{"id":9656,"date":"2009-11-25T02:06:19","date_gmt":"2009-11-25T09:06:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=9656"},"modified":"2009-11-25T02:06:19","modified_gmt":"2009-11-25T09:06:19","slug":"balderas-wants-to-toughen-audit-laws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/11\/balderas-wants-to-toughen-audit-laws\/","title":{"rendered":"Balderas wants to toughen audit laws"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_8844\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignright\" style=\"max-width: 250px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-8844\" title=\"Balderas, Hector\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/Balderas-Hector.jpg\" alt=\"Hector Balderas\" width=\"250\" height=\"234\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Hector Balderas<\/p><\/div>\n<p>State Auditor <a href=\"http:\/\/www.saonm.org\/about-hector-balderas\">Hector Balderas<\/a> plans to push legislation in January that would make it a crime to intentionally hinder an audit and would suspend state appropriations to government agencies that don\u2019t complete required annual audits.<\/p>\n<p>The auditor announced on Tuesday that he plans two bills in the legislative session that begins in January. The first would amend the Audit Act to make it unlawful to make a false, misleading or unfounded report to the state auditor and to intentionally hinder or obstruct an audit, special audit, examination or investigation.<\/p>\n<p>Under the legislation, such an offense would be a misdemeanor.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s imperative that individuals who obstruct audits be held accountable for their actions,&#8221; Balderas said in a news release.\u00a0\u201cThe recent <a href=\"http:\/\/newmexicoindependent.com\/34069\/special-audit-reveals-3-3-million-embezzled-from-small-n-m-school-district\">Jemez Mountain Public School embezzlement case<\/a> is an example of a financial officer abusing their authority and allowing a school district to fall three years behind in the audit process. These negligent actions jeopardized the financial stability of an\u00a0entire school district.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe passage of this law would discourage the obstruction of audits by penalizing individuals who commit this crime,\u201d Balderas said.<\/p>\n<p>The second bill would suspend appropriations to government agencies that have outstanding audits.\u00a0In September, the state auditor released a list that included more than 80 governmental entities that had outstanding audits.\u00a0Currently, the list has 61 agencies on it.\u00a0Some 34 of those haven\u2019t bothered to make arrangements with the state auditor to complete their required audits.<\/p>\n<p>The auditor currently <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/11\/let%E2%80%99s-give-the-state-auditor-some-teeth\/\">has no teeth<\/a> to make governmental agencies comply with the state law that requires annual audits.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOutstanding audits have been a longstanding problem in\u00a0New Mexico, and no agency should be given public dollars when they haven&#8217;t accounted for what they have spent in the past year,\u201d Balderas said. \u201cThis bill would deter government agencies from noncompliance with audit requirements.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Because the upcoming session is 30 days, only items Gov. Bill Richardson puts on the call can be considered. Balderas\u2019 release said the auditor\u2019s office \u201chas been working in cooperation with the\u00a0Legislative Finance Committee\u00a0and\u00a0Governor\u00a0Bill Richardson\u2019s office to introduce the legislation this upcoming legislative session in\u00a0January 2010.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>State Auditor Hector Balderas plans to push legislation in January that would make it a crime to intentionally hinder an audit and would suspend state appropriations to government agencies that don\u2019t complete required annual audits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[107],"class_list":["post-9656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9656","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=9656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9656\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}