The Federal Highway Administration has suspended all reimbursements to the New Mexico Department of Transportation amid a dispute over the way the state submits bills.

The problem apparently stems from how reports are generated by SHARE, a multimillion-dollar state computer system that has been blamed for payroll and other glitches in the past.

The ramifications could be huge: About 40 percent of the Transportation Department's budget comes from the feds. The department's budget for the 2009 fiscal year is about $826 million.

Highway construction costs are shared, with 80 percent coming from federal money and 20 percent from the state. After each project, the state submits reimbursement requests.

In a letter Tuesday, a federal administrator said all federal aid billing is suspended until reports in the SHARE system are brought into compliance with a format agreed on by the Federal Highway Administration and the New Mexico Department of Transportation.

The letter said regulations require states to have financial management systems that allow federal officials to adequately trace whether funds are spent in compliance with federal law.

The federal administration also asked the department to resubmit four current billing reports.

State Transportation Secretary Gary Girón said in a statement that his department is working to fix the situation, calling it a "procedural issue."

"We have been working closely with FHWA to implement the required revisions to our federal billing system," he said. "This is a procedural issue that is in the process of being rectified. We take these issues very seriously and we're committed to making sure New Mexico gets every dollar it's entitled to."

The dispute over the billing format appears to be related to the level of detail in the reimbursement requests. The state's computer system apparently doesn't give the feds the kind of information they want.

"The summary billing report format does not allow NMDOT to bill all eligible expenditures, due to the current configuration of its financial system (SHARE)," Girón wrote in a letter to the FHWA administrator Wednesday.

The department has been in touch with the local FHWA office about the problem, according to Girón's letter. He said the department "remains confident that the SHARE system changes will meet the requirements of the FHWA."

The department expects by June 30 to implement a system that will provide the level of detail the federal government wants, according to Girón's letter.

SHARE — the shorthand name given to the department's Statewide Human Resource, Accounting, and Management Reporting System — has faced numerous problems since it was first implemented July 2006, including incorrect or delayed payments to state employees and vendors.

State lawmakers have bemoaned the millions of dollars spent on the system.

The DOT also has come under scrutiny for how it has handled some public records requests — including ones related to the SHARE system.

The Albuquerque Journal is suing the department over records it says it requested but didn't receive under the state's Inspection of Public Records Act.

According to the Associated Press, the newspaper "had asked for letters, reports or memos sent to the department from the Federal Highway Administration and the department's responses between January 2007 and March 2009 regarding the state's computer system, SHARE."

The lawsuit says, "The department has violated the IPRA in order to derail and obstruct an investigation into potential corrupt practices and incompetent management of public funds by high-ranking public officials in the employ of NMDOT," according to the news report.

DOT officials say they have turned over requested information and that "failures to initially release the documents 'were inadvertent and were not intentional,' " the story says.

Contact Kate Nash at 986-3036 or knash@sfnewmexican.com.