Jerome Block Jr. has paid $21,700 in fines and reimbursements to the Secretary of State's Office, which accused him of misreporting and misspending public campaign funds.

But the Secretary of State's Office wants to know where $10,000 of the money he paid came from.

A check in that amount to the office was written from Block's campaign committee account, with a memo line that says "return public campaign funds."

But state Public Regulation Commission candidates who get public money to spend on their campaigns, as Block did, have to pay fines or reimbursements with their own money — not campaign money they got from taxpayers — said Deputy Secretary of State Don Francisco Trujillo II.

"Any monies repaid have to be out of separate funds, his own money," Trujillo said Friday.

The office will wait until the next campaign finance filing date to see where the money written from the campaign account came from, Trujillo said.

"I'm not going to speculate or jump to conclusions," he said.

The office will also look at whether Block's campaign had any unspent money left over from his public campaign allocation, which also has to be returned to the state.

Block didn't return calls seeking comment Friday.

Meanwhile, Block has agreed to meet sometime next week with officials from Secretary of State Mary Herrera's office regarding two other expenditures he reported, Trujillo said.

The office is looking at $1,500 that he gave to the San Miguel County Democratic Party and $350 to Cordy Medina, who works as a constituent liaison for the New Mexico Attorney General's Office.

Block, a Democrat from Santa Fe who last week won election to the state's PRC District 3 seat, had until Friday to either pay the fines or seek arbitration.

Herrera last week sent Block a "notice of final action" informing him he was being fined $10,000 for both misreporting $2,500 he gave the San Miguel County clerk's band for a performance that never took place, and for improper use of that money.

The Democrat was fined an additional $1,000 for giving Hillary Clinton $700 of the public funds to help with her presidential campaign debt.

In addition to the fines, Block was told to reimburse the state $10,700.

The fines are the first such penalties imposed under the state's public campaign finance laws, which apply only to PRC and judicial candidates.

Block, in a letter sent to Herrera's office and released Friday, said he hopes the payment "resolves all issues between my campaign and your office."

Trujillo said the office will wait for the explanation of where the $10,000 came from before determining whether the case is closed.

A spokesman for the Attorney General's Office, Phil Sisneros, said if Block has properly paid the fine, then the attorney general won't be looking into the matter further.

"If he's satisfied that (requirement), then there won't be any further effort civilly from our end," Sisneros said.

When asked whether the office would be pursuing any criminal investigation into Block's expenditures, Sisneros said, "I wish I could talk about that."

"Criminally, there's nothing I can talk about with that."

In a previous letter to the secretary, Block said he "unintentionally erred" in his report involving the $2,500 he gave the band. Block had long insisted the band performed at a campaign rally at a San Miguel County ranch, but eventually he admitted he lied after two musicians in the group said there was no show.

Also in that letter, Block called the $10,000 reimbursement "excessive" and blamed the secretary's office of being inconsistent during the PRC Democratic primary in enforcing the Voter Action Act, which outlines public financing.

Block received just over $101,000 in public campaign funds for the primary and general elections, while Green Party candidate Rick Lass, who didn't run in a primary, received nearly $65,000.

The Block situation has left the Secretary of State's Office wanting to make changes in the law governing publicly financed campaigns, Trujillo said.

"There are a variety of areas that need to be clarified, where the law needs to be cleaned up, if you will," he said.

When asked for specifics, Trujillo said "there's just so much," and that his office will turn to its legislative priorities once it finishes the canvass of the Nov. 4 general election results.

Contact Kate Nash at 986-3036 or knash@sfnewmexican.com. Read her blog, Green Chile Chatter, at www.santafenewmexican.com.