RCLC releases 6 years of audits

By Tris DeRoma
Wednesday, November 20, 2019 at 11:48am

The New Mexico State Auditors Office and the RCLC Friday made public the audits of the last six years of the Regional Coalition of LANL Communities’ financial activities.

An accounting firm hired by the coalition this summer to manage its finances performed the six-year audit, as requested by the RCLC and its executive director, Eric Vasquez.

The firm, Albuquerque-based Kubiak Melton & Associates, submitted the 2013-2018 audits to the state auditor for review and approval in September.

After some amendments were added at the request of the state auditor, the reports were released via the state auditor’s website, saonm.org, and the RCLC’s website, regionalcoalitionnm.org, Nov. 13.

The audits were ordered by the regional coalition to provide a full accounting of all financial irregularities that occurred when former Executive Director Andrea Romero managed the coalition.

The audits were requested by the RCLC after a series of previous investigations made by the state auditor’s office and Los Alamos County in 2018 were triggered by a complaint from the water rights group Northern New Mexico Protects.

The 2018 investigations found that though there was no criminal wrongdoing, the state auditor, who at the time was Republican Wayne Johnson, recommended that the RCLC hire a third-party accounting firm and a law firm to help manage its finances and make sure it is current on state law when it comes to travel and expenditure policies.

The 2013-2018 audits ordered by the RCLC through Kubiak Melton & Associates revealed 13 unique findings.
“…some of which occurred over multiple years, resulting in 36 individual occurrences,” Vasquez said, adding that all of the findings pointed toward an overall finding that “the contractual agreements between the RCLC and the executive director did not adequately define allowable reimbursements.”

Vasquez went on to tell to the board Friday that the coalition had already moved on many of the previous state auditors recommendations, and changed its travel and reimbursement policies to reflect that.

“…In addition, the 2019-2020 budget eliminates travel reimbursements going forward, and it’s assumed that the local governments will handle the expected travel directly,” Vasquez said. “We’ve also mandated that all expenditures be reviewed for compliance with RCLC policy, local government policy, procurement policy and state regulations,” Vasquez said.

In February 2018, complaints surfaced from a group called Northern New Mexico Protects saying the RCLC, then managed by executive director Romero, wasted taxpayer money on unauthorized expenses such as alcohol and entertainment during a trip the coalition took to Washington, D.C. in 2017.

The coalition is mostly supported through an annual $100,000 grant from Department of Energy.

The coalition represents the interests of the communities that surround the Los Alamos National Laboratory. As part of its representation the coalition occasionally makes trips to Washington, D.C., to speak with DOE officials about those issues.

That triggered a separate and special audit from the state auditor’s office, then headed by Wayne Johnson.

Full reports of the audits are available at saonm.org and RCLC’s site at regionalcoalitionnm.org.