Audit questions election spending
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5/28/2008 -
A federal audit questions whether the secretary of state's office properly paid more than $6 million in federal election money over three years for a voter education program, including television ads.The Inspector General's Office of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission found several potential problems with New Mexico's handling of the $19 million in federal money received under the Help America Vote Act.
Much of the audit, which was released Wednesday, focused on nearly $6.3 million spent from 2004 through 2006 on a voter education program when Democrat Rebecca Vigil-Giron was secretary of state and in charge of administering the federal dollars. An Albuquerque advertising company, A. Gutierrez & Associates Inc., received the payments for television, radio and newspaper ads and other work intended to educate New Mexicans about voting issues. Vigil-Giron was featured in some of the ads. The firm also produced a video for training poll workers.
Of the $6 million in payments, about $1 million went for administrative fees to the company, $373,000 for taxes and the rest was for costs such as broadcast time and producing the ads.
The audit said records substantiated only about $2.6 million of the company's costs, and the state's payments exceeded a contracted ceiling by about $323,000.
"The invoices submitted to the office of the secretary of state by Gutierrez did not reflect actual costs incurred in the performance of the contract because Gutierrez submitted only plans and budgets as a basis for payment. This conflicts with the terms of the contract which required Gutierrez to submit receipts to the office of the secretary of state and certify that he incurred costs billed," the audit said.
Vigil-Giron, who is running for the Democratic nomination in the Albuquerque-area 1st Congressional District, said in a statement that the release of the audit so close to next Tuesday's primary election was "highly prejudicial to me and displays a basic unfairness" by the inspector general. The statement, which was a letter to the inspector general, objected that much of the information for the audit came from a "biased noninvolved principal, namely the current secretary of state" — Mary Herrera, who took office in 2007.
Vigil-Giron contended she followed state guidelines for entering into the contract. She said the voter education ads were worth about $22 million "so my position is that the state of New Mexico made an excellent purchasing strategy."
Herrera, at a news conference, said she was following audit recommendations and working with the Attorney General's Office to determine the amount of payments properly due under the contract with the ad firm and whether a refund should be made if overpayments were made.
Not long after winning the election in 2006, Herrera said, she asked the Inspector General's Office to audit the state's spending of the federal money. She said there was no political motivation in her request.
The audit also said:
- The state didn't meet its requirement to provide matching money of $751,568 to qualify for the federal election money. The state has since provided about $536,000 toward its obligation and $165,000 for interest that would have been earned on the money.
- $147,799 of interest earned on the federal money wasn't timely deposited in a special fund.
- The state should not have spent $36,540 of the federal money for expenses by San Juan County in 2000 related to a voter registration system. Those costs were incurred two years before the federal money was made available to the state. The audit said the Secretary of State's Office should make a reimbursement, and Herrera said that will be done.
- There was inadequate record keeping of voting equipment purchased with the federal money. Herrera said the state is trying to transfer ownership of the paper ballot voting system equipment to the counties, which would become responsible for keeping an inventory of the machines. In trying to inventory the equipment, Herrera's office determined the vendor hadn't delivered all the equipment that was purchased with the federal money.
