Richardson jobs shuffle "a deception"

SANTA FE (KRQE) - Gov. Bill Richardson pledged to cut highly paid political jobs and freeze new hiring to help with the state budget crisis. But as KRQE News 13 investigative reporter Larry Barker discovered, some cuts were fictions that took money from already strapped agencies.

Richardson earlier had doled out about 450 policy-making jobs throughout state government in positions exempt from personnel rules, so the governor could hire whoever he wants.

These are the political appointees loyal to the governor and armed with fat paychecks. There are deputy cabinet secretaries, public-relations flacks, museum directors, administrative assistants and many others.

Yet while these hand-picked hires help to run state government, sources tell KRQE News 13 it's not unusual for the governor's office to order agencies to put inexperienced appointees on the state payroll and pay them big salaries.

Case in point: India Hatch, a political hire with a state career orchestrated by the governor. She was hired to run the New Mexico Racing Commission although she had no racing experience.

Later the governor moved her to the Gaming Control Board. She had no gaming experience.

Next stop? The New Mexico Film Museum with--you guessed it--no museum experience.

Last year, Hatch landed back at the racing commission. The governor's office ordered the agency to stick her in a deputy director's job and pay her $88,000 a year.

Now, in light of the state budget crisis, the governor is coming under fire for his hiring practices.

"People are not as well-qualified under governor-exempt positions," state Sen. John Ryan, R-Albuquerque, said. "They're making more money, their duties and responsibilities are not well-defined, and that's the part I have a problem with."

For another example there is Sharon Maloof, executive director of the New Mexico Film Museum.

The film museum is perhaps New Mexico's most unusual cultural property. It's not in the phone book, and there are no exhibits, no visitors and no staff. In fact, there's no museum.

What they do have, however, is an executive director. Last year, the governor put Maloof in charge of a staff of none at a nonexistent museum paying her $88,000 a year. Maloof became the highest-paid museum director in the state system administered by Cultural Affairs Secretary Stuart Ashman, a member of Richardson's cabinet.

Yet Ashman was not involved in establishing Maloof's salary.

"That's set by the (human-resources) director in the governor's office," he told News 13.

So why would legislators fund a museum director's job for a nonexistent museum? Well, they didn't.

The Legislature decided not to fund the position, but the executive branch decided to do it anyway.

"That's right," Ashman said.

And that money shuffle doesn't sit well with the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

"The resources that are being used by the Office of Cultural Affairs need to be dedicated to the museums," Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, said. "They don't need to be dedicated to this unauthorized position that absolutely has no facility."

Last month Ashman cut Maloof's salary to $55,000.

It took a bit of hocus-pocus for governor's aide Pahl Shipley to land a high-paying state job that didn't previously exist in the Economic Development Department. In June the governor transferred Shipley to the New Mexico Film Office to do public relations at $95,000 a year, which is more than taxpayers pay the state treasurer.

"We didn't actively recruit Pahl," Economic Development Deputy Secretary Toni Balzano said adding she believes Shipley's salary was set by the governor's office.

Yet while Balzano conceded the Legislature had not authorized a Head of Publicity and Media Relations specifically for the film office, that didn't keep Shipley from working there. They simply gave him a fancy title--divisio--director perhaps thinking nobody would notice.

Asked if Shipley was a division director, Balzano replied, "No, absolutely not." Asked further if it was just a title, a slot to put him in, she answered, "Absolutely."

The conclusion, according to the Senate's top money man, is clear.

"That's obviously a deception in my opinion," Smith said. "These people are sent over to different agencies, and those agencies have to rob their budgets to make those salaries available to them.

"It distracts from the mission of those agencies."

It also comes at a tough financial time for the state as the Legislature tries to resolve a budget hundreds of millions of dollars out of balance.

"The bottom line is it's pretty dad gum frustrating to me to come up here and say I want to be fair to everyone when you see on a daily basis abuses are happening where the public's dollar is not being disbursed in an efficient economical fashion and there's a few that's benefiting more than others," Smith said.

Shipley's job is not the only deception. Last year Richardson moved S.U. Mahesh to the Taxation and Revenue Department where he's the director of policy administration.

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