New Mexico Lt. Governor Diane Denish used over $50,000 of federal stimulus funds meant for essential state services to fly herself, staff members and her husband in state planes. The information was obtained from records produced by the New Mexico Department of Finance and Administration. The Lt. Governor’s Office did not disclose these records even though they had been covered by the same document request.

The federal stimulus funds used by Denish to pay for use of the state planes came from New Mexico’s allocation under the 2003 Jobs Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act. Governor Bill Richardson gave Denish $225,000 of those funds to spend as she chose. Previous reports by New Mexico Watchdog revealed that Denish chose to spend those federal funds on Christmas cards for her personal political campaign committee, providing assistance to the John Kerry for President 2004 campaign, public relations for herself, a personal driver, public opinion polling, printing, website design and miscellaneous services. Our reporting has been confirmed and expanded by other media sources, including Heath Haussamen, The Albuqueruqe Journal and Steve Terrell of The Santa Fe New Mexican.

A subsequent report by New Mexico Watchdog showed false vouchers and gross irregularities in the pay records of the political worker who had been paid by Denish’s office with the federal stimulus funds.

Denish initially labeled our reporting “a patently false lie” and accused New Mexico Watchdog of being a “right-wing organization that distorts the truth.” Her office later admitted it had improperly spent federal funds and repaid the state treasury for some of those uses. Denish later changed her story and blamed everything on “accounting errors.”

Shortly after our reports, Denish’s public information officer, Sam Thompson, resigned. This was Denish’s seventh public information officer during her six-plus years as Lt. Governor.

Denish’s office did not provide documentation showing how the full $225,000 was spent. It failed to provide any records past 2005, even though the audit for 2005 showed that the Lt. Governor’s still had an unspent balance of these federal funds of $118,000. New Mexico Watchdog inspected additional records in the possession of the Department of Finance and Administration showing expenditures of these funds in 2006 through 2008. Those records are copies of invoices to and from the Lt. Governor’s office, some bearing the signature of the Lt. Governor herself.

Paying for Expensive Advice, But With Nothing to Show For It

Denish’s office spent these funds on travel expenses for staff and herself, newspaper and radio ads, a consultant in Pennsylvania, website services and miscellaneous expenses. The consultant, Public Works, LLC, was paid $3,500 a month for seven months in 2008 to offer advice on “green mortgages,” education and other policy issues. This is the same consultant that served as a policy consultant to the Richardson Administration. In 2006 Richardson paid this group over $181,000 for a list of three dozen “ideas,” then refused to allow the public to see what these ideas were. (Story by Trip Jennings, then of The Albuquerque Journal). When Richardson briefly was headed to be President Obama’s Secretary of Commerce, Denish announced that she had appointed an employee of Public Works, Kathy Keith, as one of her two transition-team employees.

Though Denish’s office paid $24,500 to Public Works for policy advice, it did not make available any documents from its office showing what was purchased with this money. No reports, correspondence or other material from Public Works was produced in response to the document request.

Come Fly With Me: Denish’s Use of State Planes

The largest single category of expenditures, accounting for about half of the remaining federal funds, was to pay to fly Denish around New Mexico in state-owned airplanes. She spent $50,528 dollars of the federal funds for flights to Farmington, Hobbs, Carlsbad, Alamogordo and Las Cruces. The most frequent legs of the flights logged in the documents provided by DFA showed flights between Albuquerque and Santa Fe. The state aircraft are hangared in Santa Fe. Denish lives in Albuquerque.

The aircraft most frequently used by Denish was the Citation Cessna Bravo, a jet purchased under the Richardson administration for $5.5 million dollars. The photo shows an example of this aircraft. The cost of using this aircraft, as charged by the General Services Department to the Lt. Governor’s office, reached $1,140 per hour, plus fuel, for Denish’s flights in 2008. One aviation source who has piloted the state’s jet says the actual costs are higher.

Denish usually flew with just one staff person. Sometimes she flew alone. Her security detail was usually on board, though the presence of a security officer does not always appear in the flight logs. Two pilots flew the plane. Sometimes Denish was accompanied by one or two other state officials or a private citizen.

The cost of the trips far exceeded the cost of travel by automobile or flying commercially. For instance, use of the jet for a 2007 day trip to Farmington cost $1,578.38. On one occasion, Denish flew in the jet with her husband, one aide and security to Hobbs. That trip cost the taxpayers $1,660.32 for use of the jet. A one-way flight to Las Cruces in 2007 cost $830.10.

These flights were billed to and paid from the account holding the federal stimulus funds given to the Lt. Governor’s office. It appears other uses of state aircraft by the Lt. Governor were paid out of other funds. For instance, the DFA records showed travel expenses for the Lt. Governor for a trip to Denver billed to the federal stimulus fund account. The records show the Lt. Governor used the state aircraft, but that flight was not charged to the federal stimulus fund account.