Kelly Kuenstler
When the Albuquerque Journal quoted the head of the state District Attorney’s Association earlier this week in an article about Susana Martinez giving employees large “out-of-cycle” salary increases, the newspaper didn’t mention that the agency’s head used to work for Martinez and received the pay increases she was speaking about.
Here’s what the Journal wrote about Kelly Kuenstler:
“Kelly Kuenstler, director of the Administrative Office of the District Attorneys in Albuquerque, said the payouts or increases are sometimes funded by savings from vacant positions in the office that are budgeted but not filled or from recurring savings that occur when a highly paid member of the office leaves and is replaced by someone making less money.
“Many of the out-of-cycle payments are made using federal or nonprofit grants, Kuenstler said.”
It’s the second time I’ve seen a media outlet quote Kuenstler about an issue that’s under scrutiny because of Martinez’s run for governor without mentioning that Kuenstler used to work for Martinez. FactCheck.org. did it a couple of months ago.
So I figured it was time to write an article disclosing the link between Kuenstler and Martinez.
I asked Kuenstler if she had disclosed to the Journal her former employment in the Third Judicial District Attorney’s Office and the fact that she received some of the pay increases the article was about. She replied in an e-mail that her name, “as a former employee and as a recipient of these funds, was provided to both the Associated Press and the Albuquerque Journal in the reports that my office gave them” in response to records requests.
Kuenstler also pointed out that the Journal has previously reported that she used to work for Martinez’s office. Though she thought it happened as recently as in the spring of this year, the only article I found on the Journal’s Web site that made the connection was published in July of 2009.
Regardless, Kuenstler said she assumed that her former employment in Martinez’s office was “well known being that an article revealed this months ago and that the reports clearly had my name on them.”
Fair enough. But, for the record, here are the details relevant to the article about the salary increases:
Kuenstler worked in Martinez’s office for 12 years as the office manager. She received three one-time, out-of-cycle salary increases of approximately 15 percent each in fiscal years 2006, 2007 and 2008. Those three increases added up to $33,164.97.
Overall, between fiscal years 2006 and 2010, Martinez gave about $477,000 in out-of-cycle increases – some permanent raises and others one-time increases – to employees of her office. That was nearly three times as much as any other district attorney in the state gave his or her employees during that time period, the Journal reported.
Martinez’s campaign has said nearly 75 percent of the increases came from federal funds, and that all were performance-related and approved by the relevant state agencies.
A prior version of this posting incorrectly characterized the one-time pay increases as bonuses.