Former co-op GM has more problems

Integrated Technologies Group LLC, of Socorro filed a complaint in district court on Wednesday against Polo Pineda Jr., charging that the former Socorro Electric Cooperative general manager owes the firm more than $30,000.

According to the complaint, Integrated Technologies loaned Pineda $30,000 on June 1, 2010. The loan was to be paid back within two months without interest. But if Pineda defaulted on the loan, the amount was subject to 12 percent interest per annum until the debt was paid off. The complaint requests that Pineda pay back the money with interest and cover the cost of attorney fees.
On Thursday, Joe Franklin, owner of Integrated Technologies, said the money given to Pineda was a personal loan.
“Basically, we loaned the money a while back hoping that he’d find his way clear to pay it back at some point, and hopefully he will,” Franklin said.
The June 1 date of the loan was about two weeks after an audit report of co-op books revealed numerous material weaknesses. An internal investigation later in the summer turned up financial irregularities that led to the firing of Pineda and the co-op’s accountant-office manager, Kathy Torres, in August.
At that time, co-op President Paul Bustamante said that Pineda and Torres had borrowed a total of about $35,000 from their pension plans and did not pay the money back in a timely manner.
Bustamante said on Thursday that the money has since been paid back.
The policy to allow employees to borrow money has since been discontinued through action taken by Socorro Electric’s Board of Trustees last month.
Pineda did not return phone calls from El Defensor Chieftain on Thursday or Friday.
In another matter, Integrated Technologies was awarded a $117,000 bid to upgrade the co-op’s computer server at the board’s regular meeting on Sept. 22.
During that meeting, Richard Lopez, who replaced Pineda as general manager on an interim basis, said the co-op’s server was already at or near its capacity and that it was vital that something be done about the situation soon.
Franklin said there are several servers that run the software used by the co-op to produce payroll checks and billing statements. He said through a process called “virtualization” the servers could be combined and would save the co-op money in the long run. If the virtualization worked, Franklin said the co-op wouldn’t have to pay for extra equipment he estimated would cost about $40,000.
The proposal accepted by the board was for a virtual server with mirroring that would provide the system with data backup.