Officials at the New Mexico Finance Authority can finally breathe a sign of relief — and so can taxpayers.
On Wednesday (March 27), the Wall Street ratings firm Moody’s announced it was no longer keeping the state’s bond rating under review in the wake of a scandal that broke last summer that saw an NMFA employee file a fraudulent audit.
Moody’s decided against reducing the state’s top-notch ratings for financial projects, saying in a statement that “the stable outlook reflects our belief that the contributing factors to the rating will remain stable for the long term.”
“With this rating, it will allow us to offer the same activity and low-interest rates that we able to do before (the fake audits),” John Gasparich, the NMFA’s interim CEO, told New Mexico Watchdog. “And the rating means that the taxpayers have a lower cost of financing” projects due to a lower interest rate.
Since the news broke of the fraudulent audit, large-scale projects have been at a standstill at the NMFA while criminal investigations and financial audits were completed.
Gasparich says a $50 million bond project that includes $7 million for Western New Mexico University will proceed.
Back in July of 2012, it was learned that NMFA employee Greg Campbell had forged audits at the authority, which caused ratings agencies to worry that New Mexico’s financial position was less than secure.
In time, it was learned that no money was missing. Campbell was sentenced to five years of probation on Nov. 30 after pleading guilty to three felony charges.
“I could say it was a time pressure,” Campbell told the district court judge at the time. “I just don’t know why I honestly did it.”
In the wake of the controversy, then-CEO Rick May and chief operating officer John Duff lost their jobs.
