NMFA Management Team Seats Are Getting Hot

According to the Albuquerque Journal’s James Monteleone, the CEO of the New Mexico Finance Authority says the agency’s bogus 2011 audit report was read by “a lot of people,” but no one recognized the document was a fake despite glaring evidence of fraud in the forged 62-page report.

Municipal bond ratings agencies are not impressed. A $40 million NMFA bond sale has been suspended due to Standard and Poor’s and Moody’s placing all NMFA debt on credit watch for downgrading due to “weak internal controls.”

To put it mildly, NMFA CEO Rick May is suddenly on the hot seat as is NMFA Chief Operating Officer John Duff.

According to the Journal (subscription required) the forged 2011 findings report was copied word-for-word from the NMFA 2010 report. Apparently the actual document forger (or forgers) were incredibly sloppy. They never bothered to change dates in their fake report so the document appeared to account for the 2011 fiscal year instead of 2010.

It now appears the beginnings of the he-said she-said phase of the investigation is well underway between the accounting firm that was hired to do the audit and the executives at NMFA who were supposed to receive and OK the audit.

One things seems sure. Moodys and Standard and Poors have this one right so far. There were major managerial deficiencies at the NMFA with the irrefutable evidence being “weak internal controls.”

NMFA Management Team Seats Are Getting Hot