Fourteen GOP lawmakers signed the letter that was sent to the state auditor\u2019s office seeking a review of the fund, which has been used for decades by governors to pay for dinners, gifts for protocol meetings or spending on gestures of congratulations or condolences.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe law makes is clear that this fund is not for the governor\u2019s personal entertainment,\u201d Sen. Craig Brandt, R-Rio Rancho, said in a statement. \u201cTaxpayers should not foot the bill for the governor\u2019s alcohol, Wagyu beef and dry cleaning. These clearly fall outside the allowable expenditures for this fund.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lujan Grisham\u2019s office did not have an immediate comment about the request for an audit.<\/p>\n
The first-term governor recently acknowledged that spending on goods and services such as dry cleaning, tuna steaks and tequila over a six-month period in 2020 didn\u2019t look good. The governor\u2019s office said previously that some of the groceries were used to feed her Cabinet and staff members during long meetings last year.<\/p>\n
Groceries were also purchased for the governor to cook and bake holiday gifts and the bottles of alcohol were meant for a party that never happened, her office has said.<\/p>\n
The receipts also showed several charges for dry cleaning, which was for the governor\u2019s clothes for news conferences and other remote meetings.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re talking about $13,000 (in total contingency fund spending) in a budget of $7 billion,\u201d Lujan Grisham spokesman Tripp Stelnicki recently told The Santa Fe New Mexican<\/em>. \u201cIt\u2019s absolutely the public\u2019s right and obligation to scrutinize the spending of public dollars, but I think that context is important.\u201d<\/p>\n State lawmakers approved a bill in 2018 that changed the way the money is distributed and overseen after former Republican Gov. Susana Martinez used discretionary funds to throw a raucous holiday party at a Santa Fe hotel that involved the police.<\/p>\n Spending from the fund increased during Martinez\u2019s final year in office to about $64,000, up from just over $58,000 the previous year, according to records obtained by The Associated Press.<\/p>\n Under former Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson, annual spending from the fund climbed to $139,000 \u2013 the tally for 2008 when food and drink accounted for $60,000. During his two terms, the governor\u2019s mansion played host to events involving film stars, foreign dignitaries, community groups and nonprofit organizations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fourteen GOP lawmakers signed the letter that was sent to the state auditor\u2019s office seeking a review of the fund, which has been used for decades by governors to pay for dinners, gifts for protocol meetings or spending on gestures of congratulations or condolences. \u201cThe law makes is clear that this fund is not for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[815],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-48199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-associated-press-new-mexico"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48199\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48199"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=48199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}