KOB.com
New Mexico's economy picking up
KOB.com
After years of recessionary shrinkage there is a new spike of interest in New Mexico as a place for companies to relocate, expand or start up new operations. The New Mexico Partnership, a state-funded non-profit aimed at bringing business here, is ...

St. John's students travel to New Mexico for service trip
Gazette.Net: Maryland Community News Online
Students from St. John's Episcopal School in Olney recently took a service trip to New Mexico. From left are Dylan Nguyen, Johannes Ford, Jack Kavanagh, Ryan Martin, Nia Ramsammy, Christian Nash, Carter Ruppert, Taylor Perkins and Yasmine Graham.

In a story May 7 about a gas tanker truck explosion in Mexico City, The Associated Press reported erroneously that the truck was carrying natural gas.

abc13.com
Feds arrest 22 in New Mexico-Texas border town drug sweep
Fox News
ANTHONY, N.M. – Twenty-two people were arrested on drug trafficking and other charges Wednesday during an early morning border town roundup that woke residents with the sounds of helicopters, bangs and screaming. "At 5 a.m. we heard a big boom," ...
Feds arrest 22 in NM-Texas border town drug sweepYahoo! News
Feds raid homes in NM-Texas border townabc13.com
Federal officials conduct investigation in Texas-New Mexico border town of ...Minneapolis Star Tribune
KWTX -Oakland Press
all 60 news articles »

New Mexicans' mortgage debt above the national average
Albuquerque Business First
The average debt for an auto loan last month in New Mexico was $19,825, compared to $19,806 in March and $18,362 one year ago. The increases rank the state No. 48 in the report. The national average for auto loan debt last month was $16,868.

abc13.com
Feds arrest 22 in NM-Texas border town drug sweep
MiamiHerald.com
ANTHONY, N.M. -- Twenty-two people were arrested on drug trafficking and other charges Wednesday during an early morning border town roundup that woke residents with the sounds of helicopters, bangs and screaming. "At 5 a.m. we heard a big boom," ...
Feds raid homes in NM-Texas border town - Arizona Daily StarArizona Daily Star
Feds raid homes in NM-Texas border townabc13.com
Federal officials conduct investigation in Texas-New Mexico border town of ...Minneapolis Star Tribune
Huffington Post
all 59 news articles »

KOB.com
New Mexico State QB Andrew Manley released from scholarship
CBS sports.com (blog)
Manley started 12 games for the Aggies last fall and completed 53.9 percent of his passes for 2,764 yards and 18 touchdowns. The junior-to-be was locked in a three-way battle for the starting quarterback job this spring with Travaughn Colwell and ...
New Mexico State's starting QB to transferNBCSports.com
New Mexico State QB Andrew Manley granted release from scholarshipSI.com

all 7 news articles »

Twenty-two people were arrested on drug trafficking and other charges Wednesday during an early morning border town roundup that woke residents with the sounds of helicopters, bangs and screaming.

KOB.com
New Mexico State QB Andrew Manley granted release from scholarship
SI.com
The latter two totals ranked sixth and seventh, respectively, in New Mexico State single-season history. This spring, Manley competed in a three-way quarterback competition with Travaughn Colwell and Andrew McDonald. He'll have to sit out a year to ...
New Mexico State QB Andrew Manley released from scholarshipCBSSports.com
Manley to Transfer from New Mexico StateNMSU Aggies
New Mexico State quarterback Andrew Manley will transferLas Cruces Sun-News
ABQ Journal
all 6 news articles »

New Mexico Watchdog
New Mexico's audit crisis and the Dirty 59: “A culture of a lack of ...
New Mexico Watchdog
By law, every organization in New Mexico that receives or spends public funds has to turn in an audit each year. “If a government is going to spend taxpayer money they should be able to account and submit a full accounting of those activities every ...

and more »

San Francisco Chronicle
New Mexico legislators receive no salary, but get pensions in system under ...
Washington Post
New Mexico is the only state in the nation where lawmakers don't receive a salary, but collect a pension. Supporters say the pension partly compensates lawmakers for their unsalaried work and offers a financial incentive for legislators to leave office ...
Q&A: New Mexico is the only state offering pensions to unsalaried legislatorsMinneapolis Star Tribune
NM legislators receive pensions, but no salaryHilton Head Island Packet

all 17 news articles »

THE DIRTY 59: The New Mexico auditor’s office reports that 59 entities in the state that spend or receive taxpayer money are behind on filing their audits.

By law, every organization in New Mexico that receives or spends public funds has to turn in an audit each year.

“If a government is going to spend taxpayer money they should be able to account and submit a full accounting of those activities every year,” State Auditor Hector Balderas said. “It’s a fundamental check and balance the taxpayer deserves.”

But a list compiled by the State Auditor’s Office and a review by New Mexico Watchdog show a staggering number are behind on their audits — and some of them haven’t turned one in for years.

“It’s a big deal,” Balderas said.

According to the State Auditor, there are 59 entities labeled as “at risk” because they are behind schedule for turning in their annual audits.

Some of the entities are small — such as the village of Maxwell, a ranching community up in Colfax County with a population of just 247. The public officials there haven’t filed an audit since Fiscal Year 2007 — some six years ago.

But some of them are large — such as the city of Española, that has a population well over 10,000. The city government hasn’t filed a completed audit since FY2009.

