Matrix investigation for APS?

The City of Albuquerque just invested a couple of hundred thousand dollars in an independent review of city government.   The draft version is online, link. From the report;

"The Matrix Consulting Group was retained by the City of Albuquerque to conduct an Organizational Design Project. ... This study was designed to provide an assessment of the efficiency and effectiveness of City operations, identifying strengths and improvement opportunities relating to organization, staffing and management. ..."

APS could stand the same kind of investigation.  It could be paid for with money that is being used instead to polish the APS apple, the seemingly endless "APS Support the Potential" ad campaign.  The campaign has been running for nearly a year, link, and how has it helped even one student, teacher, parent or community member?

APS' Calendar Queen Monica Armenta

We will likely never know how much money APS has invested in the self serving campaign featuring APS Executive Director of Communications Monica Armenta.  Money being chipped in by the APS Foundation and the New Mexico Broadcasters Association, in the form of endless radio and TV time, also goes untold.

The leadership of the APS will never agree to an independent audit of their efficiency and effectiveness, as auditors would find instead, inefficiency and ineffectiveness.  Both warrant hiding.

School Board enforcer Marty Esquivel once spoke publicly and on the record, in favor of an independent administrative audit.  School Board President Paula Maes spoke up immediately, saying  she would never agree to any audit that individually identified corrupt or incompetent administrators or board members.  Esquivel mumbled, questioning the point of an administrative audit without identifying any of the players, and then promptly shut up, forever.

APS Supt Winston Brooks and the Board will come before voters next spring looking for more millions of tax dollars to play with, and at the same time steadfastly refusing to furnish candid, forthright and honest accounting of how they've been spending bond money heretofore.



How many tax dollars have been spent at 6400 Uptown Blvd?  on what?  Are board members really sitting in chairs for which we paid $800 apiece?

The New Mexico Broadcasters Association affiliates in Albuquerque, KRQE, KOAT, and KOB, and the Journal won't do any investigative reporting.  The Journal once reported that the spending was running hundreds of thousands of dollars over budget, link, now they report nothing.  At the time, APS claimed it was going to sell the Stronghurst property to cover the overruns, and yet they still own it.

How will we ever know the truth except through an independent outside investigation?  The short answer is we won't.

And that's the way they like it.

photos Mark Bralley