Doña Ana County Paid $7.8M in Claims. It Can't Count Its Complaints.
Summary
A New Mexico Office of the State Auditor special audit released May 20, 2026 found that Doña Ana County cannot reliably count its own workplace-misconduct complaints: for the identical four-year window, Human Resources logged 43 EEO complaint files, the county's own Internal Auditor found 88, and the Legal Department's tracking system showed 136 -- a gap auditors say increases the county's exposure to employment-related claims. The same report's own exhibits show what that exposure has already cost: Doña Ana paid $7.8 million in liability and workers'-compensation claims through its insurance pool between July 2021 and mid-April 2026, including $1.3 million tied directly to employment practices and $2.5 million more in law-enforcement-conduct claims -- failure to protect, use of force, false arrest, and sexual misconduct.
Three offices, three different numbers
The 43-vs-88-vs-136 gap wasn't the only recordkeeping failure auditors found. Eight more complaint files -- dated 2010 through 2023 -- turned up entirely outside the county's formal tracking systems, sitting in the County Attorney's office. Sixteen complaint files contained nothing but the original complaint, with no evidence anyone ever investigated or resolved it; one electronic folder held no documents at all. Reviewing Internal Affairs records separately, auditors counted more than 700 misconduct investigations conducted between 2009 and 2026, concentrated in public-safety departments -- and found no process to periodically review that volume of investigations for recurring names, departments, or patterns.
View data as table
| Human Resources' count | 43 | 43 EEO complaint files |
|---|---|---|
| Internal Auditor's count | 88 | 88 complaint files -- more than double HR's count |
| Legal Department's count | 136 | 136 complaint records -- 93 more than HR's own count |
$7.8 million already out the door
The audit's Exhibit 10 pulls the county's claims history from its New Mexico Association of Counties (NMAC) insurance pool: $7.8 million paid out across 30 tracked claim categories between July 2021 and mid-April 2026. The single largest category is auto liability at $867,275, but four of the next six are law-enforcement-conduct claims -- failure to protect ($846,363), use of force ($723,349), false arrest ($550,798), and sexual misconduct ($384,455) -- which together total $2.5 million, or 32% of every dollar the county's insurer has paid out. A separate set of employment-practices claims -- discrimination, retaliation, Title VII, whistleblower, and constitutional-deprivation categories -- adds another $1.3 million, or 16.7% of the total. Outside that insurance pool entirely, the county paid $57,235.54 directly in FY2025 litigation settlements, including a $50,000 early-termination payment to a contractor.
View data as table
| LE Failure to Protect | 846,363 | $846,363 (11%) -- the largest single category |
|---|---|---|
| AU 3rd Party BI-PD | 867,275 | $867,275 (11%) -- auto bodily injury and property damage |
| EPL Employment Related | 832,781 | $832,781 (11%) |
| LE Use of Force | 723,349 | $723,349 (9%) |
| LE False Arrest | 550,798 | $550,798 (7%) |
| LE Sexual Misconduct | 384,455 | $384,455 (5%) |
| EPL Title VII | 200,832 | $200,832 (3%) |
A workforce already flagging the problem
The claims data lines up with what the county's own workforce is reporting in real time. In fiscal year 2024 alone, employees filed 125 EEO complaints against an average headcount of 904 -- meaning more than one in eight county employees was tied to a complaint that year. The Detention Center, at 179 average employees, logged 28 complaints, a 16% rate; the Sheriff's Office, at 211 employees, logged 26, a 12% rate. "Related to Sex" was the single largest complaint category, accounting for 45 of the 125. The county's exposure hasn't gone unnoticed above the department level: in June 2026, New Mexico's Department of Finance and Administration ordered the county to appoint a state-approved fiscal agent, citing 19 of the audit's 42 findings as material weaknesses and pointing to what it called "systemic, pervasive, and long-standing failures in Doña Ana County's management of public funds."
- For the identical July 2021-April 2025 audit window, three county offices tracked three different workplace-complaint totals: Human Resources counted 43, the Internal Auditor counted 88, and the Legal Department counted 136 -- a 93-record gap the state's auditors say increases the county's legal exposure.
