By Daniel J. Chacón, The Santa Fe New Mexican

Outgoing General Services Department Secretary John A. Garcia said Monday he and his boss, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, are both stubborn.

And short.

“We saw eye to eye, but not always on issues,” quipped Garcia, who at 5-foot-3 is just a few inches taller than Lujan Grisham, who calls herself the shortest governor in the country.

Garcia’s attempt at humor aside, these have been hard days for Lujan Grisham, who has lost three high-profile Cabinet secretaries in the past week alone.

After the Governor’s Office announced Garcia’s last day would be Friday, two additional departures followed: Dr. David Scrase as Department of Human Services secretary and Kurt Steinhaus as secretary of the Public Education Department.

News of the departures come less than three months after the governor was reelected to a second term and just two weeks into the 60-day legislative session — raising concerns among lawmakers from both sides of the aisle about the impact they will have on developing the state’s multibillion-dollar budget and major pieces of legislation.

Nora Meyers Sackett, a spokeswoman for the governor, downplayed the departures, writing in an email it is not uncommon for many administrations to experience turnover after a first term, especially given the “extreme demands” placed on Cabinet-level positions.

“For context, five cabinet secretaries left the [administration of former Republican Gov. Susana Martinez] following her reelection in 2014,” she wrote. “These are not your average ‘9 to 5’ jobs — they require a high level of dedication and come with the highest level of responsibility. It’s also important to consider the unique challenges outside of anyone’s control that were faced during the governor’s first term.”

But some legislators recoiled at the timing of the departures, as the legislative session is beginning to move into high gear.

“The concern is that this [legislative session] shapes the next financial year and the priorities they have for that financial year,” said Sen. Pat Woods, R-Broadview, a member of the Senate Finance Committee. “Leadership is so important right now to field questions about exactly those line items that they’re asking for.”

Woods acknowledged turnover is not unusual at the end or start of a term in office.

“But to me,” he said, “it’s a little bit unusual to happen right at this point in time.”

Sen. Joe Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, echoed similar concerns, saying “one of the most important things” legislators do during the session is develop a spending plan for the upcoming fiscal year.

“It’s difficult to evaluate the ability to budget, the ability to spend money, when the people that are in charge of those departments and agencies are unknown to us,” he said. “Normally, we’d want to work with those agency and department heads in crafting their budget and their priorities, and that’s impossible to do when there’s empty chairs.”

Sen. Daniel Ivey-Soto, D-Albuquerque, offered a different perspective, noting the departures at this stage could prove helpful. One of the reasons, he said, is so the state doesn’t “invest” itself in a specific initiative to one particular person.

“The other thing is, until a new appointee is made, most of the deputy cabinet people who are stepping up as the acting have been career people,” he said. “It’s really helpful for us at this moment, if there is going to be transition, for us to get a sense of what really is possible to happen from people who’ve had a long experience in these departments.”

Rep. Derrick Lente, D-Sandia Pueblo, raised concerns about the lack of continuity, particularly as it relates to public education and a 2018 court ruling commonly known as Yazzie/Martinez that found the state wasn’t doing enough to ensure at-risk students were receiving a sufficient education.

“What gets me and my work with Yazzie/Martinez is the work that we continuously have to do in reeducating folks that come new through PED,” he said. “I think that in itself is disruptive to the process given the fact that we’ve started, at this point, the third week of the 60-day session. Now who do we talk to in regards to the things that we had planned? … I think a lot of things now have to go to maybe the wayside. We’ll have to wait and see.”

Sackett wrote state agencies have strong leadership teams and many hardworking employees.

“These essential staff continue the work of the state and the governor’s administration day in and day out,” she wrote, adding the governor is grateful for the service of her Cabinet and recognizes the sacrifices they and their families make to serve in government.

Cervantes said he was optimistic about the governor’s ability to deal with the situation.

