Hector Balderas
Already hit by an 18.9 percent budget cut over the last two fiscal years, the Office of the State Auditor is facing an additional cut in the coming budget year of at least 7 percent – if the governor and Legislative Finance Committee get their way.
That means the state auditor’s office – an agency charged with ensuring public money is spent appropriately and efficiently – will have seen its budget reduced by more than 25 percent at a time when state government has been plagued by a fiscal crisis and scandals involving the misuse of public money.
Gov. Susana Martinez’s proposed budget would result in an additional 8.8 percent cut for the auditor’s office. The LFC’s budget would result in a cut of 7 percent. Either would represent a larger cut than the LFC and governor are proposing for most other agencies.
Martinez is quick to point out that she only proposes slashing general fund money to the auditor’s office by 0.9 percent. But past action by lawmakers and former Gov. Bill Richardson – and inaction in the proposal from Martinez – mean the auditor would, in practicality, face the cut of almost 9 percent in Fiscal Year 2012 if Martinez’s budget proposal is approved.
Balderas: Cuts would ‘impair our abilities’
Restoring fiscal health and cleaning up corruption were the primary themes highlighted on the campaign trail by the state’s new governor. Martinez pledged during the campaign – and before the budget deficit nearly doubled – to “give the state auditor as many resources as necessary to do an effective job.”
“We should know where every penny of taxpayer money is spent,” she was quoted by The New Mexico Independent as saying. “It is inexcusable that any government agency or organization goes unaudited and their expenditures unaccounted for. Properly accounting for expenditures should be a requirement for receiving additional appropriations.”
State Auditor Hector Balderas pointed to that past comment after learning of Martinez’s budget proposal this week.
“I was disappointed to learn that Governor Susana Martinez cut the budget of the Office of the State Auditor by almost 9 percent after pledging during the campaign to join me in fighting government fraud, waste and abuse,” he said in a prepared statement.
“From uncovering the largest public school embezzlement in New Mexico history at Jemez Mountain Public Schools to identifying nearly $1 billion at risk in agency funds that were unaudited last year alone, my office has a record of effectively protecting New Mexicans with one of the smallest budgets in state government,” Balderas said. “These proposed cuts would impair both our abilities to ensure that government agencies and officials are accountable and transparent.”
Balderas said he had “not been approached by Governor Martinez’s office to discuss my budget, and I look forward to meeting with her and her staff to remedy this misunderstanding.”
Already one of the smaller state agency budgets
The state auditor’s office already operates on one of the smaller budgets in state government at about $3 million. From The Independent:
“The New Mexico Livestock Board and the Gaming Control Board work with annual budgets nearly double the size of the State Auditor’s office. Meanwhile the Legislative Building Services at the State Capitol, at $4 million, possesses more funding each year than the agency, according to a breakdown of funding for state agencies.
“In fact, the State Commission on Public Records, which gets nearly $2.9 million, appears in a neck-and-neck race with the State Auditor’s Office to see which agency gets more funding.”
The state auditor’s funding comes from both general fund appropriations and money generated from audit fees collected by the office. In 2009, the Legislature and governor slashed the state auditor’s general fund appropriation by 14 percent and required the office to derive a greater percentage of its budget from the audit fund.
But the audit fund has been largely depleted. Last year, lawmakers and the governor required the auditor to take $418,000 from the fund. In the coming fiscal year the fund will be about $200,000 short of that.
In a Sept. 1 letter to the Department of Finance and Administration, Balderas requested an additional $200,000 in general fund money to keep his overall FY2012 budget flat.
“If the (auditor’s office) does not receive assistance to remedy its deficit situation, the imminent fiscal crisis will damage the State Auditor’s constitutional and statutory independent audit functions,” Balderas wrote.
The letter was also sent to the Legislative Finance Committee.
Governor again pledges ‘the resources they need to do their job’
Gov. Susana Martinez
Instead of proposing adding $200,000 in general fund money to the auditor’s budget in the coming fiscal year, the governor and LFC propose cutting the auditor’s general fund appropriation slightly. The governor proposes slashing the funding more than the LFC – at 0.9 percent, or about $20,000.
The disparity between Balderas’ request for $200,000 in additional general fund money to keep his office’s budget flat and Martinez’s proposal for $20,000 in additional cuts equals the overall 8.8 percent cut to the state auditor’s office that would result if Martinez’s budget is approved.
Despite that, the governor’s office asserts that Martinez is only proposing a 0.9 percent cut to funding for the auditor.
“The governor’s budget calls for cuts to administration throughout state government – including cabinet departments, the Legislature, and state agencies,” Martinez spokesman Scott Darnell said. “The auditor’s office was cut in the governor’s budget by less than 1 percent, at a total of roughly $20,000.”
Darnell said the governor would “continue to work with the Legislature to craft a balanced budget that will include a budget appropriation for the auditor’s office that, as she said before, gives them the resources they need to do their job.”
Asked if that meant Martinez would fight to fund the auditor’s office at the level proposed in her budget – in other words, if Martinez believes the funding level proposed in her budget does give the auditor’s office the resources it needs to do its job – Darnell refused to elaborate further.
“The previous statements are going to have to stand,” he said.