New Mexico pension board seeks investigation into one of its members
Jul. 26—SANTA FE — The board overseeing a massive pension fund for public employees in New Mexico is preparing to launch an investigation into allegations one of its members tried to get the agency to pay for a newspaper advertisement supporting her reelection.
The board member, Loretta Naranjo Lopez, contends the allegations are unfounded and defamatory.
She said she never asked for the pension fund to pay for a campaign ad.
The pension board, in any case, voted earlier this month to refer the matter to an outside investigator.
The dispute centers on a series of emails last month between Naranjo Lopez and Greg Trujillo, executive director of the Public Employees Retirement Association of New Mexico.
She sent him a message June 21 saying she wanted a flyer — attached to the email — published in the Santa Fe New Mexican "as my bio, per your request," according to documents posted on the PERA website. The flyer had a photo of Naranjo Lopez, listed her position on the ballot for reelection to the PERA board and boasted that she had added more value to the PERA fund than any board member in history.
Trujillo responded with an email the next day saying the attachment appeared to be an election ad and that PERA couldn't pay for it.
What he actually needed, he said, was just a short statement that could be published in the PERA newsletter. He requested a wording change to something she'd sent earlier to make clear she was a board member, not an employee of the agency.
In a follow-up message, Naranjo Lopez accused Trujillo of insubordination and suggested he wasn't qualified to hold his job as executive director. She again directed him to "connect with the newspaper that will run this ad."
The exchange caught the attention of PERA board chairwoman Diana Rosales-Ortiz, who described it as evidence of potential misconduct. She sent a memo to the full board and sought approval for an independent investigation.
Rosales-Ortiz said Trujillo was right to withstand pressure from Naranjo Lopez and refuse to seek publication of the ad.
"The assets of the PERA Trust Fund do not serve as a campaign slush fund to be used by current Board members to promote their candidacy or maintain their position," Rosales-Ortiz said in the memo.
Naranjo Lopez, in turn, vigorously defended herself in the board meeting. She said she never asked for PERA resources to pay for her reelection ad.
She called the agenda item proposing an investigation "defamatory."
"It's ridiculous," she said.
Naranjo Lopez said she didn't initiate the back-and-forth with Trujillo over email. She was simply responding to his request as the PERA staff prepared to publish election information.
"I didn't ask for any advertising," she said. "It was his request, not mine."
The emails released by PERA don't make it clear what request she's referring to. Trujillo had asked a few days earlier about her responses to questions sent to all PERA board candidates for publication in a newsletter, not the New Mexican.
Reached by phone Wednesday, Naranjo Lopez said she wasn't allowed to speak to the media.
But "the record is clear," she said. "My statements are there."
It isn't Naranjo Lopez's first dustup on the PERA board. She was reprimanded and censured by her colleagues last year after they determined she had made baseless allegations about others and disrupted the board's ability to carry out its work.
The pension board oversees a $16.7 billion fund that operates the retirement system for 47,000 active employees and 44,000 retirees.