- The county's NMAC insurance pool paid $7.8 million in claims from July 2021 through mid-April 2026, including $1.3 million (16.7%) in employment-practices claims and $2.5 million (32%) in law-enforcement-conduct claims -- failure to protect, use of force, false arrest, and sexual misconduct.
- More than 700 Internal Affairs misconduct investigations have been opened since 2009 with no centralized review for recurring patterns, and 16 complaint files auditors examined contained no evidence an investigation ever happened.
- In FY2024 alone, 125 EEO complaints were filed against an average of 904 county employees -- a 13.8% rate -- and the state has since ordered the county to appoint a fiscal agent over 19 findings it classified as material weaknesses.
All figures come from the New Mexico Office of the State Auditor's special audit of Doña Ana County, released May 20, 2026 and covering the period July 1, 2021 through April 15, 2025 -- except the fiscal-agent order, sourced to contemporaneous news reporting since the underlying DFA order letter was not independently locatable as a public document. One dating note: the audit's own claims exhibit (Exhibit 10) reports NMAC insurance payments through mid-April 2026, roughly a year past the audit's formal April 15, 2025 review cutoff -- the $7.8 million total and its sub-categories reflect that longer claims window, not the shorter complaint-count audit window, and the two are not directly comparable year-for-year. This piece independently recomputed the employment-practices and law-enforcement-conduct claim subtotals and their shares of the $7.8 million total, the gap and ratio between the Human Resources and Legal Department complaint counts, and the FY2024 EEO-complaint rate against average headcount; all match figures either stated directly in the report or reproducible from its own tables.
Sources(4) ▾
- New Mexico Office of the State Auditor (special audit performed by Jaramillo Accounting Group LLC at the State Auditor's direction), Doña Ana County Special Audit (Consulting Procedures) Report, For the Period July 1, 2021 Through April 15, 2025 (2026-05-20) — The primary document: a special audit of Doña Ana County ordered by New Mexico State Auditor Joseph Maestas after disputes between the County Sheriff's Office and County Administration, covering governance, financial management, procurement, HR, legal compliance, and public-safety functions for the period July 1, 2021 through April 15, 2025. Source for the State Auditor's transmittal letter (p.1), the 42-finding Schedule of Findings and Responses (Exhibit 1), Finding 2026-018S on complaint recordkeeping (pp.161-162), Exhibit 9 (EEO complaint statistics, p.252), and Exhibit 10 (complaint settlements: county costs and insurance, pp.253-254). donaana.gov · original document
- Albuquerque Journal, State auditor raises 'grave concern' over Doña Ana County audit findings (2026-05-26) — Contemporaneous news coverage of the audit's May 26, 2026 presentation to the Doña Ana County Board of County Commissioners, corroborating the report's scope, length, and the State Auditor's public remarks. abqjournal.com · original document
- Albuquerque Journal, New Mexico state orders Doña Ana County to appoint fiscal agent after special audit (2026-06-29) — Reports the New Mexico Department of Finance and Administration's June 2026 order requiring Doña Ana County to appoint a state-approved fiscal agent, citing 19 of the special audit's 42 findings as material weaknesses. No separate DFA order letter could be located as a directly fetchable public document, so this fact rests on news reporting rather than the primary order itself; it is used only as follow-on context, not as a KPI or dataset figure. abqjournal.com · original document
- New Mexico Office of the State Auditor, Special Audits and Investigations -- NM Office of the State Auditor (2026-07-19) — Confirms the New Mexico Office of the State Auditor's public complaint channel -- the Case IQ portal, phone line, and mailing address a reader can use to report fraud, waste, abuse, or mismanagement at any New Mexico state or local government entity, including Doña Ana County. osa.nm.gov · original document
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A special audit of Doña Ana County⧉, ordered by New Mexico State Auditor Joseph Maestas and released May 20, 2026 with a cover letter expressing "an open expression of grave concern," found the county cannot reliably count its own workplace-misconduct complaints. For the identical four-year window -- July 1, 2021 through April 15, 2025 -- Human Resources logged 43 EEO complaint files, the county's own Internal Auditor counted 88, and the Legal Department's tracking system showed 136. Auditors warn the gap "may increase exposure to employment-related claims." The same report's own exhibits show what that exposure has already cost: Doña Ana has paid $7.8 million in liability and workers'-compensation claims since 2021.