Flood Commissioner Sandy Jones caught the county commission with its hand in the cookie jar and now we all have to pay for it?

It’s a sure bet Sierra County Commissioners Jim Paxon, Travis Day and Hank Hopkins are angry that Sandy Jones put an end to the pretense that they had the same authority as a governor-appointed flood commissioner and that they could spend flood-control tax revenue as they saw fit.

It’s a good chunk of money the county commissioners will probably miss.

Flood-control tax revenue comes from every property owner in the county. Each must pay $1.50 for every $1,000 of taxable, assessed value.

The tax brought in $500,885 in fiscal year 2023 and the “flood commission fund,” as the county styles it, had nearly $2.94 million in it June 30, 2023, according to the county’s most recent yearly audit, available on the state auditor’s website under agency number 5027.

Instead of county commissions controlling flood-control tax funds, the way the current system of flood control is supposed to work (state law 4-50-1 et seq.) is that the governor appoints a flood commissioner for two years at a time at a dollar-a-year salary. It’s an oversight job nobody wants.

“It’s set up to make sure the money is spent properly and to take the politics out of it,” Jones said, in a series of recent interviews I conducted with him. Usually the flood commissioner hires someone to be an executive officer and pays them a salary from the tax revenue, usually giving them the title of flood director.

When Governor Bill Richardson appointed Ernest Bannister flood commissioner about 20 years ago, Bannister hired Jones as flood director. Jones did it for four years, so he knows how the current system is supposed to work.

It appears that Sierra County has been under this system since 1988. The county’s FY 2019 audit cites county resolution 88-069 as the establishing document of the flood commission fund, the 88 probably referring to the year it was passed.

Only the flood commissioner, not those he hires, not the county commissioners, has the authority to hire and fire and initiate flood-control projects and expenditures, according to state law. The flood commissioner cannot abdicate his authority. The flood commissioner’s signature is required for every purchase, proposed flood-control project, hiree and engineering firm contract.

The county commission, on the other hand, must sign off on the flood commissioner’s proposed expenditures and projects. They are another check and balance on tax-money expenditures, just as the flood commissioner is a check and balance on the county commission’s authority and power. For instance, the flood commissioner must “certify” the county commission’s proposed flood-control tax amount, which a county commission in the past determined as 1.5 mills, the maximum allowed by state law.

The county commission, rightly, could veto illicit spending of tax money that isn’t flood-control related. But the county commission cannot dictate or initiate hirings, firings, expenditures and projects.

Limiting the county commission to veto power is to ensure it doesn’t hog the tax money for unincorporated county land they control. The flood commissioner, having incorporated and unincorporated county areas under his or her charge, has a larger view and is bound to spread the money equitably to incorporated areas such as Truth or Consequences, Elephant Butte and Williamsburg.

Such a check-and-balance system is also meant to prevent the county commission from using the money to subsidize their road department and employees’ salaries. Jones discovered that was what was happening by chance.

May 2022 Jones happened to read the county’s agenda among the Sentinel’s legal ads. Having been county flood director, he noticed the county was intending to buy expensive road equipment with flood-control tax money, equipment that wasn’t needed for flood control, specifically a low-boy trailer, bulldozer and dump truck, which he estimated were worth about $500,000 at the time, but later found out were worth about $700,000.

I tried to find the meeting agenda, packet and minutes on the county’s website, but each of those columns is out of sync and agendas and packets only go back to 2023.

I was able to find Feb. 12, 2022 minutes that confirmed the county commission unanimously approved a “purchase agreement between Liddell Industries and Sierra County for a 2022 lowboy trailer for the Road/Flood Department.” Mixing the two departments, implying that the county even had a flood department when it’s a state-level agency, shows how comfortable the county commission was in taking over the flood-control tax fund and the flood commissioner’s authority.

Jones also found out how the county had erased the flood commissioner’s check-and-balance and oversight authority. Flood Commissioner James P. Goton died in 2018 and Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham evidently overlooked appointing another when she took office in 2019. When he died, the county didn’t notify the state or governor’s office.

Goton had hired Travis Atwell as flood director, Jones said, although what year is unknown. The county commission allowed Atwell to use or gave him the title of flood commissioner after Goton’s death, Jones said. Atwell softened the title to “acting-flood commissioner” only after he was questioned in a phone call Jones witnessed via speakerphone, along with other government agents, that was set up in order to confirm Atwell was using the title.

The county commission took over the flood commissioner’s duties and tax monies for nearly five years before Jones caught them.

“They’ll [county commissioners] blame the governor, but you’d think they would contact the DFA (New Mexico Department of Finance and Administration) to see if it was legal before spending that tax money,” Jones said.

Jones contacted Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham to urge her to appoint a flood commissioner immediately. Under her urging, Jones relented and ended up with the appointment.

