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.
The Public Regulation Commission (PRC)’s Tuesday meeting erupted into a heated debate over whether or not the public should be able to see a national auditors’ report that was sharply critical of the agency’s Division of Insurance.
Afterward, Chief of Staff Michael Rivera announced that a new, more restrictive PRC-wide policy about employee contact with news reporters is being drafted.
During the meeting, Commissioner Sandy Jones demanded that Division officials ‘name names’ of employees who had access to what Jones described as a “leaked” document published Friday by The Independent.
“Who gave him the letter?” Jones demanded, referring to the audit report. “Who has access to the letter? Name who has access to that letter. Who? Who? Who? What are the names? I want to know who gave the letter to the press. How do we not know?”
Jones called for the employee responsible for the “leak” to be identified and fired.
In fact, the document Jones referred to, an audit report from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), was given to The Independent by the Division in response to a routine request made under the state Inspection of Public Records Act.
Nevertheless, Division officials listed aloud for Jones the names of employees believed to have had access to the report.
Jones’s demand for names troubled one union official.
“I think he was treading real close to personnel issues,” AFSCME Local 477 public employees’ union president Arcy Baca told The Independent. “You can’t talk about any employee in open meeting, if it’s about a possible personnel action.”
Reports should not be released until ‘worked over and massaged’
Giving The Independent a copy of the audit report was improper, Jones repeatedly asserted Tuesday.
“I don’t think the press has free and open access to everything done in government,” Jones said during the meeting. “There are certain practices that shouldn’t be released to the public until they’ve been thought out and worked over and massaged within the agency. It makes no sense to bring the public in while you’re working on a draft report.”
The audit report given to The Independent was marked “draft.”
But that is no reason to avoid public discussion of the audit findings, Commissioner Jason Marks said.
“This (audit report) is not going to be changed,” Marks said to the other commissioners and staff. “We’ve been told to address it and the press has it already. Why are we trying to hunt down a leak and sweep this under the rug? What do you guys think your job is? Who do you think you work for?”
Commissioners David King, Jerome Block, Jr. and Theresa Becenti-Aguilar remained largely silent during the contentious exchange between Jones and Marks.
The audit report and the Division’s final corrective action plan, written in response to the audit report, should be discussed in public, Marks said.
“Exactly why is this confidential, legally?” Marks asked. “And as a policy issue, what are you guys trying to hide? The purpose of the Open Meetings Act is that the citizens to whom we’re accountable know what their government is up to. … The purpose of the law is not to protect us from being embarrassed.”
But state law allows the insurance superintendent to declare documents from other organizations to be “confidential” and exempt from public disclosure, Division attorney David Barton told commissioners.
The NAIC considers most aspects of its accreditation process to be confidential and objected to the publication of its audit report, NAIC officials told The Independent.
Division officials were not attempting to hide anything, but rather to protect the integrity of the NAIC accreditation audit process, Barton said.
Jones was quick to agree that the PRC’s goal was to protect the “sanctity” of the process.
Citing executive privilege, Barton said the NAIC audit report and the Division’s corrective action plan were works in progress that should not be disclosed to the news media before a follow-up NAIC audit scheduled for next summer.
“I’d say once it’s approved by the superintendent for release to the NAIC, it’s a final document,” Marks said.
The Commission’s discussion of the audit report’s findings and corrective action plan has been delayed three times in the past two weeks.
Last week, Superintendent of Insurance John Franchini was scheduled to present the audit’s findings in public, but that meeting was postponed. Franchini and some commissioners then sought a closed-session discussion of the audit, arguing that personnel issues raised by the audit prevented a public discussion.
But after The Independent published the audit, which did not name any staffers, Franchini asked to meet separately with each commissioner rather than addressing the audit findings at a Commission meeting.
“I have real concerns when the insurance superintendent wants to meet with us individually instead of in public,” Marks said.
New policy will force PRC employees to seek permission before speaking to reporters
Currently, PRC employees are supposed to tell the chief of staff about conversations they have with reporters.
“The policy doesn’t necessarily prevent employees from talking to the media but we have to tighten that up a little,” Rivera said.
The new policy will require that employees get prior permission from Rivera before talking with reporters, Rivera said.
“One thing we’re looking at is having reporters visit with employees in the office next to my office,” Rivera said. “I may or may not chose to sit in on those meetings.”
But Rivera should bargain with the public employee’s union if he’s going to change a policy affecting the terms and conditions of employment at the PRC, according to Baca.
“There’s already a policy on talking to the media, first of all,” Baca said. “The policy hasn’t changed in six or seven years. If they want to change the policy, they need to bargain with the union. They’ve got to bargain in good faith.”
Division Compliance Director Johnny Montoya had called for the chief of staff to improve transparency and ethics at the PRC. Montoya was not available Tuesday to comment on Rivera’s plans for stricter control of employees’ contact with reporters.
“It was like the Nixon White House in there today,” Marks commented after the meeting. “We shouldn’t be chasing after whistle-blowers.”
