A legislative committee wants Attorney General Gary King to look into 100 global positioning system devices that it says remain unaccounted for nearly two years after New Mexico bought thousands of the units for $1 million to install in school buses.

The units can track actual hours worked by drivers, monitor bus speeds and provide emergency notification, among other things.

The Legislative Finance Committee decided to petition the attorney general Thursday after a brief closed-door session at the Capitol following a public presentation by its staff.

"We have missing equipment and ... they haven't been able to find the 100 GPS units and it went to a certain address in Las Vegas, and that's the end of the story," Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, said of the reason lawmakers reached out to the state's top law-enforcement official.

But a Ribera businessman and nephew of state Rep. Richard Vigil, D-Ribera, said Thursday evening that the 100 units aren't missing at all but have been installed on buses.

According to the LFC report, the state purchased 2,350 GPS units from a Seattle-based firm named Zonar to monitor school buses around the state. However, an early shipment of 100 GPS units went out in June 2009 to J&J School Bus Maintenance & Parts LLC of Ribera, a subcontractor hired to install the systems in public-school buses.

Rather than shipping to J&J's address, however, the 100 units were sent to "an address that was different than the sub-contractor's," LFC staff wrote.

On Thursday evening, the owner of J&J, Tony "Jim" Vigil, the nephew of state Rep. Richard Vigil, said the units were sent to his uncle's place of business in Las Vegas, N.M., where he rents space.

Richard Vigil, a school bus contractor, said in a separate interview that his nephew rents "a little space in back of my headquarters."

Tony "Jim" Vigil said he had asked Zonar to send the 100 units to his uncle's Las Vegas address because the firm wanted him to start installing the GPS units quickly, which he did, placing them in buses from Santa Fe Public Schools as well as vehicles from other districts. All installations were done on-site at the various school districts, he added.

When told that the LFC report stated that he was unable to provide documentation to state public education staff on March 19 for the 100 units delivered to the Las Vegas address, Vigil said, "No one contacted me."

The LFC report also said the state public education agency couldn't supply the bill of lading for the delivery of the first 100 GPS units.

Zonar has accounted for all the units, Tony "Jim" Vigil said. A Zonar representative couldn't be reached for comment Thursday to corroborate Vigil's account.

Of the 2,350 GPS units the state bought, only 22 weren't installed on buses, Vigil said.

"It's a big job," Tony "Jim" Vigil said.

Richard Vigil's wife, Roberta, was convicted in 2009 of fraud over $2,500 for diverting money from the West Las Vegas school district's English as Second Language program to throw parties and pay for football team equipment and other items. His brother, Robert, a former state treasurer, was sentenced to 37 months in federal prison after being convicted of attempted extortion in 2006.

Several days after the 100 units were shipped to Las Vegas, the remaining 2,250 GPS units showed up at the New Mexico Public Education Department from Zonar, the LFC report said.

Beyond the questions surrounding 100 GPS units shipped to Las Vegas, LFC staff raised other issues surrounding the Zonar deal, including the propriety of a member of the evaluation committee quitting shortly after the contract award to work for the firm.

The report doesn't identify the person, but says the individual worked at the Public Education Department's transportation division at the time of the evaluation committee's work. The individual submitted a letter of resignation to the department on July 24, 2009, a little over three weeks after the state's contract with Zonar was signed and dated June 30, according to the report.

The LFC report also raises as an issue the $500,000 annual subscription fee New Mexico pays to Zonar for use of the technology without having a contract. LFC staff believe the state is not using the GPS units to their full capacity to track school-bus usage.

Public Education Secretary Hanna Skandera wrote in a response accompanying the LFC report that her staff had met with Zonar representatives May 10 to discuss the need to negotiate a contract for the annual subscription fee.

The secretary also wrote that this is the first year the GPS units were used in "all to-and-from buses statewide," and soon the GPS equipment will track every student who gets on or off a bus and provide accurate ridership data thanks to new student-count equipment.

"The cost benefit of the GPS in school buses is yet to be seen since the state is still in its pilot year," Skandera wrote. "For the state of New Mexico, it will definitely provide accurate mileage and ridership data which is a fundamental component of the current transportation formula."

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