{"id":10944,"date":"2010-01-06T12:33:51","date_gmt":"2010-01-06T19:33:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=10944"},"modified":"2010-01-07T09:22:15","modified_gmt":"2010-01-07T16:22:15","slug":"well-then-who-does-have-records-about-the-layoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/01\/well-then-who-does-have-records-about-the-layoffs\/","title":{"rendered":"Well then, who does have records about the layoffs?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The

The Roundhouse in Santa Fe (Photo by cjc4454\/flickr.com)<\/p><\/div>\n

The state finance and personnel departments, like the governor\u2019s office, say they have no information about the 59 political appointees who are losing their jobs Friday.<\/p>\n

After Gov. Bill Richardson\u2019s office claimed in December that it had no records<\/a> about the political appointees who are losing their jobs — except e-mails from reporters asking questions about the terminations — I filed the a records request with the State Personnel Office<\/a> seeking the information from that department. On Dec. 21, I received this response:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe State Personnel Office and its Rules and Regulations govern all positions in the executive branch of state government which are not exempt by law, known as the classified service,\u201d Board Administrator Sheila Zamora wrote in an e-mail. \u201cTherefore, the State Personnel Office would not have any information regarding exempt positions.\u00a0I will forward your request to the\u00a0Department of Finance and Administration<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The finance department had until the end of Tuesday to respond. It did respond \u2013 at 11:19 p.m. Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this time DFA has no records responsive to your request. It is our understanding that this request is closed. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me,\u201d Nicole Gillespie, the department\u2019s records custodian, wrote in an e-mail.<\/p>\n

\"Heath

Heath Haussamen<\/p><\/div>\n

If the governor\u2019s office, personnel office and finance department have no information about who is losing their jobs on Friday, who does? I\u2019ve asked that question of all three departments in an e-mail. I\u2019ll let you know if I get a response.<\/p>\n

Of course, many journalists (including me) and the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government<\/a> have expressed skepticism about the claim that the governor\u2019s office has no documentation about who\u2019s being laid off.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to imagine they didn\u2019t write this down somewhere,\u201d FOG\u2019s executive director, Sarah Welsh, told The Santa Fe New Mexican<\/a> last month. \u201cDid they memorize the 59 names and then call them?\u201d<\/p>\n

I asked for \u201cany information available (such as, but not limited to, a list) about which 59 exempt employees are having their positions eliminated on Jan. 8, which departments they work in and what salaries they were being paid before their positions were eliminated.\u201d<\/p>\n

The claim by these three offices is that they have no documentation about the layoffs. No lists. No plans drafted by cabinet secretaries who were considering who would lose jobs. No letters, e-mails or faxes to those losing their jobs. No salary information about those losing their jobs.<\/p>\n

And they\u2019re claiming that they have not communicated in any way that creates a record (memo, e-mail, voice mail, fax, etc.) with any other state department about the employees who are losing their jobs.<\/p>\n

Right\u2026<\/p>\n

Haussamen bio<\/a> \u2502 Commentary archives<\/a> \u2502 Feed<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The state finance and personnel departments, like the governor\u2019s office, say they have no information about the 59 political appointees who are losing their jobs Friday. I remain skeptical.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,10],"tags":[118,107],"class_list":["post-10944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-haussamen-columns","tag-economy","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10944\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}