From the bygone days of the Santa Fe Ring to the Richardson Pay-to-Play scandals and Zorro Ranch, New Mexico has a storied history of corruption. As DOGE audits the federal agencies in Washington D.C., several states have initiated their own government efficiency efforts. Here in New Mexico State Senator Jay Block put forward a bill to create the Government Accountability to Taxpayers Office, or GATO. Although Senate Bill 484 was ultimately tabled in the Senate Rules Committee, GATO would have been empowered to enable performance audits of agencies and programs, recommend improvements and monitor results.
The newly created Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has discovered all sorts of waste, fraud and abuse at the federal level. They’ve found mundane business savings such as extra unused phone lines and redundant software licenses. Entire office buildings standing idle since the work-from-home days, and unnecessary service contracts renewed year after year.
The USAID scandal revealed misappropriation of funds for suspect foreign aid projects, and every sort of enviro and social justice pop-up. Numerous Senators, Judges and agency employees were found to have family members working at government funded foundations and NGOs. Even donors and former officials were getting a piece of the action. Climate justice grants to Students for Palestine? It would be funny if it wasn’t true.
We have learned that when there isn’t transparency or accountability bad things happen. In the last six years, the New Mexico state budget has increased by 75%. How much of that is falling prey to inefficiency, waste, fraud and abuse? Whether it’s corruption, misguided priorities or simply inattention, we should be auditing our state government.
One place to start is looking at covid era overpayments of 250 million. Then there’s the task of consolidating and modernizing outdated computer systems, where New Mexico definitely has work to do. Are there NGOs operating in New Mexico with state funding? A quick search on Open Secrets revealed that in 2020 and 2022 Emerge New Mexico received $28,550 between UNM and the State of New Mexico. We should prevent extreme radical leftist groups from using our tax money or government employees to work against us.
In a conversation with Senator Block, I learned that the State Auditor has expressed interest in taking on GATO functions by creating a State Office of Inspector General. The Auditor is up for election every four years, so this is another avenue toward achieving accountability. This year, a bill was proposed by the Senator mandating that Legislators must report if they or their family members are getting grants or contracts from state government. Transparency amendments were also proposed for several other bills in the Legislature.
Unfortunately, many of our State elected officials do not wish to see these efforts succeed. However, government accountability is very important in order to maintain the public trust. There is a responsibility to spend the State’s money wisely and ethically. To quote Senator Block: “For people to say there’s nothing to see, that’s the wrong answer… Let’s find out.”
Robert Witsenhausen is a Santa Fe based sound engineer and electrical contractor with an interest in politics and current events.
