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 biggest winner of Thursday’s gubernatorial debate on education may have been someone not even in the room: state auditor Hector Balderas. In a rare meeting of the minds Thursday night, both Denish and Martinez said that schools need to be more financially responsible and that more and better auditing is necessary. The State Auditor’s Office is charged with an oversight role in how taxpayer money is spent, but has not always gotten the money it needs to do that. “Everybody publicly supports the concept of auditing,” Balderas said Thursday night, noting that his agency has been cut more severely than the rest of state government.
Is Secretary of State Mary Herrera playing the snoop? It appears that way, writes Steve Terrell of the Santa Fe New Mexican. Herrera submitted a public records request for e-mail correspondence by several individuals, including critics of her office.…
The Abiquiu Land Grant will repay the Jemez Mountain School District $27,000—money funneled to the grant by the late Kathy Borrego in an attempt to cover-up an embezzlement scheme, reports the Rio Grande Sun.
Confusion over the…
“Alarmed” over a late Taos Municipal Schools 2009 audit and a new report describing missing financial records and purchasing irregularities, State Auditor Hector Balderas has ordered “special monitoring” of the school district by his staff, he wrote in…
A former Lovington School District employee faces 12 counts of embezzlement for $15,000 worth of falsified checks—less than a month after confessed Jemez Mountain Schools embezzler Kathy Borrego committed suicide in Abiquiu. Lovington is just one of five New Mexico school districts Balderas has designated as “at risk” for failing to complete state-mandated audits. Other school districts fail to maintain basic internal controls to prevent fraud and theft.
Despite a court order, the Jemez Mountain School District still has not allowed the Rio Grande SUN to inspect all checks written between 1999 and 2002 by former District business manager Kathy Borrego, the SUN reports.
Jemez Mountain School District must disclose embezzlement-related financial records to the Rio Grande SUN by Saturday, District Court Judge Sheri Raphaelson has ruled, rejecting the District’s contention that disclosure would interfere with law enforcement.
The Jemez Mountain School District received a clean bill of health from an auditing firm just months before an alleged $3.3 million embezzlement scheme was uncovered, the Albuquerque Journal reports today.
Reporter Martin Salazar writes that “Accounting & Consulting…
State Auditor Hector Balderas couldn’t help but think Friday in historic terms when discussing the embezzlement uncovered at Jemez Mountain School District.
The state will take over Jemez Mountain School District’s finances after a special audit revealed that $3.3 million was embezzled from the district over several years, Public Education Secretary Veronica Garcia announced this morning.
A special audit by the State Auditor’s Office has found that $3.3 million, not the $300,000 as originally thought, was embezzled from the Jemez Mountain School District. The audit concluded that the district’s former business manager, Kathy Borrego, embezzled $3,378,701.27 from the district’s bank accounts from January 8, 2002 through June 4, 2009, according to a news release today from State Auditor Hector Balderas.
