Audit finds misused air quality funds in Albuquerque

February 26, 2011

tonight--we found problems with "inappropriate spending" and dozens of missing electronics in one city o o albuquerque department. investigative reporter jeremy jojola got his hands on an audit that highlights serious concerns about money used for the wrong reasons. he's live in the newsroom with what he found. remember this green "q" you saw on billboards all over the city? turns out money to cover the advertising came out of a special fund that should have never been used for this purpose. that....and dozens of computers and other portable electronics are missing. s behind the environmental health department... big questions about the letter "q" - the symbol of the martin chavez administration for a green city. turns out the money spent to put that letter all over the city on billboards came from a special air quality fund that many of us pay into. a fund that once had 1.3 million dollars in it several years ago--thanks, in part, to vehicle emission testing fees you paid ...and air quality permit fees paid by businesses. this audit report shows the air- quality fund now only has 400- thousand dollars in it...a 70 percent drop since 2007. the big drop, according to the report, is mostly due to "inappropriate spending" on things that don't have anything to do with air quality--like the advertising for the letter "q" "and indeed they found that some expenditures were improper...and those were done in the prior administration ...and we're glad this has come into light and putting in place controls to make sure it doesn't happen again." chief administrative officer david cambell says when the new administration took over, they asked for this audit because it was concerned about how the fund was being used. the audit also points out that 59 computers and other portable electronics are missing because of poor record keeping. campbell says the citis trying to find out what happened. "we're not sure what happened to it..and that's why we're looking into it and try to find where that equipment might of gone." s in the audit, the environment health department says it will do a better job of record keeping to keep track of electronics and to make sure the air quality fund is used for air quality. to see the audit for yourself, you can connect to kob.com