This week blogger Heath Haussamen has a poll on his site which asks, “Do you approve or disapprove of the job Mary Herrera is doing as secretary of state?” Now, if you’re thinking of selecting approve, I would imagine you are basing your decision on the fact that, unlike her predecessor, Ms. Herrera is not under investigation for mismanagement of federal funds. But, I’d challenge you to base your evaluation on a slightly higher bar.
Granted, the level of corruption has become so commonplace in New Mexico elected offices that we might be tempted to think that a lack of corruption means someone is doing a good job. But, I’m here to remind you that there are still places in this great country where a lack of corruption is assumed, and job performance is actually based on the ability to manage the office in question.
To this end, let’s take a look at the July 17, 2009 LFC Staff Hearing Brief on the status of information technology (IT) at the Secretary of State (SOS) office which came about in response to the numerous articles regarding the inaccessibility of the SOS website.
Outcome. The evaluation found that SOS
- Does not have the technical capability or capacity to manage IT projects;
- IT staff support infrastructure or legacy applications;
- Has outdated hardware, software and systems; and
- Does not have a disaster recovery plan for all its missioncritical systems.
Mind you this is for a system for which over $7 Million has been spent in the last nine years. Okay, now that you armed with some information, you can go ahead and vote on the job performance of the SOS.