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KRQE-TV.com - Inside a towering fortress on the grounds of the National Hispanic Cultural Center, museum patrons will find both an artistic masterpiece and a government scandal involving hundreds of thousands of misspent taxpayer dollars. Santa Fe artist Frederico Vigil spent nearly a decade creating a 4,000-square-foot fresco mural depicting centuries of Hispanic culture and history. But the fresco itself is not controversial. The money behind it is. "There's a right way and a wrong way to spend taxpayer money," said Rick May, secretary of the New Mexico Department of Finance. "This project was the wrong way." A Larry Barker investigation discovered almost half-a-million dollars in state tax money earmarked for Vigil's work of art was illegally diverted by a former high-ranking state official and inappropriately spent by a private foundation. "This could be test case of how government is not supposed to work," May said. State legislators funded the fresco project with $812,500 in appropriations. Because the fresco was to be part of a state museum -- the National Hispanic Cultural Center -- the state Department of Cultural Affairs was in charge of the money. That's where the trouble began. Instead of accounting for the money, former Cultural Affairs Secretary Stuart Ashman simply gave it away to the Hispanic Cultural Center Foundation, a private organization. The foundation is the fundraising arm of the Hispanic Cultural Center. "This transaction ... was not by the book in any way shape and form," May said. "It was completely, completely the wrong way to use taxpayers' money." Veronica Gonzales, current secretary of the cultural affairs department, agreed, saying she can find no records indicating the money was properly spent. In addition, she said the transfer of the $812,500 violated state law. "This money should have been safeguarded through the Department of Cultural Affairs' oversight and accountability," Gonzales said. But it wasn't.
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Artistic masterpiece tarnished by scandal: Lack of state oversight, nearly $500k missing
From KRQE-TV.com - Inside a towering fortress on the grounds of the National Hispanic Cultural Center, museum patrons will find both an artistic masterpiece and a government scandal involving hundreds of thousands of misspent taxpayer dollars. Santa Fe artist Frederico Vigil spent nearly a decade creating a 4,000-square-foot fresco mural depicting centuries of Hispanic culture and history. But the fresco itself is not controversial. The money behind it is. "There's a right way and a wrong way to spend taxpayer money," said Rick May, secretary of the New Mexico Department of Finance. "This project was the wrong way." A Larry Barker investigation discovered almost half-a-million dollars in state tax money earmarked for Vigil's work of art was illegally diverted by a former high-ranking state official and inappropriately spent by a private foundation. "This could be test case of how government is not supposed to work," May said. State legislators funded the fresco project with $812,500 in appropriations. Because the fresco was to be part of a state museum -- the National Hispanic Cultural Center -- the state Department of Cultural Affairs was in charge of the money. That's where the trouble began. Instead of accounting for the money, former Cultural Affairs Secretary Stuart Ashman simply gave it away to the Hispanic Cultural Center Foundation, a private organization. The foundation is the fundraising arm of the Hispanic Cultural Center. "This transaction ... was not by the book in any way shape and form," May said. "It was completely, completely the wrong way to use taxpayers' money." Veronica Gonzales, current secretary of the cultural affairs department, agreed, saying she can find no records indicating the money was properly spent. In addition, she said the transfer of the $812,500 violated state law. "This money should have been safeguarded through the Department of Cultural Affairs' oversight and accountability," Gonzales said. But it wasn't. Read more from KRQE-TV.com
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1 comments:
Someone needs to be prosecuted and restitution made forthwith.
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