Richardson has endorsed the bill that came in response to 2006 scandal
A bill that would reform the state’s scandal-plagued affordable housing system sailed through the House today and is now headed to the desk of a governor who has endorsed it.
The House approved Senate Bill 20, sponsored by Mary Kay Papen, D-Las Cruces, on a vote of 64-0. The bill had previously passed the Senate on a vote of 37-0.
“The overwhelming support this bill has received in both the Senate and the House shows that our Legislature realizes the urgent need for regional housing reform,” Lt. Gov. Diane Denish said in a news release. Denish, along with Papen and Rep. Janice Arnold-Jones, R-Albuquerque, have led the charge to reform the system.
The bill was shepherded through the House by Speaker Ben Lujan. That’s quite a contrast to the battle that occurred in 2007, when there was widespread belief in Santa Fe that Lujan was trying to kill another Papen housing reform bill — one that was approved only after a great deal of political maneuvering and significant compromise.
Most of the housing authority system had collapsed the year before in a scandal centered on a former legislator who has been a close ally of Lujan.
Today, Lujan faced only one technical question before the vote. There was no debate.
The details
Among the reforms in the bill approved today are consolidation of the seven regional authorities into three, the designation of an oversight agency to oversee regional operations, the strengthening of conflict-of-interest language, the permanent elimination of the authorities’ ability to issue bonds and the requirement that transactions of over $100,000 be reviewed and approved by the mortgage finance authority.
That builds on the 2007 reforms, which included temporarily stripping the housing authorities’ bonding authority and giving the Department of Finance and Administration and state treasurer roles in administering the agencies’ finances. The bill approved that year also funded audits the state auditor recently completed.
Most of the 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 is preparing to take his criminal investigation before a grand jury.