Prominent attorney says he took DWI corruption allegations to FBI - By Elise Kaplan, City Desk ABQ
This story was originally published by City Desk ABQ in collaboration with New Mexico PBS. Watch the New Mexico in Focus interview with Daymon Ely here.
He won’t say exactly when, but at some point a “young person” came to attorney Daymon Ely with a story about possible corruption involving the Albuquerque Police Department’s DWI officers and a local attorney.
That same day, Ely says, he went to the FBI.
“I would not have contacted APD, because at that point they’re the ones that the allegations are being made about,” he adds. “So I would have contacted federal authorities — which I did.”
The alleged scheme appears to involve a handful of police officers and at least one well-known local criminal defense attorney and his paralegal working together to make DWI cases go away.
Ely’s office would have been a natural choice for someone with this kind of story.
As a legal malpractice attorney, the Democratic former state representative sues others in his profession for a living, but in this case he’s guarding most of the details of what he was told. That’s because, after consulting with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Mexico, he’s concerned that saying too much could compromise the ongoing federal criminal investigation.
However, Ely is definitive that his peripheral involvement began a while ago. And at this point, he’s been contacted by more than one potential victim.
“They did not read about it in the paper and come into my office,” Ely said.
He said he doesn’t know if he was first to go to the FBI with these allegations.
The investigation has reverberated around the criminal justice system. DWI cases have continued to move through the Bernalillo County Metropolitan Court but attorneys who practice there report that everyone on every side is on edge.
In a state with high rates of fatal DWIs — New Mexico ranks in the top 10 states for drunk driving — Ely, and other insiders of the legal field, stress the importance of credibility throughout the whole criminal justice system.
“When I was a legislator we wanted to be able to look at the public and say, ‘we are working towards deterring crime by having a system with integrity where when people get caught, they know justice is coming and it’s coming quickly,’” he said. “And I think, to be frank with you, we’re still working on that. But sometimes out of these bad situations come surprisingly good things.”
THE INTEGRITY OF THE SYSTEM
On Jan. 18, FBI agents raided the homes of some DWI officers and the office of attorney Thomas Clear III, who is known for representing defendants accused of driving while intoxicated. That same day, the Second Judicial District Attorney’s Office dismissed 144 cases involving officers Honorio Alba, Joshua Montaño, Harvey Johnson and Nelson Ortiz because District Attorney Sam Bregman — citing his responsibility under Giglio v. United States — said he will not put witnesses on the stand with integrity issues. Bregman has since tossed another 56 cases, bringing the total to 200.
APD launched its own internal affairs investigations, putting the four officers — and Lt. Justin Hunt, who was in the DWI unit from 2011 to 2014 — on administrative leave. Hunt and Alba have since resigned and the internal investigation has expanded to include two members of the Internal Affairs Division — Cmdr. Mark Landavazo, who is now on leave, and a lieutenant who was transferred to another division. APD has not identified the Internal Affairs lieutenant because he has not been put on administrative leave.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment for this story.
No charges have been filed but reports have surfaced about interactions people have had with some of the officers and Clear’s paralegal, Ricardo “Rick” Mendez.
In one case, a former court employee reported that after Alba detained him on suspicion of drunken driving he told him to contact an attorney named “Rick” who “if hired, would ensure that no court case would be filed in court by APD.” In another case, a man who is now being represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico reported that Officer Montaño took his bracelet and had him go get it back from Clear’s office. That’s where, he said, Mendez told him, “If you need to get off of this, you’re at the right place” — if he paid $8,500. The man said he didn’t hire Clear.
As for Ely, after he contacted the FBI, he said he served as a guide to make sure those who came to him felt comfortable talking to federal agents. He is not representing them and has not been paid for his part nor is he pursuing any kind of lawsuit regarding the allegations.
“These are brave people that saw something wrong and didn’t know what to do about it and wanted to do what was right,” he said. “That’s impressive to me. When you’re talking about law enforcement and powerful people and they’re willing to stand up to it: That’s, in my judgment, something to be applauded.”
Ely said the contours of the alleged scheme probably led potential victims to his door.
“Obviously there was a lawyer involved in this…,” he said. “I wasn’t shocked when I got the call because I go after lawyers that have committed negligent or wrongful conduct. And in this case, that was part of the allegations that were being made.”
