{"id":1933,"date":"2007-07-04T22:12:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-05T04:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/07\/agencys-actions-create-appearance-of-impropriety\/"},"modified":"2007-07-04T22:12:00","modified_gmt":"2007-07-05T04:12:00","slug":"agencys-actions-create-appearance-of-impropriety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/07\/agencys-actions-create-appearance-of-impropriety\/","title":{"rendered":"Agency’s actions create appearance of impropriety"},"content":{"rendered":"

That darned appearance of impropriety is rearing its head once again in Santa Fe<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>, and the only question that can be asked of the state personnel office is, what are you hiding?<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Its administrators might not be hiding anything. But they sure aren\u2019t going out of their way to avoid the appearance of a cover-up.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

You might recall the release in May<\/a> of an audit by the Legislative Finance Committee<\/a> that found that the personnel office deviated from hiring practices for several months in 2005 and 2006, practiced nepotism and violated the state procurement code and travel rules. You might also recall Gov. Bill Richardson<\/a>, Mr. I-want-to-clean-up-state-government, accusing the LFC of \u201cnitpicking\u201d and saying that the audit identified only \u201cthree minor problems\u201d and was designed to \u201cembarrass\u201d him and his staff.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Right\u2026 Sounded then like a cover-up. Certainly not the sort of comments you\u2019d expect from a leader who is conscious about avoiding the appearance of impropriety, and one who works hard to run an administration that has integrity.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Well, it gets worse. The Albuquerque Journal<\/a> reported Wednesday that the personnel office\u2019s chief of staff, Dominic Garcia, flew to San Francisco<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> last month to aid the consultant looking into some of the allegations.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

In early June, an internal investigation suggested that the agency hire an expert to look into the situation of Garcia, his sister and a third employee \u201cto determine whether favoritism had played a role in pay increases,\u201d the Journal reported.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The LFC audit questioned why Garcia received a 36-percent raise over a 26-month period even though his duties didn\u2019t change, and why his sister, Janna Reyes, got a 15-percent raise for a lateral transfer.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

They\u2019re the children of the state\u2019s veteran affairs secretary, John Garcia, the Journal reported.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Instead of following the recommendation, the agency hired the firm to look at every pay action for every employee for the last four years. To help the consultant, the agency sent Garcia and another employee, with 1,000 documents in hand, to explain the agency\u2019s operations.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

What we have here is an investigation initiated because of allegations involving a certain employee, and the powers-that-be in the office, who apparently have the backing of the governor, letting that employee assist the investigation instead of keeping him as far away from it as possible to ensure the integrity of the probe.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The whole thing stinks. There might be problems with the LFC audit, or good explanations for what has happened in the personnel office, but letting one of those whose pay hike is under scrutiny assist in the investigation isn\u2019t the way to reassure the public.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That darned appearance of impropriety is rearing its head once again in Santa Fe, and the only question that can be asked of the state personnel office is, what are you hiding? Its administrators might not be hiding anything. But they sure aren\u2019t going out of their way to avoid the appearance of a cover-up. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1933","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=1933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1933\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}