“I think it’s going to present some strong challenges to have this coming so soon in a new administration after an election and particularly in the middle of a session,” he said. “I think it’d be very difficult to be trying to attract or recruit new people at the same time you’re trying to deal with everything down here. But I’m sure the governor will rise to the challenge.”

Sen. Cliff Pirtle, R-Roswell, said the series of departures are concerning to the public from a good government perspective.

“How can you have good government if we have inconsistency in leadership?” he asked. “I really would like to know — I doubt we will ever really know —why the majority of these secretaries are leaving. We know what they tell the reporters.”

Pirtle noted two of the secretaries who recently announced their departures, Scrase and Steinhaus, oversaw two of the largest and most critical departments of state government.

“I think that’s what’s bringing this pattern of instability within the Cabinet to the front,” he said. “It is two of the larger in budget, scope and practice department heads that we’ve seen go.”

Senate Minority Leader Greg Baca, R-Belen, said he’s lost count of how many Cabinet secretaries have left the Lujan Grisham administration.

“I think we’ve all had a job and been new to a job, and there takes a certain amount of time to become acclimated to your duties, and it takes even a longer period of time to become proficient at your duties,” he said. “It’s really a revolving door and … I think that the state suffers for it by not having somebody in there in a sustained position for a long period of time, exercising their duties at a proficient level.”

Baca said the departures reflect negatively on the governor. He noted the Public Education Department, which accounts for about 45 percent of the state’s budget, has had four different Cabinet secretaries under Lujan Grisham.

“She’s hired people that have have had a high level of success in the past,” he said. “Yet for some reason, they come to work here, and it just doesn’t work out for them. And there’s only one common denominator in that, and that’s the chief executive.”

Rep. Joy Garratt, D-Albuquerque, said it’s “normal” for people to pursue other opportunities after a four-year term.

“Also, frankly, the salaries that you get working for New Mexico state government versus in the [public sector] where it’s two and three times higher, if you have a family to support, pensions to plan, it’s understandable,” she said. “I’m amazed that we can hold these incredibly gifted, talented people as long as we can.”

Ivey-Soto agreed, and said the recent departures exemplify the demands of the jobs and the need to “appropriately compensate” executive-level positions.

“My takeaway is that trying to govern and run agencies during the COVID was so challenging that I think a lot of these people are just really exhausted,” he said. “They are not paid anything close to market rate for what they do, and I appreciate that they hung around as long as they did, quite candidly.”

In his resignation letter, Steinhaus wrote he stepped down because of the “critical need” to focus on his family and health. Scrase, who is on personal leave, has not yet submitted an official resignation letter.

Garcia, the outgoing general services secretary, said a combination of factors, including personal reasons he declined to disclose, played into his decision to leave after about a year and three months on the job.

“Were there disagreements [with the governor]? Yeah,” he said. “But is that why I’m leaving, No. 1 reason? No.”

Asked whether Lujan Grisham is a tough boss, Garcia said she isn’t.

“She’s got her way of doing things, but everybody does,” he said. “She has certain expectations of what she wants done. Every governor does.”

While he had policy disagreements with Lujan Grisham, Garcia said that’s just part of the job.

“In the end, she’s the governor, and it’s her call on things and our job is to give her the best information to make a good decision,” he said. “We haven’t agreed on a lot. I mean, that’s just how it is. … She hired me because I had some background and some expertise, and I offered my advice as best as I could and as genuinely and as firmly as I could. I feel good about that. I feel good about the decisions I made and the positions I had with her. We didn’t agree on everything, and I don’t think anybody does.” 

Garcia called it an honor and privilege to serve as a Cabinet secretary under Lujan Grisham. He previously served as a Cabinet secretary of two different departments — Tourism and Economic Development — under former Gov. Gary Johnson, a Republican turned Libertarian.

“I thought I did a good job with it,” he said, referring to his most recent stint. “No scandals. No indictments. No convictions. Always a good thing.”

Follow Daniel J. Chacón on Twitter @danieljchacon.