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.
Are the Richardson and Martinez administrations already shooting death rays at each other, and so soon after all the smiles Tuesday?
Heather Wilson, Governor-elect Susana Martinez‘s transition guru, released a letter yesterday in which she called out Gov. Bill Richardson‘s administration for what she says is the practice of sliding political appointees into classified state jobs.
In the letter, Wilson says that employees who are moved from exempt to classified after Nov. 3, without discussion with the Martinez team, will be fired when she takes office.
Wilson’s ire was provoked by a column published yesterday in the Albuquerque Journal by reporter Tom Cole. Cole wrote that the Richardson administration was allowing political appointees to take classified jobs.
Political appointees work at the will of the governor and can be fired summarily, meaning there’s little job protection. Classified employees, on the other hand, can be fired but only for cause, meaning there’s a lengthy process in which the state must prove the termination is warranted.
Stories about Richardson political appointees sliding into classified positions have been around for a while. The urgency here is that Martinez is taking over as the state’s chief executive in a month and a half at the same time the Richardson administration announced last week that it was suspending all hiring at executive branch agencies.
Here’s an excerpt from Wilson’s letter:
The fact that some of these employees are apparently moving into jobs with very high salaries when there is a freeze in place for hiring and a $250 million-plus state budget deficit is inappropriate.
And another:
Furthermore, I wish to inform you that any employee who moves from an exempt to classified position after November 3, 2010 without prior discussion with the Transition Committee on a case-by-case basis will immediately be terminated upon the swearing in of Governor-elect Susana Martinez on January 1, 2011.
The lady ain’t messing around.
