Parks Gone Wrong

What's City Hall's spin on a scathing audit of Santa Fe's 2008 parks bond program? That the practices revealed by the audit are a "departure from the way the city had traditionally managed capital improvement projects."

That's what City Finance Director Oscar Rodriguez said in a March 24 letter to the Albuquerque company commissioned to look at what happened with $30 million in construction bonding money set aside to improve parks, trails and open spaces from 2008 to 2014. Voters had approved a property tax levy to pay for the bonds in the March 4, 2008, municipal election.

Instead of contracting private companies to complete the projects, the usual practice, Santa Fe used public employees to complete them. That hastily created system led to cost overruns and incomplete work. The auditing company, REDW, said it found instances where projects were not "materially implemented" and unapproved changes to that plan.

The city is responding with "decisive action," claims a city press release.

"This system was put in place with the original intent of saving livelihoods in an ugly economic situation," City Manager Bryan Snyder says in a statement. "While it accomplished that goal, this audit makes clear that there were real issues with the ad hoc system as it was set up, and it's our responsibility to make sure those problems get corrected."

Bette Booth, chair of the city's Parks and Open Space Advisory Commission, says the audit raises questions about the city's lack of accounting for the bonding money. Plus, she says auditors still didn't get all the information they needed to investigate.

"My summary is: misdirected, mismanaged, missing," she tells SFR.

Santa Fe Reporter