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.
State lawmakers should have judged Neri Holguin on her professional qualifications, not her past political work, Gov. Bill Richardson said Tuesday, after the Senate rejected his nominee to the state Environmental Improvement Board by a vote of 17…
With a 7-4 vote the Senate Finance Committee tabled one of the most-watched bills of the 2010 regular session. For nearly three weeks, strong opinions have swirled around domestic partnerships legislation, but supporters vow that it will be back in 2011.…
Speaker Ben Lujan, D-Santa Fe, said the House should vote Tuesday on whether to accept substantial changes to the state budget made by the Senate on Saturday. If the House agrees with the changes, that means the state budget…
New Mexico would tax food for the first time in years, add $1 to the state cigarette tax and net taxes from out-of-state owners of business partnerships on income earned here.
Meanwhile, state agencies would get fewer dollars and several hundred jobs would disappear from state government. That mixture of spending cuts and tax hikes was part of a $5.276 billion state budget proposal that the Senate passed 25 to 17 early Sunday morning to help close a projected shortfall of several hundred million dollars next year.
Cigarettes would be taxed at a greater rate while state employees and educational workers would avoid paying an additional 1 percent toward retirement in the latest version of a state budget proposal from the state Senate.
Under legislation that cleared…
Revenues for this year, which ends June 30, are coming in weaker than expected and, as of Wednesday, New Mexico stood at $40 million in the hole, according to a memo from the Legislative Finance Committee, the Legislature’s budget arm.
They say it’s healthier, easy to implement and most of all, helps the budget. Senate bill 10 makes more foods eligible to be taxed in New Mexico and it crossed its first hurdle on Friday.
Public school teachers and state workers would pay more toward their retirement while several, but not all, state agencies would get fewer dollars next year under a state budget plan approved by a powerful Senate committee on Thursday.
Also roughly 250 more state jobs across state government would disappear than in a House-approved state budget plan that served as the starting point for the Senate proposal. Many of those targeted state government positions are already vacant, legislative officials said.
When it came from the House, the budget called for $300 million dollars more than the state had. To make the numbers add up the House passed controversial tax measures. But the Senate Finance Committee dropped a surtax on high earners and a temporary increase in the gross receipts tax in favor of reinstating the tax on non-staple foods, cutting education and other measures.
Rep. Al Park, D-Albuquerque, stood up this afternoon to bring back a revenue-enhancing bill that narrowly failed on Friday, 34-33. The motion by Republicans to table Park’s motion failed 26-40 and the bill was put back on the president’s table.…
Legislation sponsored by Sen. David Ulibarri wouldn’t affect the roughly 800 double dippers already collecting a pension and a paycheck, but it would set out new rules for state government retirees who return to work after July 1.
The governor, fresh off of ending his blogging hiatus, wrote a blog today about the proposed film incentive tax incentive cap. Needless to say, the governor is not in favor of the film credit cap, writing, “Caps would…
Get ready, New Mexico. The 30-day legislative session starting Tuesday won’t be like the kinder, gentler sessions of this decade’s early years, when money flowed freely and the living was comparatively easy.
State lawmakers may decide to drag Gov. Bill Richardson into court to decide the constitutionality of his special session executive order and vetoes. The lawmakers are relying on two Supreme Court rulings as a hook for their potential challenge.
A controversial bill that would have authorized issuance of “sponge bonds” as a way to free up capital outlay money failed in the Senate Thursday evening after a long and heated debate. But immediately after the 19-20 vote, which…
Here is a list of the seven bills, not including memorials, that were introduced yesterday during the special session in both chambers. We’ll start off with the Senate.
The resignation of New Mexico State University Interim President Waded Cruzado is in the works, a move that has angered some powerful state legislators who believe the Board of Regents and the Richardson administration are forcing the change.
State Sen. (and blogger) Dede Feldman has had a few days off and, earlier today, reflected upon the legislative session, especially the hectic last day.
“The last night and morning of the 2009 session was true to tradition: underlying…
Photo by Heath Haussamen
The woman who first blew the whistle on the scandal in New Mexico’s housing authority system says the state auditor’s reports on the matter are seriously flawed, not going far enough to reveal what she calls “the fundamental corruption that goes down to the very base of our public entities.”
Las Crucen Frances Williams, in a document she authored at the request of two state senators, writes that State Auditor Hector Balderas’ special audits of the affordable housing system are “confusing, contradictory, inconsistent, inconclusive and misleading.” The document has been circulating among lawmakers and others.
