Posted on 05/30/2007 8:58:36 AM PDT by CedarDave
SANTA FE— Gov. Bill Richardson and leading state lawmakers quarreled Friday over a Legislative Finance Committee audit critical of the state Personnel Office.
"Nitpicking" is how Richardson described the report released Thursday. ..."
But lawmakers said the problems identified at the Personnel Office were significant, not trivial. One lawmaker even went so far as to attribute Richardson's testiness to presidential politics.
"What do you expect from someone running for president. He wants to be untainted," said Rep. Luciano "Lucky" Varela, D-Santa Fe, the committee's vice chairman. "These are factual reports."
The report said the Personnel Office had deviated from hiring practices for several months in 2005 and 2006 when it gave state agencies greater authority to screen and interview job applicants.
The report also said the agency practiced nepotism and had violated the state's procurement and travel rules.
Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, chairman of the LFC, said giving state agencies wide discretion in whom they hire creates the potential for abuse.
They can bend to the pressure "to take whoever is sent to them" by the Governor's Office, Smith said. ...
Varela said he wouldn't be surprised at such practices by the Richardson administration. "I was in government for 25 years and I've been in the Legislature for just as long," Varela said. "And I know what happens."
Asked to respond ... the Governor's Office responded: "This is another example of the LFC trying to micromanage an executive agency, and Governor Richardson stands by his statements," spokesman Allan Oliver wrote in an e-mail.
This is not the first time lawmakers have questioned the Richardson administration's hiring practices. Last year, several lawmakers from both sides of the aisle voiced concerns about jobs created and filled outside the state's normal hiring process by the administration.
(Excerpt) Read more at abqjournal.com ...
SHARE is quickly taking the lead in bad state computer decisions, and that's saying something in New Mexico. The Labor Department ($13 million for a system that didn't work), Taxation and Revenue ($40 million for a system that never worked), Human Services ($36 million for a system that didn't get the feds' OK) and NMDOT ($4 million for a system that missed 120 field offices) have all had their own multimillion computer woes in the recent past.
And
SHARE was implemented through a $10 million contract with Maximus, a Virginia-based firm that contributed $7,000 to Gov. Bill Richardson's inaugural party in 2003. According to the Center for Public Integrity, Maximus gave the Democratic Governors Association $105,000 in the 2004 election cycle.
Richardson was vice chair of the organization from January 2004 until after the fall 2004 election, when he became chair.
I don’t think King Bill wants to be put under the microscope so all know how he has used the state and his position to make political pay-offs.
Patronage = “Botella” in Spanish. The word “botella” translates as “bottle” but in this context it refers to a “bottle of soup” as in, “free soup line.” ROFL
Lower-class Hispanics take their soup to work in a bottle such as we would take a lunchbox.
SHARE is an acronym for what?
Not sure what SHARE stands for all I know is that it is suppose to be an accounting and billing system for the the entire state government.
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