Faked audit report in New Mexico

Wow. Check out the report in the Albuquerque Journal – State finance authority audit faked, officials say.  The New Mexico Finance Authority issues bonds to raise funds and then loans the money to public entities.

The state auditor says the audited financial statements for the agency’s year ended June 30, 2011 were fabricated. From the Journal’s article:

According to [State Auditor Hector] Balderas, the audit appeared to have been compiled and signed by an accountant with the firm Clifton Gunderson but the signature was a fraud and the firm denied ever conducting an audit.

The article does not give any details.

The New Mexico Watchdog blog has more information in its post, Greg Campbell: The Man The New Mexico Finance Authority Blames For Its Fake Audit.

Their report says the controller gave two months notice and has left the agency. The date of his departure is not clear but appears to be sometime this past spring. The Clifton Gunderson firm performed the audit in 2009 and 2010.

There are multiple investigations running. The State Auditor is looking at the mess. KPMG has been hired to do an audit. The NMFA has hired an outside legal firm to do an investigation.

Obviously lots more information will surface. It will take a while, but we will find out what happened. Since it is a public agency, we will hear the full story eventually. Now we just need to sit back while the investigations run their course.

Full disclosure: When I lived in Albuquerque, I worked for KPMG, which was then known as Peat, Marwick & Mitchell. As I recall, NMFA was a client of PMM at the time. I did not work on the NMFA audit.