He said he was “pissed off” by the allegations, which cast a shadow over a complex criminal justice system where everyone has a role to play.
“It’s outrageous. You have a criminal justice system that depends on everybody in that system acting in a way that can be relied on…,” Ely said. “When there are a couple of people within that system that aren’t doing their job, it impacts the integrity of the entire system.”
TWO NAMES IN DWI DEFENSE
For years when someone got charged with driving while intoxicated, if they could afford to hire a private attorney there were two names that would quickly surface: Thomas Clear III and Ousama Rasheed.
Now Rasheed is getting calls from people who Clear — a man he once considered a friend as well as a competitor — represented asking if he can take their cases instead. He’s turning them down.
“I will not directly profit off of Tom Clear’s problems, I will not take any of his cases, I will not take any of his clients…,” he said. “I don’t want to be associated with anything that deals with corruption and as upset as I am with Tom, I will not financially benefit from his problems.”
Rasheed first went up against Clear as a law school student in a clinical program. After he graduated in 1990, their careers intersected many times as they both built names for themselves as criminal defense attorneys representing people charged with DWI.
It’s a small world in which a limited number of police officers, a handful of prosecutors and a few defense attorneys encounter each other again and again in the courts system.
“Most lawyers do DWI early in their career and then they consider them too small of cases to handle and they move on to felonies or federal work and all that kind of stuff,” Rasheed said. “I liked it. I was good at it. I was making a good living at it … So it was a good area of law for me. I liked not having these two- and three- and four-week trials and making a decent living knowing that I was never going to get rich.”
He said over the years he’s won cases because an officer didn’t show up but “there ain’t a stack of cash waiting for anybody at my office, that’s for sure.”
“Some of us are sitting there and meeting with people and putting in the time and putting in the work and the research and the writing and the fighting and the trial and all of that — and some of us are just having 80 and 90% success with no-shows,” Rasheed said. “Come on, man, it’s frustrating.”
TENSE MOOD IN THE COURTHOUSE
It’s been more than a month since news of the federal investigation became public.
And Rasheed said the mood in the courthouse has been tense.
“Everybody hates it, the judges freaking hate it — they’re all leery about every single thing — the cops are all in a tizzy, like, every department is hyper-evaluating whether their officers appear in court or for interviews or for whatever,” he said. “Right now, everybody else in the system is walking on eggshells because of probably whatever the seven or eight people involved.”
For him it comes down to a small number of people crossing the line that is drawn between the two sides of the justice system.
“DWI is not a good thing in society — it’s dangerous, it can hurt people — and my job has been to defend people that are charged with that charge,” Rasheed said. “That being said, you’ve got to know that when people are on one side of the line that they stay on that side of the line. Once you raise your right hand and swear what you swear to and stick a badge on your chest you’ve picked a side — and you have to stay on that side.”
Tribal members discuss the impacts of uranium industry – By Hannah Grover, New Mexico Political Report
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights heard about the contamination of Native American lands by uranium extraction and milling during a thematic hearing on Wednesday in Washington D.C.
The commission streamed the hearing on its website as well as YouTube.
Eric Jantz with New Mexico Environmental Law Center told the commission at the start of the hearing that the testimony from others would “bring to light a long overlooked issue how the US government has jeopardized the inherent rights to life, health, culture, environment and water of hundreds of Indigenous communities across the country in pursuit of a single mineral: uranium.”
“For decades, federal agencies have understood that unmediated and inadequately remediated uranium mines and mills pose a public health danger to those living nearby,” he said. “For even longer federal agencies have known that mine and mill waste have contaminated vast areas of land and huge amounts of water. Federal agencies have ignored or suppressed information about the dangers of uranium development.”
He argued that the federal government rarely sought or obtained consent from tribes for uranium production both on and near tribal lands.
Jantz called for the United States to phase out ongoing uranium mining operations and institute a moratorium on future uranium extraction and processing on or near Indigenous lands.
“Growing up in the community, I remember riding horses and grazing the livestock,” Edith Hood, Diné, said. “When the mines came, our community was forever changed.”
