Gov. Susana Martinez
A spokesman for Gov. Susana Martinez said recently that the governor pocket vetoed funding for a victim notification system in part because the bill would have created “new state employee positions” that “are arguably unnecessary for an automated system.”
But the three employees who work on the VINE, or Victim Information and Notification Everyday, system aren’t new at all. Though their jobs have been funded by federal grant money, they’re state employees who were working on the system long before Martinez pocket vetoed the bill earlier this year. Theirs are the only jobs the bill would have funded.
Some disagree with Martinez’s assertion that their jobs are “arguably unnecessary.”
Kelly Kuenstler, director of the Administrative Office of the District Attorneys, which runs the system, said VINE can’t run “efficiently and effectively” without three employees. One is a software developer who ensures the district attorney case management system is transferred to the vendor who runs the system twice a day and that county jails stay connected to the system. He’s also responsible for troubleshooting.
The other two employees are “statewide program coordinators” who “are responsible for training detention facilities, prisons and DA’s Offices around the state on how to utilize the VINE System,” Kuenstler said. They also conduct community trainings on how to use the system and assist with notification when problems occur.
Both are on call day and night, Kuenstler said. She added that all three positions were approved by the U.S. Department of Justice when it funded the VINE program in New Mexico.
Martinez says other states operate VINE without those employees.
“The claim that VINE requires three full-time state employees stands in direct contrast with the fact that no other state has a full-time IT person assigned to it, according to the VINE vendor,” Martinez spokesman Scott Darnell said. “If it turns out that these three employees are necessary, then funding for the program must be recurring, unlike the vetoed legislation in which the funding mechanism sunset after two years.”
Sen. Rod Adair, R-Roswell, sponsored the bill Martinez vetoed. He said it “contained nothing that would expand state government.” But he didn’t accuse Martinez of spinning the facts, saying if a Martinez spokesman claimed otherwise, “I am certain it was just a case of accidentally misspeaking.”
Debate about how to fund system
The VINE system has two components. The first tracks inmates housed in county jails and lets people sign up for phone, text or e-mail alerts when they’re released. The second tracks criminal court cases and sends notification about hearings.
Both are designed to keep crime victims informed and safe. They are also used by others including family members of those charged with crimes, witnesses, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and the media.
Adair’s bill would have created a state funding stream for VINE after federal funding expired this year by implementing a fee of up to 35 cents per call a jail inmate makes to anyone other than his or her attorney. Adair said that was to avoid penalizing “all taxpayers for a system made necessary by the actions of only a few.”
But Darnell said the funding didn’t add up, at least in part because the employees may not be necessary.
“This is an automated system, with significant portions of its activity – including training, programming and data transfer – available to be handled remotely,” he said. “Troubleshooting and physical set-up may require attention, but the justification for the extra funding sought in the bill is not clear, and neither is the discussion of creating an in-house system.”
Adair said VINE “is not a piece of software that can be loaded onto a mainframe computer somewhere and left to operate on its own.” He said the three employees currently working with the program need to continue to do so, at least through the 2015 fiscal year, at which point it may only take two employees because the system will be better established.
As NMPolitics.net reported in June, Darnell didn’t mention the fact that the bill implemented a fee in explaining to NMPolitics.net why Martinez vetoed it – instead citing the “new” employees that Martinez and other issues.
But Adair said the new fee was the reason Martinez gave him.
“The official answer she gave me for vetoing the bill was that it was a ‘fee.’ Whether or not I agree with her reasoning or not, I believe that her official answer to me was sufficient – as I am respectful of her veto power and the prerogatives that come with that power,” he said. “If indeed further explanations have been added to her stated reasons in April, well, it is possible that some spokespersons may have misspoken on her behalf.”
But Darnell was clear about the reasons for the VINE veto: In addition to expressing concern about the three “new” jobs, he said the bill had a sunset provision, so it didn’t ensure long-term continuation of the program. And the governor, he said, wants to ensure that district attorneys use the system to supplement, not replace, the personal relationships between victims’ advocates and victims.
VINE’s future
Darnell said the governor supports funding from county governments to keep the system going. He said the governor is “more than willing to work with local entities to discuss the funding and future of the VINE system, but she wants to ensure that it operates effectively and efficiently and does not replace the use of victim advocates and the relationship they are able to build with victims.”
Adair said there are two options to continue VINE: another bill like his, which “raises money from a perpetrator-based fee,” or a general appropriations bill that “taps into taxes paid by all taxpayers and requires that some other part of state government have its budget reduced.”
He said the first is the “smaller government approach” and pointed out that the bill would have allowed the $.35-per-call fee to be dropped if that much money wasn’t necessary.
Not all are supportive of such a fee. Ben Baur, past president of the New Mexico Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, said his group opposed Adair’s bill, not because it opposes VINE, but because “we considered the per-call fee to be an unfair tax on all jail inmates – whether or not convicted, whether or not charged with crimes covered by VINE, even on those in jail on a warrant for failing to pay a traffic ticket.”
“In fact, it would have really been a tax on the families of those inmates, since the inmates themselves generally must have their families put money ‘on their books,’ or make collect calls,” Baur said. “Since the vast majority of families of inmates are poor, it would have been an extremely regressive tax.”
VINE remains alive for the time being due to an offer from the company that administers the system to keep it up free through September and stimulus funds Kuenstler said will keep it operational until November.
Kuenstler’s office continues to develop an in-house system for notification of court hearings that may eventually replace VINE. There is currently no funding to continue notification of inmates’ status past November.