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The election is over, but the bills are still coming due at the Secretary of State's Office.

And like credit card statements arriving at an unhappy household a month after the Christmas tree turned brown, the bills are proving more than a little bit contentious.

Newly elected Secretary of State Mary Herrera, who takes office Jan. 1, says her predecessor is leaving her with a $225,000 operating deficit.

Outgoing Secretary of State Rebecca Vigil-Giron says that's nonsense. She's leaving a surplus, she says, and if Herrera "had any brains in her head," she'd know that.

The state Department of Finance and Administration, charged with overseeing the budgets of state agencies, is doing its own analysis of the secretary of state's budget.

That analysis, DFA Deputy Secretary Dannette Burch said, goes beyond the budget checks DFA routinely performs on state agencies, but she said it's too early to tell whether the Secretary of State's Office is in the black or in the red.

"It was just a feeling that we had," Burch said Tuesday, asked what prompted the inquiry. "Sometimes in this business, you just get an instinct."

Burch said DFA was also working with the Secretary of State's Office "for them to do better budget projections than what they've given us in the past."

While Burch, working this week on the governor's budget, said it will likely be next week before she delves in to the secretary of state's figures, that office also has another budget issue: about $2.2 million in unpaid bills from this year's election.

Vigil-Giron said the Legislature did not appropriate money last year for the election, preferring that the Secretary of State's Office submit a supplemental appropriation request once the cost of the election was known.

Vigil-Giron said she had already submitted a $2.2 million emergency request on behalf of Herrera. It will go before the Legislature in January.

The request includes $1.04 million for paper ballots, $559,363 for newspaper ads, and $558,773 for more ballots, supplies and support, according to budget documents.

"That's the only deficiency I have, and it's because the Legislature didn't fully fund the election," Vigil-Giron said. "The next time the Legislature wants the secretary of state to do something, they should give us the money to do it. But they prefer to make us go back and beg. It's really pretty ridiculous."

The matter of contention between Vigil-Giron and Herrera, however, revolves around the secretary of state's nearly $4.5 million operating budget, which funds salaries, contractual services and other costs.

Herrera referred to a budget worksheet, dated Dec. 12, that shows the office ending the year with a projected $223,125 operating shortfall.

"I'm not making this up," Herrera said. "I'm going off the documents I was given by DFA."

But Vigil-Giron said those projections were outdated and provided a new budget worksheet that shows the office with about a $200,000 surplus, assuming the Legislature approves the $2.2 million emergency appropriation.

Vigil-Giron said a 7 percent raise for her employees, approved by the Legislature, was never implemented and accounts for part of the savings.

"I was able to lobby for that raise, but DFA didn't feel it was fair to the other agencies," she said.

This is not the first time New Mexico's current and future secretaries of state, both Democrats, have clashed.

Herrera criticized Vigil-Giron's handling of elections throughout this year's campaign and said Vigil-Giron had not reacted well to the criticism.

"I supported her in the past, but I had a lot of questions about the way elections were being run," Herrera said last week. "I guess she doesn't like being questioned."

Vigil-Giron, who was barred by term limits from seeking re-election, said Herrera is trying to destroy her reputation.

"Because she has no reputation, she's trying to destroy mine. That's her persona," Vigil-Giron said. "I think the party needs to take an issue with the way she's attacking a fellow Democrat."