By Connor Currier
During Moriarty City Council’s special meeting on Aug. 27, the governing body responded to multiple recent reports by NM.news.
At the meeting, the first article they touched on was a report about how the city of Moriarty had overspent its budget by $5 million.
Steve Anaya, Moriarty’s longest-serving city councilor, asked the audit partner for the city to address the NM.news report.
“There was a question that came up in the newspaper about $5 million on police fire grants spent without approval,” said Anaya. “It sounds like there was $5 million that was either not approved or misspent. Can you address that?”
The audit partner for Moriarty’s audit is Chris Varner, who was hired by the city to work on its 2024 audit report. He gave a technical correction to Anaya.
“It’s simply that a budget wasn’t established and we spent the money. So it’s a violation of state law by not adopting a budget, but it doesn’t mean that those expenditures were in question,” said Varner.
However, NM.news did note in the article that the City of Moriarty violated state budget procedures and overspent its initial budget by millions of dollars.
According to New Mexico Statutes Chapter 6, Article 6, the New Mexico Department of Finance and Administration’s local government division oversees the money spent and received by local governments to ensure funds are accounted for.
State laws require a specific process for local governments and municipalities to submit their budgets, which are then certified by the local government division. After an approval, the city budget becomes binding and illegal expenditures under this law can lead to penalties.
Varner admitted the city made a budget procedure violation because they spent legitimate money but failed to establish a budget for any specific funding first.
After addressing the first article, Anaya raised issues about a second article from NM.news, about how the city could owe employees $18,000 in back pay and failed to disclose IRS fines to the public.
“So that’s not correct. It’s a reporting issue, and then the rest of the story says that the former clerk basically found it out. So maybe that’s not correct,” Anaya said.
Anaya then asked Moriarty’s financial analyst, Emily Sanchez, who said she had recently talked with the IRS about the news article.
“I specifically asked the IRS agent, just for clear clarification, did this affect any personal employees’ taxes?” She said it has nothing to do with that. It’s all reporting issues of how the reporting was,” said Sanchez.
In the second NM.news article, former City Clerk/Treasurer Deborah Liu said the city may owe employees back pay for taxes that were improperly withheld from their paychecks.