It took Jones two weeks to get a meeting with then-County Manager Charlene Webb and County Commissioner Jim Paxon.

“They kept their arms crossed and just looked at me,” Jones said. “It’s clear this is not going to be civil, so I’ll get straight to the point,” Jones told them. “I will not approve flood funds being used to pay for county road equipment.” Paxon and Webb said he didn’t have the authority to tell them what to do with the tax money.

Shortly afterward Jones went to the county’s yard and insisted the county employee give him access to vehicles purchased with flood-control tax money, which included the low-boy trailer, dump truck, 2016 pickup, and Polaris side-by-side. He and a few helpers drove the vehicles to his construction yard in Palomas Creek. The bull dozer was a lease purchase, so Jones cancelled the lease with a phone call.

The county eventually promised to reimburse the flood-control tax fund for the equipment and Jones returned it, but later regretted trusting them. It took about a year to get the money, Jones said, with the county claiming repeatedly it had already returned the money when it had not.

Paxon, Day, Hopkins and Webb at one point tried to publicly shame Jones into giving the county the equipment. The September 20, 2022 agenda included the “transfer” of the lowboy trailer, Freightliner dump truck and 2016 Dodge Ram pickup from the “flood department” to the road department. Jones attended the meeting and refuted Webb’s claim he had said he would give the equipment to the county, public embarrassment notwithstanding. The confrontation was reduced to a series of motions to table the transfers indefinitely in the meeting minutes.

Jones asked for all the equipment purchased with flood-control tax money as well as all flood-control records and only received some of each. He didn’t get the TV that was in Atwell’s county-provided office, for example, and he didn’t get Atwell’s computer with its attendant records.

Jones had not fired Atwell and was willing to work with him, but Atwell gave him the same reception Webb and Paxon had. Jones asked about county office space and Webb said one wasn’t available, which is just as well since the county was charging the flood-control tax fund about $10,000 a year in rent and utilities.

Jones also became aware that a person from the road department was being paid from flood-control tax money. Jones told Webb he was going to fire both Atwell and the road-department employee. Again Webb told him he didn’t have the authority, holding to the fiction that the county commission controls the flood commissioner and flood-control tax money.

At a subsequent meeting, Webb characterized the firings as a RIF or reduction in force that was Jones’ doing. The use of the term “RIF,” similar to the term “transfer” of equipment in the previous confrontation, is reframing meant to mislead and distract the public from the fact that the county commission had illegally usurped a flood commissioner’s authority to hire and fire and expend flood-control tax money for nearly five years.

The same subterfuges were used on me when I started investigating the county commissioners’ proposed flood-control taxing district, which question they have successfully gotten placed on the November 5 election ballot.

I too was unsuccessful in speaking with Atwell. The county commissioners didn’t answer my email. I couldn’t get records either.

Since I had trouble connecting with Jones until June 21, I only had the county’s circumscribed version from May 28 to June 21.

After the county commissioners’ silence, I called County Manager Amber Vaugh’s office and Atwell. Atwell promptly returned my phone call, but said the county manager  would “handle” my questions.

Vaughn took previous-County Manager Charlene Webb’s place after she left to take a job in Silver City. Vaughn didn’t return my phone call, but responded to questions via email, avoiding extemporaneous questions and answers and enabling her to craft written evasive and indirect answers. That’s a smart move when dealing with journalists asking tough questions.

Vaughn purposely misled me about the nearly five-year gap in which there was no flood commissioner, especially as it related to Atwell’s position and the county commission’s authority to hire Atwell and to spend flood-control tax money.

I asked June 6: “In the past, until Sandy Jones was appointed by the governor as flood commissioner (around two years ago?), the county had flood coordinators? Who were not appointed by the governor? And the county commission approved this person’s recommendations for spending the tax revenue?

Vaughn replied: “Sandy Jones was appointed Flood Commissioner in July or August of 2022. Prior to that appointment, the County had a Flood Director that had been appointed by Sandy Jones’s predecessor, Flood Commissioner Jim Goton. It is my understanding that the Flood Commissioner traditionally employed a Flood Director to perform the work required since the Flood Commissioner is only paid $1 annually. Pursuant to NMSA 1978 § 4-50-6, all expenses and indebtedness incurred by the Office of the County Flood Commissioner under the provisions of Sections 4-50-1 through 4-50-9 NMSA 1978 are subject to the approval of the board of county commissioners.”

How’s that for laying down fog?

When I asked Vaughn for records, she said Jones had them all. When I asked to speak with Atwell about the projects he’d done during Flood Commissioner Goton’s tenure, she didn’t respond.

When I asked Vaughn:  “I have heard complaints over the years from T or C city commissioners that the city never received part of the flood-control tax, although about 40 percent of it comes from T or C property owners. Can you comment on the accuracy of those complaints?”

