Sue Wilson Beffort
A day after the governor’s office announced the layoffs of 59 political appointees, a Republican senator is asking questions about “emergency hires” at the state Health Department.
Sen. Sue Wilson Beffort, R-Sandia Park, is questioning the DOH’s hiring of 90 employees, some of whom she claims are family members of senior department employees, at the same time the governor’s administration has a hiring freeze and the state faces a massive budget deficit.
“The magnitude of hires — after the freeze — of unqualified people who are fast-tracked into training for financial positions is problematic and is creating morale issues,” Beffort said at the Legislative Finance Committee meeting in Santa Fe today.
The senator said she’s been told that some of the new hires are being trained for permanent, higher-level positions ahead of other employees at the department.
“There is dissatisfaction among current, qualified employees who have been waiting for that training so they can improve their careers — instead, these new hires who were brought into the Department of Health after the hiring freeze are receiving it,” Beffort said.
DOH spokeswoman Deborah Busemeyer told NMPolitics.net the new hires are for “critical positions” that are excempted from the hiring freeze, and most are helping at H1N1 clinics.
“All of our hires have been approved by the State Personnel Office as being critical positions,” Busemeyer said.
Busemeyer said she was not aware of the nepotism charges.