exempt employees

Gov. Bill Richardson promised to cut the positions of 59 political appointees across state government last year. But so far Richardson has repeatedly refused to turn over to the media a list of those who lost their jobs.
But Colleen Heild of the Albuquerque Journal may have identified one of the “exempt” employees – political appointees [...]

A major transparency bill that would create a “sunshine portal” passed the Senate unanimously Friday afternoon. The sunshine portal is described as an online version of the state’s checkbook, showing information about state spending, including state contracts and state employee salaries.

Future governors won’t have free reign for political hires if Sen. John Ryan, R-Albuquerque, is successful with a bill that would limit the future governors to roughly 567 so-called exempt employees.

Nearly 60 of Gov. Bill Richardson’s political appointees will lose their jobs next month, the governor’s office announced today.
Supervisors notified 59 exempt, or appointed, state employees that their positions are being eliminated, effective Jan. 8, in an effort to save about $8.3 million dollars and help balance the state budget, according to a news release [...]

Gov. Bill Richardson on Thursday said he would order nearly 20,000 state workers to take five furlough days. He also pledged to axe 1,000 vacant state jobs and make cuts at the agencies under his control. But state lawmakers said he could have averted some of the pain by taking action earlier this year.