Then there’s Gallup, a city of more than 21,000 with a general fund of about $30 million, that hasn’t turned in an audit since FY2011.

The list includes 30 municipalities, five state agencies and three counties that have gone at least one year without filing a audit of what they’ve done with the taxpayer money they’ve spent or received.

Why haven’t they turned in their audits?

We’d like to know but phone calls from New Mexico Watchdog to the financial officials and political leaders in Española, Gallup and Sunland Park (non-compliant for the last two years) went unreturned.

Balderas says his office gets a lot of excuses, chief among them: entities say they can’t find an independent auditor to go through their records or they complain about the cost involved. Balderas says “some of those complaints are valid” and his office tries to work with the entities that are behind schedule, similar to the way a bank or a credit agency works with a customer who falls behind on their payments.

But there could be other issues at work.

“There is a culture of a lack of accountability,” Balderas said. “They really think I’m bugging them” when his office contacts the scofflaws.

Some years, as many as 90 entities receiving or spending taxpayer dollars have not filed their required audits — which, Balderas estimates, comes to about $1 billion.

There have also been cases where entities avoided turning in audits to hide embezzlement.

In 2009, a scandal broke out in the Jemez Mountains Schools where more than $3.3 million was stolen. The school district had been two years behind on its audits.

“I want to be very clear,” Balderas said. “At a lot of these governments, you have very well-intentioned political leaders at the helm. But sometimes they’re not trained in their responsibilities … I had very well-intentioned leaders in the Jemez Mountain case who didn’t even know how to read a financial statement or a budget.”

But the law is the law and any organization that receives New Mexico taxpayer dollars must account for its finances — just as every taxpayer has to turn in an income tax return to the Internal Revenue Service and the state.

Balderas said there are instances “where criminally speaking, public officials have purposely either lied to auditors, delayed the audit process, purposely impeded in hiring an auditor specifically for the purpose of not being discovered.”

Update: The Rio San Jose Flood Control District near Grants has the longest streak: It hasn’t filed a report with the State Auditors Office since FY2004.

In an e-mail to New Mexico Watchdog, Cynthia Spidle of the RSJFCD wrote:

“The Rio San Jose Flood Control District is not unwilling to have an audit done on its finances. The last time we had an audit, we had no major findings according to the OSA. The auditor that we hired had to wait nine months to receive his final payment, which can be hard on a small audit firm. We send out RFPs every year, to auditors on the OSA’s list. We are lucky if we get one response back. Usually the firm wants a lot of money for a very small audit, due to regulations from the OSA’s Office. At present we are waiting for a reply from the State Auditor’s Office on the auditor that we have recommended to complete the audits.”

***

In Part 2 of our investigation we’ll take a look at what can be done to get the scofflaws to turn in their audits.

Here’s the list of the 59 entities that are late:

 

At Risk Agencies in New Mexico — State Auditors Office April 15 2013

KSNV MyNews3
New Mexico legislators receive no salary, but get pensions in system under ...
Minneapolis Star Tribune
New Mexico is the only state in the nation where lawmakers don't receive a salary, but collect a pension. Supporters say the pension partly compensates lawmakers for their unsalaried work and offers a financial incentive for legislators to leave office ...
Q&A: New Mexico is the only state offering pensions to unsalaried legislatorsWashington Post
A look at pensions for ex-legislators in NMSan Francisco Chronicle

all 7 news articles »

Philly.com
NM legislators receive pensions, but no salary
MiamiHerald.com
SANTA FE, N.M. -- Voters booted Republican Dan Foley from office after a decade in the New Mexico Legislature, and within months he began collecting taxpayer-financed pension benefits - even though he was only 39 years old. By the time he turns 67 and ...
New Mexico legislators receive no salary, but get pensions in system under ...Minneapolis Star Tribune
Q&A: New Mexico is the only state offering pensions to unsalaried legislatorsWashington Post

all 16 news articles »

New Mexico State quarterback Andrew Manley will transfer
Las Cruces Sun-News
LAS CRUCES - New Mexico State quarterback Andrew Manley will transfer from the university, according to head coach Doug Martin. It's unclear where Manley will continue his playing career. He started all of last season for the Aggies and was involved in ...

New Mexico drought in six images
ABQ Journal
His specialties include nuclear weapons work at Sandia and Los Alamos labs and the federal budgets that drive them, along with New Mexico's tenuous water situation and the climate issues that underly it. He's worked as a newsman since before he could ...

New Mexico Telegram
Harry Reid Rejects Meeting With Pete Domenici, Citing New Mexico ...
Huffington Post
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said he declined a request from former Sen. Pete Domenici to meet last week, pointing to the New Mexico Republican's recent admission that he secretly fathered a child during an extramarital affair 30 years ago.
Reid won't meet with Domenici because of affairNew Mexico Telegram
Senate leader shuns Domenici over affair - KRQE-TV.comKRQE
Rebuked by Reid, Domenici hopes to mend tiesAlamogordo Daily News

all 10 news articles »

Benghazi hearings begin and Thomas Perez headed to vote as Labor Secretary. Plus is there dissent among Democrats on the Benghazi probe?

Benghazi hearings begin and Thomas Perez headed to vote as Labor Secretary. Plus is there dissent among Democrats on the Benghazi probe?

Mexico's government is proposing a sweeping reform to the banking sector to make credit cheaper and more available in a country where bank loans represent less than 20 percent of GDP, one-tenth the level in the United States.