Before leaving office, Gov. Bill Richardson earmarked all the discretionary money that was put under the governor's control as part of the federal economic-stimulus program.

Two weeks ago, Gov. Susana Martinez freed up some of that money after a review.

On April 21, Martinez deauthorized $2.6 million of the $57.9 million Richardson had earmarked, including $2 million from one of Richardson's educational priorities: Graduate New Mexico, a program meant to target recent high-school dropouts to get them to finish courses and graduate.

In addition to the $2 million from that program, Martinez canceled $200,000 of $350,000 earmarked for animal-protection training for law enforcement; all of the $200,000 designated for landscaping and equipment at New Mexico State University's Native American Student Center; the entire $100,000 earmarked to help Highlands University produce cultural and language-based materials and programs; and all $100,000 meant to reduce equine overpopulation on Jicarilla Apache Nation land through a contraception plan.

Martinez administration officials said Tuesday there were better uses for the deauthorized money.

"After evaluation, there were questions about whether some of these programs would be able to spend allocated funds before the Sept. 30 deadline, as well as questions about whether some of these designated projects represented the best use of funds given the state's budgetary challenges," Martinez spokesman Greg Blair said in an email Tuesday.

If the money is not spent by Sept. 30, the unspent balance in the discretionary fund will revert to the federal treasury, said Andy Lenderman of the state's Office of Recovery and Reinvestment.

No decision has been made yet on how Martinez will spend the $2.6 million she deauthorized, Blair said. But options include helping the Department of Public Safety with rising fuel costs and to prepare for New Mexico's fire season.

In coming months, the Martinez administration could conduct additional reviews to ensure the federal money is being spent on schedule. As of March 31, more than $43.7 million, or 75 percent of the $57.9 million originally in the discretionary fund, was spent, according to a tabulation by the state's Office of Recovery and Reinvestment.

Discretionary funds were part of the federal stimulus package, and they went to every state.

At $57.9 million, New Mexico's discretionary fund — Government Services Fund is its proper name — represented only a fraction of the stimulus dollars that washed through the state. Stimulus dollars helped the state pay for Medicaid, the government's health insurance program for low-income residents, as well as fund public schools at a time when New Mexico, like other states, was struggling financially.

But unlike most stimulus dollars, the $57.9 million was meant to be spent at the discretion of the governor, and Richardson sprinkled the money around New Mexico, documents show. Local examples include the $4 million the former governor applied toward the purchase of the College of Santa Fe campus in June 2010 and the $200,000 that went toward the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market last August, according to the website for the state's Office of Recovery and Reinvestment.

The fund also helped prop up the state budget. In July 2010, $20 million was directed to the New Mexico Corrections Department while more than $5 million has gone toward helping low-income New Mexicans over the past several months, according to the state Office of Recovery and Reinvestment.

While Graduate New Mexico took the biggest hit when Martinez deauthorized the $2.6 million on April 21, the governor left $6.3 million for the program. "Given the large portion of funds already available to the program, it was unclear whether the additional $2 million could or would be spent by the end of September," Blair said.

As of March 31, nearly $3.5 million, or 41 percent, of the $8.3 million Richardson originally set aside for Graduate New Mexico had been spent, according to the Office of Recovery and Reinvestment.

A review of the program also left questions as to whether this was the best use of the federal dollars, a Public Education Department spokesman said Tuesday.

In one case, the department found an invoice for thousands of dollars for a hip-hop concert with no other explanation, PED spokesman Larry Behrens said. In other cases, Behrens added, invoices showed that most of the money going to some organizations paid for salaries, not services, while in other instances the department had trouble getting invoices at all.

These examples "highlight why we think this isn't the best use of the money," Behrens said.

Graduate New Mexico launched in August 2010 with an ambitious task: recruit 10,000 high-school dropouts by the fall of this year and help them receive their diplomas. The goal was to reduce New Mexico's dropout rate while also helping young New Mexicans get into college and the workforce, according to a news release at the time.

It was unclear Tuesday how many students were recruited through the program.

Contact Trip Jennings at 986-3050 or at tjennings@sfnewmexican.com.