Doña Ana County’s attorney will present the special audit of county government to commissioners at their public meeting today. The audit has been the subject of much controversy. It found widespread problems as recently as 2004, but the state auditor said it appears most identified problems have been fixed. Three findings have been referred to the New Mexico State Police, who are currently investigating.
In advance of today’s presentation, I thought it would be appropriate to share what I know about the audit findings. I have a file cabinet that contains thousands of pages of documents related to my own investigation into the allegations that led to the audit.
The findings referred to state police:
• The county set up a loan agreement with landowners to repay its 1999 water bonds, which were used to build a water and sewer system in Santa Teresa. Bond payments were supposed to be made with revenue from the system, but the agreement bypassed the terms of the bond and created an entirely new arrangement. There are all sorts of potential problems with this, and allegations of wrongdoing. It’s a complicated mess, but the Internal Revenue Service looked at it and found no wrongdoing. State police are still investigating. The commissioners and county manager who were involved with this have all left county government.
• The county improperly used money from the 1999 water bonds to pay other bills not related to the water and sewer system. The largest expense of $38,000 was approved by former County Manager David King without the knowledge of the commission. That and all other improper expenses were repaid to the bond fund from other appropriate funds at the direction of current County Manager Brian Haines.
• The commission may have intentionally violated the state procurement code in its selection of an architect to design the new county administrative complex. Commissioners bypassed the established process to review and rank the firms that applied and voted on secret, paper ballots to select the firm. Then the ballots vanished. The commission later ratified this vote with a new, proper vote, but the fact remains that the auditor said all this adds up to a very suspicious situation, and it may be the most serious finding in the audit.
Findings not referred to state police:
• The state auditor found several instances of “behavior unbecoming to public officials and employees.” The county wrongly denied this finding. County government at the time was characterized by power struggles, politics and a culture of secrecy. Some commissioners at the time in question accused each other of illegal activity during public meetings, shouted, stormed out and generally acted childish. And there was the infamous, alleged punch one commissioner landed on another during a closed session. It’s odd that the county denied this finding, because it’s basically the sum of all the other findings in the audit.
• The county purchased land for the new administrative complex without obtaining proper land appraisals, without enforcing the criteria it set for selecting a land site, and outside the Las Cruces city limits, though being in the city is required by law. The county also does not have in its possession key land acquisition documents it’s required to keep. The county agrees with most of these findings but pointed out that its attorney said before the purchase that the administrative complex did not have to be located in Las Cruces. The head county attorney from that time is no longer employed by the county.
• The county failed to properly approve and enforce detention center contracts. The county agreed with this finding and says a new system is in place to ensure this does not happen again. It should be noted that former detention center Director Al Solis, who was the county’s Republican Party chair at the time, blamed the mess on Haines. Why would he, as the jail’s administrator, not share some of that blame?
• The county did not abide by the procurement code in its selection of a bond attorney. The county says legal opinions differ on whether that is necessary; regardless, it recently began using the procurement code to select a bond attorney.
• The county used private property to store county equipment without written agreements and, in exchange, restored the property to its original condition. The county has implemented a policy that requires written agreements before such activity takes place.
• The county did not bill for solid waste fees from March 2003 through January 2004, though doing that was required by a county ordinance. The commission stopped doing this because the fees were encouraging people to illegally dump their trash rather than using the landfills. Though the intent was good, the commission failed to properly amend its ordinance to allow the change. The commission will soon decide whether to charge these fees and plans to amend the ordinance accordingly.
• The county treasurer’s office incorrectly assessed flood levy taxes for several years. In 2003, the county overcharged taxpayers almost $35,000. The treasurer who discovered the problem, David Gutierrez, is no longer in office. He asked the state to allow the county to refund the 2003 overpayments, but the state refused. The computer system has since been fixed so that there is no overbilling.
• The commission violated the New Mexico Open Meetings Act more than 50 times in 2003, mostly for failing to approve minutes of meetings in the time required by law. The commission voted last year to correct four violations identified by the attorney general’s office. The others, related to the approval of minutes, are largely the responsibility of County Clerk Rita Torres, whose office records and drafts minutes for approval. Haines has twice had to hire extra help so Torres’ office could keep up with the problem.
• The county made bill overpayments in two instances. One is significant – a $1,200 overpayment to a water association of which Commissioner Oscar Vasquez Butler is president. The county agreed with this finding, said improper payments will be corrected and a new system is in place to ensure such overpayments don’t happen in the future. Of course, the overpayment to a commissioner’s water association creates the appearance of impropriety, but the auditor did not believe it rose to the level that needed to be referred to prosecutors.
Clearly, there are serious allegations in the audit. They are now in the hands of the state police, and we can only hope that agency is taking the investigation seriously. With the exception of Haines and two or three commissioners, most county officials involved in the findings are long gone.
Haines, though had a hand in some of the violations, also implemented most of the procedures the auditor now credits with cleaning things up, and at least four of five commissioners praise him for doing that.
Were there criminal violations? It’s up to the state police and district attorney in Santa Fe to decide whether to ask a jury that question.
Clearly, the allegations being tossed at current Treasurer Jim Schoonover are far less serious than some of the allegations in the audit, but that doesn’t mean the allegations against Schoonover should not be investigated.
Some Republicans have said the county is attempting to deflect attention from the audit by tossing pencils at Schoonover. But the audit is still being investigated and there could be prosecutions. It could just as easily be said that the Republican Party is tossing stones at the county to divert attention from the Schoonover issue.
When the Republican Party accuses the county of a political attack, keep in mind that two of three commissioners are Republicans. So is Haines.
If we had to choose between investigating the audit or pencilgate, which both create the appearance of impropriety, the audit is the obvious choice. But we don’t have to stop there. All allegations should be taken seriously.
Let’s get the Schoonover investigation into the hands of state police as well, so he can be cleared or removed from office.
You can view the entire audit on the Las Cruces Sun-News Web site by clicking here.
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On to immigration. I wanted to note that U.S. Senate candidate David Pfeffer, a Republican seeking the nomination to run against Democratic Sen. Jeff Bingaman in November, is nearing the end of his hike along New Mexico’s border with Mexico. He has been keeping an interesting blog of his travels, which you can read by clicking here.
I also recently asked Al Kissling to share his views on the immigration situation. He’s the Democrat running against U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, a Republican, in November, and he’s been getting almost no media attention. Here’s what he had to say:
“It’s a complicated problem and it has been politicized. We forget we are all descendants of immigrants seeking the American dream. It’s the success of our dream that attracts people from all over the world who want to participate in the dream,” the Las Crucen said. “Clearly, I’m opposed to a wall or criminalization of those who in desperation have sought to work for the American dream. We do need border security and we need to be willing to pay the cost. A sensible, efficient Visa program would resolve many of our problems. We need a rational plan rooted in the expression of the American values of freedom and justice for all, and not an emotional knee-jerk reaction expressing prejudice.”
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I was shocked last night when I looked at the results of the current online poll on this site. As of 11 p.m., 17 of you thought Speaker of the House Ben Lujan should be ousted from his leadership position, and none of you said he should keep it.
I wasn’t expecting such lopsided results. Why don’t you submit comments that tell us what that means?
Thanks for reading today. Come back tomorrow for more.