Hood is part of the Red Water Pond Community Association, which has been fighting for clean up and remediation of contaminated sites.
“People began to leave after we discovered contamination in the community because we were afraid for the health of our children and our own,” she said, adding that only two of the original 11 families remain.
Hood said safe and secure environments are a human right.
Additionally, she argued that the government chose isolated areas where people spoke limited English as places where uranium extraction and processing would occur.
“The government was aware of the risk and the dangers, but failed and neglected to inform our people,” she said. “As it is, the federal government puts Indigenous people at risk, never returning to check on the people and the land.”
Teracita Keyanna, Diné, is also a member of the Red Water Pond Community Association.
She said her family has been exposed to uranium in their home and that exposure has caused significant health problems including cancer, autoimmune disease, skin issues, liver and kidney diseases and learning delays in children.
Eventually, Keyanna left the reservation, or, as she puts it, was displaced.
She moved to Gallup where she knew her children would be safe from uranium exposure.
“But when you move off of your tribal lands, your ability to practice your language in your culture becomes more and more challenging,” she said.
Keyanna said her community and people deserve justice both from the extractive industries and from the government that put them in harm’s way.
“Our children’s rights to a clean environment have already been affected. Our children’s freedom to practice their culture had been impacted before they were born,” she said.
Anferny Badback, a member of the Ute Mountain Ute tribe from the White Mesa community in southeast Utah, told about how ancestral remains were destroyed so that a uranium mill could be built.
The White Mesa mill is the only remaining conventional uranium mill operating in the United States.
Badback said few people feel safe drinking the tap water and instead buy bottled water.
“The water underneath the mill is becoming more and more polluted and is moving towards our community,” he said.
This has impacted the Ute ceremonies. Badback said they no longer drink spring water for ceremonial purposes. Additionally, they no longer hunt animals or gather plants near their homes.
And, Badback said, the White Mesa mill is no longer just a mill. Activists say the mill is being used as an unregulated disposal site for low-level radioactive waste.
Bryan Newland, the assistant secretary for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, spoke about efforts to increase tribal consultation.
“Tribal nations have played an instrumental role in advancing the national security of the United States as well as global safety,” Newland, Ojibwe, said.
Those contributions, he said, include mining and processing of uranium ore for nuclear weapons. He said that is especially true for the Navajo Nation, the Western Shoshone and the Pueblos of New Mexico.
“Today, the process that we use to engage with tribal nations looks much different than the process the federal government used in the past,” Newland said.
Clifford Villa with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency spoke about some of the efforts to cleanup the legacy contamination on tribal lands.
He said the U.S. EPA, in coordination with the Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency, has identified 523 abandoned uranium mines and early cleanup actions have occurred at dozens of those sites.
Villa said that this year the EPA expects to select remedies for cleanup of sites in eastern Navajo Nation, including two places near Red Water Pond Road Community as well as the Northeast Church Rock Mine site and the Quivira Mine site. He said each of those sites will involve removal of more than a million cubic yards of material.
Director wounded in “Rust” shooting testifies – Santa Fe New Mexican, Associated Press, KUNM News
The director of the Western movie “Rust” testified today that he had trouble comprehending he had suffered a gunshot wound because he thought that wasn’t possible on a movie set.
The Santa Fe New Mexican reports Joel Souza’s testimony came during the eighth day of the trial for weapons supervisor for the film, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, around the fatal shooting of a cinematographer by Alec Baldwin. She is facing charges of manslaughter and evidence tampering.
Baldwin, the lead actor and co-producer on “Rust,” was separately indicted by a grand jury last month; his trial is scheduled for July. He has pleaded not guilty to charges of involuntary manslaughter.
Souza was struck by the same bullet that killed Halyna Hutchins on Oct. 21, 2021. It happened during a rehearsal at the Bonanza Creek Ranch south of Santa Fe. He said he was trying to look over Hutchins’ shoulder at a camera monitor when the gun discharged.
Gutierrez-Reed hasn’t testified but has pleaded not guilty.
Script supervisor Mamie Mitchell, who has worked on numerous films, also testified Friday that Gutierrez-Reed was inexperienced and disorganized, and left weapons unattended.
