Guv announces layoffs of 59 political appointees
Gov. Bill Richardson (Photo by Heath Haussamen)
Gov. Bill Richardson announced today that his administration has notified 59 exempt employees that their jobs will be eliminated on Jan. 8.
Combined with the 47 that are currently vacant, that will cut 106 total positions – or 20 percent of political appointees in the governor’s administration — and save the state about $8.3 million, according to a news release from Richardson’s office.
“While the governor has worked hard to cut spending with minimum impact to state employees, the reality is that we have to trim the number of exempt employees,” Richardson spokesman Gilbert Gallegos said. “We value and appreciate the public service these employees provided to the State of New Mexico.”
The news release didn’t list the employees whose jobs are being cut or other information about them. I’ve filed a records request with the governor’s office for information about the 59 employees.
As I’ve written before, I’ve been blacklisted by the governor’s office for months. However, the office is required by the state’s Inspection of Public Records Act to respond to a formal request for records, so I can’t imagine they’ll ignore me this time. I’ll let you know.
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The Governor is headed in the right direction, but there is still much fat to be cut from close to 500 political appointees. He is doing it in slow piecemeal stages to make himself look like a caring Governor. This is a true politician at work.
By the time he has cut his staff to the bone, it will be too little too late. The cuts could have saved possible a couple million dollars by cutting them earlier when he knew he would have to stop the loss of money paid to them.
He is paying off his political promises to the people who funded his campaigns at the expense of the workers making $25K to 40K that are doing responsible job as well as the taxpayers. So much for New Mexico politics under Richardson. Ask yourself if it would be any different under Denish.
Wendum59 points out that the math of 20% reduction reveals a total number of political appointments being 530. Juan points out that his research shows that Bruce Kohl is on the lower end of the pay scale of employees getting the axe. My math shows that of the 106 positions saving the state 8.3 million means the average pay is just under $79,000 each. If we put that (apparently) minimum amount to the total of 530 employees that means the governor’s office is spending at least $41.8 million on political appointments. And, the reality, we know, is that the number is actually higher. Daaaaannnnnnggggg! That’s a bucket full of money!
Heath – is the $8.3 million saving, provided by the 106 cuts, for the current fiscal year (six months) or is that the annual savings?
yesterday, KKOB carried a couple of news items about Bruce Kohl, director of the Securities Division in Licensing and Regulation Department, and his having sent an email to his staff that he’d been given the ax effective 8 January … so now you only need 58 names. I checked into it … while Kohl is an exempt employee, as are (seemingly) almost all division directors in state government, he isn’t a political hack – this is one of the guys that has a legitimate job and and the skill to do it, he has served in both D and R administrations and has decades of experience in securities law and regulation, in and out of government service. In a time where ‘play to pay’ and securities fraud is an issue – lets get rid of an experienced regulator and keep those who have been asked by their department secretaries to not come to work … or continue to pay the 86 employees on administrative leave for various infractions … or pick any number of other logical cuts and ignore them. Lastly – I looked at the list of exempt employees that was published in a few periodicals a few weeks ago … Kohl is near the bottom of the list. Makes sense … cut the lower paid guys that have a genuine job and provide a service for the people of the State. Que pasa?
So the high tide of political appointees under Richardson was about 530? When you next report can you also show the total number of political appointees at the end of Johnson’s term?