Manager: County spending habits 'a mess'

LOS LUNAS, N.M. (KRQE) - Spending is out of control in Valencia County and has been for decades as managers have blown money with almost no checks and balances, according to county officials.

Now, a new county manager is trying to clean up the mess and return some fiscal responsibility to the government. But it’s an uphill battle.

“We’re a mess,” said Bruce Swingle, who took over as county manager six months ago. “The county’s a mess. It’s been a mess.”

Swingle said “decades of neglect” have led to the county’s current predicament.

One example of misspent money is the county’s fleet of vehicles. Valencia County pays to insure 22 vehicles that don’t run, aren’t used or are simply junk, Swingle said.  Two of them are sheriff's department vehicles that have been in crashes and no longer run.

“Paying insurance on cars that aren’t running doesn’t make sense at all,” said Valencia County Commissioner Mary Andersen.

Then there’s four “green bar” computer printers sprinkled throughout county offices that date back to 1991. Valencia County pays an outside contractor $7,615 a year to maintain the printers.

Over two decades, that means the county has paid $160,000 to keep the relics of the early computer age working.

“Frustration is not the word,” Andersen said. “It’s an astounding thing to me.”

Finally, the county had eight credit cards – for places like Walmart, Home Depot and Staples – that numerous employees were able to use. That made it nearly impossible to track down who spent what, Swingle said.

At a county commission meeting in July, commissioners bemoaned the loss of another credit card eight years ago.

Swingle said he’s changing that system and assigning cards to specific employees.

“We had spent about $100,000 on credit cards,” he said. “Right now, that’s down to probably under $10,000 for the first quarter of the year.”

In addition, Swingle plans to get rid of the ancient printers in a matter of weeks and rid the county fleet of the 22 unused vehicles. However, more financial issues continue to arise.

“Some type of impropriety or neglect surfaces, and we find we owe money for different expenses that we hadn’t anticipated,” he said.

Andersen said she’s had enough and plans to give up her commission seat in 2014. Still, she said she believes that with the new management staff, Valencia County’s finances should improve.

“We’ll be all right,” she said. “It will be all right.”