No Bid Spending by Lujan Grisham Eclipses Martinez Administration
This is the first in a series regarding state purchasing by agencies of state and local governments in New Mexico, of which The Candle will be reporting over the next few months leading to the 2026 Regular Session of the Legislature.
According to the National Association of State Procurement Officials (NASPO), “Procurement is an essential function within state and local governments to help reduce costs and generate savings, and participants in procurement should follow principles such as impartiality, flexibility, and effective use of public funds to ensure that they are keeping procurement transparent and fair.“
Background – Existing Rules to Protect Against Abuse of Procurement Practices.
The State of New Mexico has a procurement code which is required to be followed by state agencies, public universities, as well as regional and local governments.
The purchase of supplies and services are supposed to be carefully handled through procedures in the code which require competitive bidding to insure fairness and best value for the state.
There are exceptions for “emergency” and “sole source” purchases, by-passing the request for proposal (RFP) or bid process.
“Emergency” purchases are permitted “when there exists a threat to public health, welfare, safety or property requiring procurement under emergency conditions; provided that emergency procurements shall be made with competition as is practicable under the circumstances.“
The use of the Sole Source route is permitted “when the state purchasing agent or a central purchasing office, employing due diligence, determines, in writing, that:
“(1) there is only one source for the required service, construction or item of tangible personal property; (2) the service, construction or item of tangible personal property is unique and this uniqueness is substantially related to the intended purpose of the contract; and (3) other similar services, construction or items of tangible personal property cannot meet the intended purpose of the contract.“
But a close look by the New Mexico Legislative Finance Committee (LFC) at the use of “emergency” and “sole source” provisions of the code reveal “work-arounds” to the accountability envisioned by the state’s procurement laws and regulations.
Not A New Matter of Concern.
In 2016, again in 2019, the Legislative Finance Committee (LFC) staff alerted legislators of the need to reform the purchasing code, and require more accountability and oversight.
The LFC issued warnings in a report it issued on October 27, 2016, entitled, “Obtaining Value in State Procurement and Issues with Non-Competitive Methods,” writing,
“LFC staff found examples of: Improper use of sole source contracting; Improper use of emergency contracting; Cases where contracts were amended for five times value; Billions in spending exempt from the Procurement Code; and Multiple procurement violations exceeding $100 thousand.”
In its October 2019, Program Evaluation Report, entitled “Maximizing Value in State Procurement,” the LFC wrote:
“State agencies are not required to track or justify their use of contracted staff and, as a result, LFC staff found a number of inappropriate services contracts, including: Agencies contracting with former employees and paying them considerably more money to serve a similar role; Frequent use of temporary employment services for years to overcome staffing shortages; Agencies using price agreements in lieu of putting out high-dollar consultancy work out to bid; and Contractors paid excessive hourly rates.”
And again in October 2021, the LFC Program Evaluation Unit warned legislators of purchasing problems in a report entitled, “Obtaining and Maximizing Value in State Procurement,” writing,
“However, as highlighted by LFC over two evaluations in the past five years, state law, management decisions at the State Purchasing Division of the General Services Department, and noncompliance by state agencies have often led to the state overspending for purchases ranging from everyday acquisitions of laptops and cars to noncompetitively sourced contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars.”
In 2023, Senator Bill Tallman, of Albuquerque, filed Senate Bill 76, a bill endorsed by the Legislative Finance Committee, and drafted by the Senator and LFC staff to address problems cited in the LFC reports from 2016 through 2021.
Much to the frustration of Tallman, the bill died in the Senate without even receiving a hearing. (The Candle will be reporting in an upcoming article on SB 76, and what appears to be resistance by Governor Lujan Grisham and her administration to the reforms proposed in the bill.)
No Bid Spending By Lujan Grisham Administration Has Doubled That Of Martinez Administration
The New Mexico Sunshine Portal provides information regarding Sole Source and Emergency purchasing from 2014 to present day.
The Candle reviewed the Sole Source purchasing records of state and local government agencies during former Governor Susana administration from 2014 through 2019, and those of current Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham (2019 through 2025, to date), finding a dramatic doubling of that type of purchase for goods and services
Here is a chart of the Sole Source of state and local agency spending since 2014, that The Candle created from data located on the New Mexico Sunshine Portal (The Candle will provide similar reporting and a chart on Emergency purchasing in an upcoming article):
A Preview of Recent State Purchasing Records
The Candle found that in a little more than a year, New Mexico state and local government agencies have submitted and have approved close to a thousand purchases via the sole source and emergency exceptions in the state’s procurement code.
Some of these purchases range from tens of thousands to as much as tens of millions of dollars worth of services with no competitive process being engaged.
As reported above use of sole source and so-called emergency procurement is not limited to the spending at state agencies – political subdivisions of the state, including municipalities, school districts, regional councils and counties routinely spend millions of public dollars via these no-bid processes.
These governmental organizations are subject to most of the same rules as the state government agencies, and in the last seven years the use of the no-bid exceptions have skyrocketed among the state and local government spending.
For this first article in our series on government spending, The Candle drilled through the public data and reviewed emergency and sole source spending of just State Agencies as published by the New Mexico Sunshine Portal for the current calendar year (January 1st through first week of November 2025).
Below are graphics representing the comparisons of the two no-bid types of contracts ONLY for the State of New Mexico agencies (and several of the Regional Education Cooperatives which have entered into Intergovernmental Agreements with the New Mexico Public Education Department for which the Cooperatives performed no-bid procurements).
Totals of 2025* “No Bid” Contracting – Emergency and Sole Source Procurement
| 2025 Type of Procurement | Number of Contracts/Requests | Amount of Projected Spending |
| Emergency | 19 | $ 337,061,134 |
| Sole Source | 121 | $ 89,782,633 |
| Totals | 140 | $ 426,843,767 |
* The numbers above represent slightly more than ten months of records (January 1st through first week of November 2025) as were published on the New Mexico Sunshine Portal at the time The Candle researched for this article.
Totals of 2025* “No Bid” Contracting – Emergency Summary
| 2025 Out of State -v- In State Emergency Procurement | Number of Contracts/Requests | Amount of Projected Spending |
| Emergency Out of State Procurement | 13 | $ 222,825,509 |
| Emergency In State Procurement | 6 | $ 114,235,625 |
* The numbers above represent slightly more than ten months of records (January 1st through first week of November 2025) as were published on the New Mexico Sunshine Portal at the time The Candle researched for this article.
Totals of 2025* “No Bid” Contracting – Sole Source Procurement Summary
| 2025 Out of State -v- In State Sole Source Procurement | Number of Contracts/Requests | Amount of Projected Spending |
| Sole Source Out of State Procurement | 94 | $ 72,926,289 |
| Sole Source In State Procurement | 27 | $ 16,856,344 |
* The numbers above represent slightly more than ten months of records (January 1st through first week of November 2025) as were published on the New Mexico Sunshine Portal at the time The Candle researched for this article.
Totals of 2025* “No Bid” Contracting – Out of State -vs- In State Procurement Totals
| 2025 Total Out of State -v- In State No Bid Procurement | Number of Contracts/Requests | Amount of Projected Spending |
| Out of State | 107 | $ 295,751,798 |
| In State | 33 | $ 131,091,969 |
* The numbers above represent slightly more than ten months of records (January 1st through first week of November 2025) as were published on the New Mexico Sunshine Portal at the time The Candle researched for this article.