Republican sponsors bill to require audit of governor’s annual fund

The measure is one of several bills that the Albuquerque Republican, a longtime open-government advocate, has proposed for the 2017 session aimed at making government more transparent.

“This wouldn’t be telling [the governor] how to spend that money,” Rue told The New Mexican on Thursday. “It would just make the fund more transparent, like other state funds.”

State law authorizes the contingency fund for “purposes connected with the obligations of the [governor’s] office.” Gov. Susana Martinez and her predecessors in recent decades have used the money for such expenses as entertaining at the governor’s mansion in Santa Fe’s north-side foothills.

Current law specifies that “Money expended by the governor from the appropriations made for his office and contingent and other expenses are … not subject to audit.” The law only requires the governor to submit an annual report.

The bill is virtually identical to one introduced in the state House of Representatives by Rep. Brian Egolf, D-Santa Fe, in the legislative session held earlier this year. But the proposal died without a committee hearing in the House.

Shortly before Egolf introduced his bill, the governor’s contingency fund was in the news because it had been used to pay for downtown hotel accommodations for a holiday party hosted by Martinez. That party grabbed national headlines after the release of recordings of the governor telling a police dispatcher to call off officers who responded to complaints about noise coming from a room where she and others were socializing.

Asked whether the governor would support Rue’s bill, Martinez spokesman Chris Sanchez didn’t give a direct answer.

“While state law is very clear that the contingency fund is not subject to audit and only requires the office to issue an annual report about its use, Gov. Martinez issues quarterly reports outlining the categories and amounts of expenditures,” Sanchez said in an email.

Those quarterly reports by the Governor’s Office list totals under five broad categories of expenses: supplies, food and beverage, contract services for events, miscellaneous and subscriptions. But the reports do not itemize specific expenses.

Rue in 2009 sponsored legislation that created the state Sunshine Portal, a website that made more government records accessible to the public. He also is sponsoring Senate Bill 26, which would require the state to record and archive legislative webcasts for five years. Currently, House and Senate floor sessions and committee meetings are streamed live over the internet. But a viewer can only watch them while they are happening.

Rue said Thursday he is not sure how much it would cost to store the webcasts and it is possible the state’s budget problems could hurt the chances of his bill passing next year.

A fiscal analysis of a similar bill introduced by Rep. Alonzo Baldonado, R-Los Lunas, during the 2016 session said it would cost somewhere between $5,000 and $240,000 for the first three years for “adequate storage, servers, interface and minor website redesign.” The report said the price range is so wide “because the cost of housing files externally is likely to cost less than housing files internally. A minimum recurring cost of approximately [$20,000 to 40,000] may exist for additional storage in subsequent years.”

Baldonado’s bill passed the House by unanimous vote but died in the Senate.

The governor for years has hired camera operators to record legislative sessions and some committee meetings and makes them available on her website. Sanchez said Martinez would welcome the Legislature archiving its webcasts.

Another bill Rue has filed for the 2017 session, Senate Bill 25, deals with opening up the process for appropriating capital outlay funds.

Currently, during the preliminary stages of divvying up capital outlay funds for various projects, legislators can put their names on as many projects as they want, Rue said. “I could sign off on $20 million worth of projects,” he said.

In reality, individual legislators have control over much lower amounts to spend on projects. Senators, representatives and the governor divide up the money available for brick-and-mortar projects and other one-time expenses. Amounts allotted vary from year to year. In 2015, the 42 senators were allocated $1 million each, while the 70 House members were allocated $600,000 apiece.

Individual lawmakers typically divide their allotment among several projects. But how they divide it up in most cases is a secret. Unless a legislator decides to disclose his or her spending details, the final list is kept secret. And while a handful of legislators have disclosed their projects, most have not.

Rue’s bill would change that.

Under SB 25, the Legislature, within three days of the governor signing a public works bill, would publish on its website a searchable and “user friendly” list of the brick-and-mortar projects, the name of the legislator or governor who used his or her allotted money to pay for the project, and how much money the official had earmarked for the project.

The measure also would require disclosure of information about projects vetoed by the governor, including which legislator had allocated money for the project and how much.

Last year, Rue sponsored a similar capital outlay transparency bill. It passed the Senate Rules Committee by a 9-1 vote but stalled in the Senate Finance Committee.

Sanchez said Martinez has long supported the idea of lawmakers disclosing what capital-outlay spending they individually support.

The Santa Fe New Mexican is a sister-paper of The Taos News. Contact Steve Terrell at 505-986-3037 or sterrell@sfnewmexican.com. Read his political blog at www.santafenewmexican.com/news/blogs/politics.