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New Mexico Shuffles Management Of Food Benefits

The director of an office overseeing supplementary food and financial assistance within the New Mexico Human Services Department has been reassigned amid state and federal inquiries into that office's handling of benefit applications.

The secretary of the Human Services Department announced in an email to agency employees that Marilyn Martinez is no longer director of the income support division and will instead oversee the agency's financial services bureau. Martinez could not immediately be reached.

Human Services spokesman Kyler Nerison said Wednesday the management change is unrelated to an ongoing internal investigation of the division's handling of benefits.

Martinez invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when called in May to testify in federal court about allegations that managers changed or pressured workers into changing application information for emergency food benefits.

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