Northern NM fire victims will be spared additional taxes under provision approved by Legislature - By Patrick Lohmann,Source New Mexico
Those who hired lawyers to help them get compensation for losses to the biggest wildfire in state history won’t have to worry about additional taxes on legal services if Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signs the tax package sent to her by lawmakers last month.
But at least one elected official in the burn scar and a municipal advocacy group oppose the measure, saying it will deprive local governments that are also struggling after the Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire of sorely-needed tax dollars. And the legislation’s sponsor ultimately withdrew his support in fear of how the measure could harm those small governments.
The tax measure approved by the Legislature gives tax credits to law firms for gross receipts taxes, which are basically sales taxes, on services they provide to victims of the fire. Law firms can only get the tax credit if they don’t pass the taxes onto fire survivors in their bill for services.
Lujan Grisham has until March 6 to sign the tax bill into law.
After the U.S. Forest Service accidentally ignited the 530-square-mile wildfire in spring of 2022, destroying hundreds of homes, local and national law firms arrived and began soliciting clients. Congress in late 2022 approved nearly $4 billion to compensate victims of the fire. In the same law, Congress capped payments to law firms at 20% of compensation they secure on behalf of clients.
Those legal services, like all goods and services in the state, are taxed by states and localities. The gross receipts taxes on legal services for Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon survivors are estimated to be about 7%, split among the state, counties and towns.
A $100,000 payment to a fire victim who hired a lawyer, for example, would mean $20,000 would go to lawyers, and then there would be an additional $1,400 in taxes on that payment levied on the fire victim without the legislation.
State senator Leo Jaramillo (D-Española) sponsored the legislation this session and said getting rid of the tax on survivors would let them keep more of the money they’re owed. Local law firms and advocates for fire victims spoke in favor of the proposal.
But as the bill wound through committee and ended up in the overall tax package, Jaramillo grew increasingly concerned about the impact it would have on local governments, he told fellow lawmakers. He mentioned there could be a substitute bill that would have “held harmless” local governments like the City of Las Vegas and Mora County, but it was never introduced.
Administratively, it would be “extremely difficult” for the New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department to apply the tax credit for law firms only on the state’s portion of the credit, while still sending the revenue to local governments, department spokesperson Charlie Moore told Source New Mexico.
When the New Mexico Senate deliberated an 88-page tax package that included the provision, Jaramillo ultimately voted against it, saying that he was withdrawing support because local governments would be harmed.
Still, the Senate approved the tax reforms Feb. 12 by a vote of 26-13, and the legislation was sent to the governor for her signature. Jaramillo has not responded to repeated requests for comment since that vote.
While the 30-day session was ongoing, the three-member Mora County Commission voted 2-1 on a resolution supporting the bill, saying that the Commission believes landowners and residents “should not be penalized, through the imposition of gross receipts tax, for having elected to be represented by legal counsel.”
The Feb. 9 resolution also said “it is understood” that a substitute bill would allow local governments like Mora County to continue to collect their portion of the taxes, although that ended up not being the case.
Mora County Commissioner Veronica Serna was the lone vote against the resolution. She noted that the gross receipts tax is imposed on law firms, not their clients, and so Mora County could still collect the taxes it needs if law firms simply paid the tax instead of passing it on.
“So the vendor should be paying that tax if they really want to help the claimant, not expect the state of New Mexico or any of the counties to take it,” Serna said in an interview. “Because the State of New Mexico and Mora and San Miguel Counties, we’re victims as well.”
In response, Brian Colón, a lawyer with law firm Singleton Schreiber and former state auditor, told Source NM that the law Congress passed means law firms like his are already receiving less than their usual 33% cut, and that the legislation is an effective way to prevent fire victims from having to pay additional taxes on the funds they deserve.
“I’m very pleased that the legislature decided that those individuals who opted to hire attorneys will not have a gross receipts tax implication on that transaction,” he said. “And that makes me very happy. It’s the right outcome.”
It’s not clear how much of an impact the wildfire and subsequent floods had on Mora County’s tax revenues, according to online records. In the fiscal year leading up to the fires, the county received $317,000 in gross receipts tax revenues, comprising 11% of its $2.9 million budget.
It’s also hard to estimate how much in taxes the county could make from legal services provided to fire victims, Serna said.
