Back in February (in the old days before COVID 19) the Rio Grande Foundation called out an Albuquerque City Councilor for abusing the City’s travel policy, spending exorbitant amounts of taxpayer money for her entire family to travel by train to the East Coast.
Additionally, the Rio Grande Foundation submitted a fraud report to the Office of the State Auditor on February 24, 2020. We believe this complaint triggered the investigation by the Auditor.
The news is that after an investigation by the State Auditor, the City Councilor will be paying back $4,000 in “excessive” travel costs. This sorry fiasco should never have happened and likely would have been prevented if appropriate controls were in place, but it is good that some justice was served. You can watch the follow-up story on KRQE Channel 13:
Has it ever been revealed how Channel 7 heard about the story? Was it a tip from an insider? I assume that this is just the tip of the iceberg of city wasteful spending.