She responded: “I cannot speak to those Complaints you have heard, as they have not been shared with me.  The Complaints with which I am familiar relate to the lack of construction and necessary maintenance of dikes, dams, embankments, ditches and other structures since August 2022, despite the availability of funds in the Flood Fund. The Office of the County Flood Commission has traditionally performed work in both the incorporated and unincorporated areas of the County. Pursuant to NMSA 1978, Section 4-50-2 (1997), the County Flood Tax is levied and collected for the purpose of creating a fund which shall be used to construct and maintain dikes, dams, embankments, ditches or such other structures or excavations necessary to prevent flood waters from damaging property or human life within the County.”

Clearly Vaughn was blocking my ability to figure out what the county had spent flood-control tax money on by keeping me from Atwell and claiming she had no records, assuming, perhaps, that I and the public would buy her story without evidence. She and the county commissioners want the public to think Jones is doing nothing, that he is the bad guy and a problem and that’s why another flood-control taxing district is needed in addition to the existing tax and office of the flood commissioner.

But the county’s own financial records reveal the falseness of Vaughn’s and the county commission’s narrative.

Jones shared a “revenue and expense” report he received among the limited records from the county for fiscal years 2019, 2020 and 2021

The county’s books show it spent $82,118 of flood-control tax money in FY 2019, most of it, nearly $66,000, on salaries, retirement, health insurance, group insurance and retiree insurance. Only $144.37 was spent on “flood repairs/construction,” nothing on “engineering for flood control,” and $2,222 on “supplies.” Lodging, per diem, membership fees and registration fees cost over $1,000. “Phone” was over $800, internet nearly $800, and fuel over $1,500. The county office rent was $8,400 and utilities were $1,100.

It looks like the county didn’t do much flood control that year.

The county’s books show it spent $89,807 in flood-control tax money in FY 2020, mostly on the same things as in FY 2019, although “flood repairs/construction” was upped to nearly $8,000.

The county’s books show flood-control tax money spent in FY 2021 was $125,821, about $12,200 of it on flood repair/construction and engineering for flood control. Employee salaries, health insurance and benefits were increased to nearly $100,000.

Jones didn’t have a county year-end revenue and expense report for FY 2022, which would show the nearly $700,000 equipment purchase from flood-control tax funds.

Jones took over around August 2022. I referred to the county’s yearly audit for information about the flood-control tax fund for FY 2022. It shows about $290,000 in tax money was spent. About $163,000 was spent on “health and welfare” and about $127,000 on “capital outlay,” which is likely similar to the county’s “flood repair/construction” and “engineering for flood control” tags for expenditures.

The audit does not have tags similar to the county’s salaries and benefits tags, so no comparison of the ratio of employee costs versus work performed is possible between the county’s and Jones’ leadership.

In FY2023, the county audit shows over $195,000 in flood-control tax money was spent, about $3,500 on “general government,” $45,700 on “highways and streets,” $86,000 on “health and welfare,” and $60,000 on “capital outlay.”

Jones spent at least $127,000 on flood-control projects in his partial-first year and at least $60,000 in his second year. On the other hand, the county spent about $140, $8,000 and $12,200 on flood-control projects the three years prior. Yet the county claims people are complaining no work is being done by Jones?

Clearly Jones has done more than the county has done in recent years in actual flood-control projects.

He could have done more, Jones said, if the county had not allowed the countywide “404 permit” to expire. The federal Clean Water Act requires such a permit be obtained before moving any dirt or doing any construction in a flood plain. Under the county commission’s flood-control leadership, the permit had been allowed to expire. It probably went unnoticed because of the lack of work being done.

Jones responded to the September 2022 flood that was caused by heavy rainfall—the county commissioners declared it an emergency. He shored up the levees and cleared arroyos, assuming the permit was still in force, but was notified by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers not to do any more work without a permit. After an unsuccessful struggle to renew the countywide permit, Jones says he’s given up and is seeking a 404 for each project.

More recently Jones has identified three projects, one each in T or C, Elephant Butte and Williamsburg. He realizes that those municipalities have not received their fair share of benefits commensurate with tax money paid by their residents and businesses.

It is unlikely the county commission is seeking to create a flood control district for the reasons it claims: Jones is not doing anything and they are receiving complaints; the current flood control system doesn’t allow work in arroyos; the current flood control system hampers spending flexibility by requiring tax monies be tracked and spent in county-created drainage districts within the county. See : https://sierracountycitizen.org/grudge-match-or-good-government/ for facts and evidence that refute those assertions.

It’s more likely the county commission thinks they can control the five directors who will oversee flood-control projects and tax funds, giving them the means to subsidize the road department and employee salaries, benefits and insurance costs once again.  And they want to get revenge on Jones for catching them at that game.