More than two weeks past what he calls the legal deadline, Albuquerque District 5 City Councilor Dan Lewis is demanding the release of Inspector General reports on fraud, waste and abuse, accusing the city’s oversight committee of “hiding” public documents.
Lewis sent a Sept. 3 letter demanding the Accountability and Government Oversight Committee convene by Oct. 1 to act after it missed an August deadline under city rules. Former Inspector General Melissa Santistevan said in March that the delayed reports “deal with fraud, waste, or abuse that impact our City.” Other reports released in 2025 documented $374,299 in alleged fraud and questionable expenses. Santistevan’s office previously investigated issues, including special leave payouts to departing city officials and misuse of federal COVID funds.
“The Accountability in Government Oversight Ordinance allows the Committee to defer the release of a report for up to one meeting, but does not allow it to continue to hide these reports,” Lewis wrote in the letter.
The committee last met July 30, setting an Aug. 20 deadline under the city’s 15-day rule. Lewis said the delays violate the city ordinance.
Two days after his letter, City Council President Brook Bassan issued a statement defending the delays.
“The people of Albuquerque deserve accountability, but they also deserve accuracy,” said Bassan, who serves as a non-voting committee member. “Rushing reports to publication without proper review would undermine public trust.”
In April, the city’s Office of Internal Audit hired Albuquerque accounting and financial advisory firm REDW to conduct an external quality assurance review, which was completed Aug. 15.
Despite finishing more than a month ago, the reports remain unreleased.
Lewis questioned whether the costly review was necessary. “The public needs to decide whether that review and what’s in that review really was important or not,” he said. “But the point is, we won’t know that until they release all the investigations.”
He said the main issue is transparency.
“This Inspector General, whether that committee agrees with her or not, or agrees with how she went about the investigation,” Lewis said. “Well, that’s not their ultimate decision on whether to release those investigations or not; they can make comments on it, they can make recommendations, they can even draw their own conclusions and they could release all that. But that doesn’t mean that they have a right to not release the people’s documents.”
Lewis referred the COVID funds case to United States Attorney for the District of New Mexico Alex Uballez in January, citing “allegations of federal crimes involving the abuse, misuse and theft of federal funds allocated to high-ranking members of the Keller administration.”
Uballez announced his resignation in February at the request of President Donald Trump, becoming one of over 20 U.S. Attorneys asked to step down amid the transition of presidential administrations.
Uballez, who is now running for mayor of Albuquerque, said at an Aug. 21 press conference announcing his Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA) requests that the case involved “federal funds that are supposed to go to child care workers during COVID instead of going in 1,000s of dollars of bonuses to high-level bureaucrats in this administration.”
The Association of Inspectors General intervened in April, saying the Accountability and Government Oversight Committee’s five-month delay in meeting and leaving nine reports on fraud, waste, and abuse unpublished is a “clear breach of the City of Albuquerque’s promise to its residents for transparency.”
The organization said that while no government can be perfectly run, transparency in a democracy requires the committee to hold regular meetings so the Office of Inspector General can present findings and recommendations. Failing to meet, it said, sends “a clear but unfortunate signal that it’s not interested in learning of misconduct within the City of Albuquerque or in formulating solutions to make its government operate more efficiently.”
The AIG added that “an OIG’s ability to present the results of its work to government stakeholders and the public is a cornerstone of effective oversight. When an oversight committee can block the publication of OIG reports by failing to meet, it fundamentally undermines the very principles that Offices of Inspectors General are designed to uphold and the public ultimately suffers as a result.”
The organization urged the committee to hold regular meetings, remove barriers to timely publication, and offered guidance to align Albuquerque’s OIG practices with national standards for integrity, transparency and accountability.
Lewis has not received a response to his letter demanding an Oct. 1 deadline and committee Chair Victor Griego did not respond to requests for comment.
The Stakes
The committee’s projected timeline puts some reports out in “late September,” but others not until Oct. 29, nearly a month past Lewis’ demand.
The delays occur during a heated mayoral race where accountability has become a central issue. Uballez has built his campaign around transparency concerns, filing nine separate IPRA requests targeting the Keller administration. Lewis’s January referral of the COVID funds case to federal prosecutors adds another layer of scrutiny to the delayed reports.
Uballez said the mayor’s office refused to release information from his IPRA requests, adding, “The Mayor had a chance to restore voters’ confidence, instead he’s refusing to provide answers.”
The political stakes are high.
If the reports are released before the Nov. 4 election, voters could see detailed Inspector General findings on alleged misconduct in the Keller administration. If delayed until afterward, the impact on voter decisions could be minimal.
Uballez had plenty of time while in office to do something but didn’t. Suddenly it’s an issue. Melissa Santistevan, CPA is weaponizing an audit with questionable results.
Uballez received the request to investigate from Lewis in January. Uballez was forced to resign byTrump less than 3 weeks later, in February. So no, Uballez did not “have plenty of time.” His office does a lot more than just work on 1 issue. If you would like to ask them, contact his successor appointed by Trump.
(505)346-7274
If the voters of Albuquerque can’t see this is a cover up and Keller’s intentional decision to protect individuals who received the bonus, I don’t know what to say. I will say, the City can’t do another four years with Keller and Medina. Medina hired all his bros at APD, I should say, re-hired, his bros and they are making six digits. I believe the do carry a gun and badge and SHOULD be capable of working the streets. No, my mistake, they aren’t, but they are there on payday Friday.
I’m sick of coverups, both in DC & in Albuquerque. Enough is enough. Voters want Keller out. He’s ordering the committee to stall. We don’t need 4 more abysmal years of this.
I personally want to see Uballez elected. He’s the only candidate who’s a lawyer, investigator & has been chief federal prosecutor for our state. And he’s who began these demands for transparency. And he demands accountability & of course, answers.