Alegislative analysis on the tax bill, while noting how difficult making a calculation would be, guessed that the state could give up between $7 million and $12.5 million in tax revenues in the upcoming fiscal year if the provision becomes law. The bill limits the amount in credits given to law firms to $5 million every year, a cap Colón said firms were very unlikely to hit.
The New Mexico Municipal League also weighed in against the provision, saying that “revenue loss could be especially detrimental to municipalities in fire affected areas, which may need to provide additional services to residents impacted by the fires.”
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is overseeing the compensation fund. As of Feb. 14, it had paid $391 million to individuals, government bodies and nonprofits, or about 10% of the total allocated by Congress. FEMA officials have said they hope to pay out $1 billion by Jan. 1, 2025.
Assistant director says armorer handed gun to Alec Baldwin before fatal shooting of cinematographer — Morgan Lee, Associated Press
Courtroom testimony in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer by Alec Baldwin provided new details Thursday that conflict with other, earlier accounts about a final safety check on a revolver and exactly who handed it to the actor during rehearsal for the Western movie "Rust."
Assistant director David Halls, the safety coordinator on set, told jurors that weapons supervisor Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who is on trial on charges of manslaughter and evidence tampering, twice handed the revolver to Baldwin. It was first emptied of bullets, Halls testified, and then loaded again with several dummy rounds and a live round.
Baldwin was pointing the weapon at Hutchins when it went off on the movie set ranch on the outskirts of Santa Fe on Oct. 20, 2021, killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza. Baldwin, the lead actor and co-producer on "Rust," was separately indicted by a grand jury last month; his trial is scheduled for July.
"I did not see Ms. Gutierrez take the gun from Mr. Baldwin," Halls said during questioning by the prosecution, "but she appeared back on my left-hand side and she said that she had put dummy rounds into the revolver."
The testimony of Halls, who pleaded no contest last year to negligent use of a firearm and completed six months of unsupervised parole, may weigh significantly as prosecutors reconstruct the chain of events and custody of ammunition that led to the shooting.
He described a rudimentary safety check in which Gutierrez-Reed opened a latch on the revolver and he could see three or four dummy rounds inside that he recognized.
"She took a few steps to Mr. Baldwin and gave ... Baldwin the gun," Halls testified.
Gutierrez-Reed hasn't testified but told investigators in the aftermath of the shooting that she left the loaded gun in the hands of Halls and walked out of a makeshift church on the set beforehand. She has pleaded not guilty.
Baldwin, who has pleaded not guilty to a charge of involuntary manslaughter in his case, initially told investigators that Gutierrez-Reed handed him the gun but later said it was Halls. The actor has said he pulled back the hammer but not the trigger.
Halls acknowledged on the witnesses stand that he "was negligent in checking the gun properly" because he didn't examine all the rounds inside.
His testimony included a visceral account of standing just 3 feet (about 1 meter) from Hutchins when the single gunshot rang out. As Hutchins was on the ground, he asked if she was alright.
"She said, 'I can't feel my legs,'" Halls said.
Halls said he left the church to ensure sure someone called 911. He added that he struggled to understand how a live round could been fired, returning to the church to retrieve the gun from a pew before taking it outside to have it unloaded by a crew member and inspect the ammunition.
"The idea that it was a live round of ammunition that went off ... it wasn't computing," he said.
Defense attorneys say problems on the set were beyond Gutierrez-Reed's control and have pointed to shortcomings in the collection of evidence and interviews. They also say the main ammunition supplier wasn't properly investigated.
Prosecutors say Gutierrez-Reed is to blame for bringing live ammunition on set and she treated basic safety protocols for weapons as optional. They say six live rounds bear identical characteristics and don't match ones seized from the movie's supplier in Albuquerque.
In other court testimony Thursday, a movie props supervisor who helped manage weapons on set said she threw away dummy ammunition rounds from two guns in the immediate aftermath of the shooting while in a state of shock and panic.
Sarah Zachry said she emptied the ammunition into a garbage container from guns that were used by actors other than Baldwin. She called it a "reactive decision" and said she eventually told law enforcement.
Videos show Baldwin rushing crew to reload firearms on set of 'Rust' — KUNM News, The Santa Fe New Mexican
Jurors in a trial over the fatal movie-set shooting of a cinematographer by Alec Baldwin were presented a video in court Thursday showing the actor rushing crew members to reload a gun.
