appears in a neck-and-neck race with the State Auditor’s Office to see which agency gets more funding.
LFC chairman suggests audited agencies support fund for auditor’s office
But one top lawmaker is signaling that it’s time to direct more dollars to the State Auditor’s office.
Rep. Luciano “Lucky” Varela, D-Santa Fe, and the chairman of the powerful Legislative Finance Committee, told The Independent on Friday that he’s supportive of legislation that could create a new fund to help the State Auditor’s office hire more employees.
Currently employees at the State Auditor’s office review the hundreds of audits the agency contracts out each year to be performed by private firms on local governments, school districts and state agencies around the state. In addition to reviewing those outside studies, many of them complex, the internal auditors perform three or four public audits themselves.
The fees generated by those help pay for the agency’s operations, Balderas told The Independent last week.
Charging a fee to the local governments, school districts and state agencies whose audits are reviewed by the State Auditor’s office could direct dollars to the proposed state audit fund.
“Let’s create an audit fund, so he can hire auditors,” Varela said.
Varela also said he is backing legislation Balderas has unsuccessfully lobbied for in the past – a state law requiring the withholding of funds from agencies that do not complete their annual audits.
Currently there is no penalty for most state agencies and local governments, the exception being the Public Education Department, that don’t have their audits done on time.
Government audits not completed on time has been a nagging problem in New Mexico for years and can lead to significant problems. Balderas announced earlier this year that more than 40 state agencies remain unaudited, in violation of state law that requires every governmental agency to perform annual audits.
Balderas said last week he’ll also push another bill during the 2011 legislative session that would have made it a crime to obstruct the auditing process. That doesn’t exist under state law now, he said.