It was Williams, complaining to newspaper reporters and others in 2006, who first revealed the problems in the system to the public. At the time, she was a board member of the Las Cruces-based Region VII authority.
Some of Williams’ complaints in the new report appear relatively minor. For example, Williams writes that her “first clue about the quality of the audit” of Region VII was the fact that it does not contain a full list of its board members, including her. The state auditor’s lack of knowledge about who was on the board likely hampered the investigation, she charges, because some of those commissioners might have been able to provide relevant information.
Other issues raised in the report are potentially more serious. Williams writes that the audit does not raise or investigate certain conflict-of-interest allegations involving people tied to the housing authorities.
“While these are allegations, it would seem appropriate for the state auditor, who was entrusted by the Legislature to audit and investigate the housing mess in New Mexico, to investigate them thoroughly, if for no other reason than to clear their names from public suspicion that often accompanies such allegations,” Williams wrote.
Balderas, in a two-page response to Williams’ report, defended the audits as revealing “severe mismanagement of public funds and abuse of the public trust.” His response noted, as did his office’s special audits, that missing documentation was a huge stumbling block to completing the audits.
“The OSA [Office of the State Auditor] respects Ms. Williams’ viewpoints regarding the OSA’s audits and welcomes the opportunity to work with her to address her concerns,” Balderas’ statement reads. “We believe the audits make a significant contribution to understanding the true financial condition of New Mexico’s regional housing authorities.”
Investigating scandal not “a priority” for New Mexico attorney general
In spite of the missing documentation, the sum of the special audits was that, whether it was due to corruption, ineptitude, mismanagement or other factors, the housing authorities were running amok with public money and there were inadequate controls in place to stop it. Balderas has said his audits prove that the authorities had become “a colossal failure to low-income citizens and the state of New Mexico.”
Most of the state housing authority system collapsed in 2006 when the Albuquerque-based Region III Housing Authority defaulted on $5 million in bonds it owed the state. Soon thereafter, the State Investment Council released a report that found widespread misuse of the bond money, which was supposed to be spent on houses. In January, the state auditor released his office’s long-awaited reports.
Attorney General Gary King’s office has said it is investigating, but King delayed a plan to take the case before a grand jury last month. State Sen. Mary Kay Papen, D-Las Cruces, and others have expressed concern about the investigation’s slow pace.
It was Papen and state Sen. John Arthur Smith, a Deming Democrat and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, who requested that Williams author the response to the Balderas audits. Williams has gathered a great deal of documentation on the scandal and been interviewed by investigators from more than one state agency.
Papen said in an interview that her goal is to continue to shine light on the issue.
“Nothing was happening. I know the attorney general says he’s working on it, and I think he is, but I don’t think it’s a priority, personally,” Papen said.
Papen said she believes Balderas “did a fairly decent job with what he had to work with,” but she believes the auditor was hampered because documents were destroyed — which is a felony crime.
Balderas has been unwilling to speculate on why documentation can’t be located beyond saying it was either destroyed, taken or not maintained in the first place. His audits are among the information being considered as part of the AG probe.
‘What the hell are we going to do about it?’
Williams said in an interview she’s upset that the primary finding in the audits is that documentation is missing. That’s why she complained to Papen and Smith, and that’s why she agreed to write the report. Her goal, she said, was to expose “the fundamental corruption that goes down to the very base of our public entities.”
“Just look at what happened,” Williams said.
The bond money was supposed to be spent on houses. Instead, almost $600,000 went to former Region III Director Vincent “Smiley” Gallegos as salary and benefits. In addition, Region III loaned almost $700,000 to Region VII, which did little to provide affordable housing and, like Region III, has since shut down.
Perhaps the most intriguing misuse of money revealed in the investment council report was a $300,000 loan Region III made to a private company owned by Gallegos under the guise of purchasing more than 30 lots in Las Cruces — lots that had already been purchased by the authority.
Among the new findings in Balderas’ audits, which were requested and funded by the Legislature, was the revelation that Region III was taking out mortgages on homes it already purchased with bond money. That was done to increase cash on hand, but also significantly increased the debt.
Williams said that while the housing scandal itself is egregious, the lack of action is equally outrageous.
“I don’t know what else to do, but I’m very frustrated that I’ve been yelling about this since 2004 and, so far, no one’s been doing anything about it,” Williams said. “… I mean, I can write the story, but what the hell are we going to do about it?”
At a press conference held by the governor yesterday regarding the plight of Santa Fe College, Speaker of the House Ben Lujan continued his criticism of Sen. John Arthur Smith.
As reported in the Santa Fe Reporter’s blog, Lujan…
