Without legislative authorization, Governor Bill Richardson allocated $500,000 of 2003 federal fiscal stimulus funds to the Office of Natural Resources Trustee. The funds were given for “environmental studies.” [See related story, "Governor Richardson Spends Millions in Violation of State Constitution."] According to records made available by the ONRT, the full amount of this money was spent on a single Colorado environmental consulting firm. The firm was retained to prepare the groundwork for reclamation claims against corporations that had damaged natural resources. The contract was bid and awarded competitively.

ONRT recouped the expenditures in settlements with the targeted firms. It then used those recovered funds to pay for its own operating expenses. This raised questions with the Department of Finance and Administration since the funds were supposed to be returned to the general fund.

During the document review, New Mexico Watchdog examined the annual audits conducted on the ONRT. Repeatedly, the outside auditor reported that the Natural Resources Trustee, Jim Baca, was failing to record the personal and sick leave time taken by  himself and his staff.  This problem persisted uncorrected for more than two years.

The Economic Development Department was given by Richardson approximately $1.6 million for the purposes of “border projects,” “research” and “business recruitment.”

With respect to the “border projects category,” documents made available by EDD revealed expenditures on the following, among other items:

$100,000 for a railway feasibility study
$80,000 for Border Governor’s Conference
$300,000 for Sunland Park Hazmat Response
$77,000 for a border promotion conference
$90,000 for a Santa Teresa Facilities Plan
$49,400 for a maquila supplier program
$42,900 for administrative support

Other documents produced by EDD show that $50,000 was paid to an individual in Tokyo, Japan to “facilitate trade office.”

The bulk of the balance of the federal funds given to EDD were spent on independent contractors to provide economic research and public relations services.  Marketing and advertising appears to be the single largest category.  Vaughn Wedeen Creative, Inc., of Albuquerque appears to have been the contractor receiving the largest payments.  One contract alone was for $150,000, but it appears that they were paid considerably more from these federal funds.  The data base of the National Institute on Money in State Politics shows that employees of Vaughn Wedeen have given over $11,000 to New Mexico Democrats in the past ten years.