Guv signs bill to expand housing authority audit

Gov. Bill Richardson has signed a bill to expand an audit of the state’s regional housing authorities, which have been plagued by scandal in recent years.

“Now that the governor has signed this important piece of legislation, we can get to the bottom of the alleged unscrupulous financial dealings we all have been hearing about at the state’s regional housing authorities,” said the sponsor of Senate Bill 8, Minority Whip Leonard Lee Rawson of Las Cruces. “Scandal has plagued them and even resulted in closing of the housing authority in Las Cruces and elsewhere. An audit should reveal to the public what is going on.”

The legislature, after much political wrangling, appropriated $200,000 during the 2007 session for the state auditor to perform an accounting of the housing authority system’s assets. That work is completed, and cost the auditor $70,000. Rawson’s bill allows the state auditor to use the remaining $130,000 to conduct a full audit that will examine problems and identify issues with the operations of the housing authorities.

Most of the state’s affordable housing system collapsed in 2006 when the Region III authority in Albuquerque defaulted on $5 million in bonds it owed the state. Those bonds were to be spent on affordable housing projects, but almost $900,000 went to the then-director as salary, benefits and a questionable loan, and some $700,000 was loaned to the Las Cruces authority for administrative costs.

The Albuquerque and Las Cruces authorities shut down. In addition to the auditor’s work, the attorney general is conducting an ongoing investigation.

The new audit must be complete by Dec. 1. The results will be presented to the Legislative Finance Committee, Mortgage Finance Authority and Department of Finance and Administration.