The Santa Fe New Mexican reports a firearms expert who watched the video said Baldwin's behavior created an “unsafe, nerve-wracking” situation, and that rushing around firearms is unacceptable.
Baldwin had just finished an intense, energetic scene in which he exited a building firing several blanks toward the camera, and can be heard saying, quote, “Right away! Right away! Just reload it!”
The testimony came just one day after jurors saw a video in which the armorer for the film, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, admitted to detectives that she might have loaded the gun Baldwin fired in the shooting from a box of ammunition she had never seen before.
The video was recorded in Nov of 2021 just three weeks after the initial incident.
Gutierrez-Reed has pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter and evidence tampering.
Baldwin is fighting a separate involuntary manslaughter charge that is set to go to trial in July.
Older New Mexicans are eligible for another COVID booster - By Nash Jones, KUNM News
Following an endorsement by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the New Mexico Department of Health announced Thursday that people 65 and older are now eligible for another dose of the updated 2023/2024 COVID vaccine.
DOH Chief Medical Officer Dr. Miranda Durham says this age group made up the majority of deaths and hospitalizations from the virus last year and a booster shot could help provide additional protection if their immunity has waned.
People who are immunocompromised have been eligible for an additional dose of the vaccine since October.
The vaccines remain free for those with health insurance, including Medicaid and Medicare. Adults without insurance can also access vaccines at no charge through the CDC's Bridge Access Program.
An interactive map to find pharmacies and providers offering the COVID vaccine is available at VaccineNM.org. Residents who need help making an appointment or have questions about getting a booster shot can call the Department of Health’s helpline Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., and on the weekends from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
MADD Officer of the Year resigns amid DWI corruption probe — KUNM News,The Albuquerque Journal
The Mothers Against Drunk Driving 2023 Officer of the Year for New Mexico resigned today amid a vast DWI corruption investigation into the Albuquerque Police Department.
The Albuquerque Journal reports Honorario Alba Jr. submitted his resignation prior to a scheduled interview with APD’s internal affairs department.
APD is conducting an internal probe into several officers including Alba after the FBI alleged a corruption scheme involving a local defense attorney.
In anuary the Bureau searched the law offices of Thomas Clear III, and the homes of Alba, another officer, and a paralegal who worked for the attorney.
Since then, the 2nd judicial district attorney’s office has dismissed almost 200 cases connected to the officers under scrutiny, the vast majority of them being DWIs.
Full-time faculty union presses board for higher wages - Santa Fe New Mexican, KUNM News
Several full-time faculty members from Santa Fe Community College gathered Thursday at a college governing board meeting to demand higher wages.
The Santa Fe New Mexican reports they said their wages are barely enough to cover rent.
Lenny Gannes, President of the full-time faculty union, said their wages don’t match up to the cost of living in Santa Fe, so many professors work multiple jobs to make ends meet.
Gannes said higher wages are necessary to retain quality staff, and they have been splitting the same workload over fewer people.
Becky Rowley, President of the college says she is aware of this issue and is dedicated to finding a way to conduct a “salary study” in hopes of finding an answer.
The Legislature did alot a 3% raise for college faculty statewide, but this was almost 5% less than what they were asking for.
As millions wait on food stamp approvals, feds tell states to speed it up – Stateline
New Mexico is one of 32 states that have fallen behind in processing claims for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP. That’s due to staffing shortages and a shaky return from pandemic-era procedures.
Alex Brown with the Stateline reports the federal government sent a letter to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Feb. 8 about the issue.
USDA guidelines call for 95% of claims to be processed within 30 days. SNAP, commonly known as food stamps, is funded with federal money but administered by state agencies.
The letters were part of a larger SNAP integrity push from USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack. It has called out problems in 44 states, the District of Columbia and two territories that include payment errors and accuracy in case determinations.
Many states have struggled to maintain staffing levels at the social service agencies that handle safety net programs. This comes as their workload has ballooned with the expiration of pandemic-era waivers that streamlined the application process.
Some states are boosting funding to add and retain workers, and others are investing in new computer systems to speed up their work.