Senator Sue Wilson Beffort- Stop Richardson's Abusive Hiring Practices

New Mexico Senate Minority Office

For Immediate Release Wednesday, March 3, 2010 Contact: 505-986-4702


End Richardson’s Abusive Hiring Practices



Santa Fe—An effective way to stop Governor Bill Richardson’s abusive hiring practices will be presented to the New Mexico State Senate tonight.


State Senator Sue Wilson Beffort is introducing an amendment to the budget that would require political appointees hand-placed in classified positions be the first to be laid off in case an agency’s budget is overspent.

Senator Wilson Beffort calls Governor Richardson’s hiring practices abusive and states the public is sick and tired of him going against his own hiring freeze to hand place his political appointees in classified positions where they will be protected under the classified state employee system.

“The public has had enough. My amendment will root out these political appointees and say they are the first to go in cases where agencies need to balance their budgets,” Senator Wilson Beffort said. “In various cases these exempt employees were hand placed in the classified positions without having to go through the classified personnel system to qualify for the jobs. That is an abuse of the system and everyone knows it.”

Wilson Beffort’s amendment states that if an agency’s budget needs to be balanced by a reduction-in-force plan, those newly classified employees who used to be political employments at any time in the past four years would be the first to be terminated.

“Fair is fair. These pseudo classified appointees who did not play by the rules and who did not qualify for their positions like true classified employees did, should be the first to go. Those hired during the freeze should never have been placed in classified positions in the first place. They have cost taypayers more money than they should have,” Senator Wilson Beffort said.