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Regardless of whether taxpayers read, watch or even care about the news, they are paying for it.

Public information officers — the people responsible for connecting the media and citizens at large with information — cost Albuquerque, Bernalillo County and state taxpayers about $4.9 million a year.

More than half of that figure is taken up by squads of officials who speak for state departments and agencies, where the price of "good" media coverage is outweighed only by the cost of big, bad headlines that can put elected officials on the defensive for weeks or months.

From the high and mighty (the Governor's Office) to the contentious (Children Youth and Families Department) to the relatively innocuous (Agriculture Department, anyone?), the state spends at least $3 million for about 51 public information officers, known far and wide as PIOs.

In busy departments, PIOs answer numerous calls from reporters daily, starting before work hours and often ending after hours and on the weekends. Department of Public Safety spokesman Peter Olson said his phone bill from January showed he was on his work phone for 50 hours that month.

Gilbert Gallegos, the spokesman for Gov. Bill Richardson, might be one the busiest information officials in the state. He directs media traffic for the governor, not always an easy job, and also is a key contact on state operations.

There are five PIOs in the Governor's Office, two of whom have duties at other state departments. In all, their salaries cost taxpayers about $404,000 a year.

While the annual millions spent for these communication specialists might seem like a lot of money, even the most stringent advocates for lean government say it is likely money well spent.

"Transparency is extremely important, and $5 million is a drop in the bucket," said Paul Gessing, president of the limited government research group New Mexico Rio Grande Foundation, noting the state's $6 billion budget.

Gessing and other open government advocates, however, caution the money should be spent for quality PIOs, those who hold the tenet of open, honest government close to their hearts.

"From a press gathering or news gathering position, they can be very helpful. They can cut through a lot of red tape, but I've also experienced where they try to be more spin masters than public information officers," said Leonard DeLayo, executive director of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government.

Information officers say their jobs are a difficult balance between keeping the public informed through an often skeptical media while at the same time managing a department's image.

Oddly, just talking about that balance is a touchy subject.

"You have to balance the institution, what institution it is you're working for, with the public's right to know, and that sometimes is difficult, because you'll have people within the institution who don't understand the public's right to know," said Rigo Chavez, spokesman for Albuquerque Public Schools.

Privately, many PIOs interviewed for this story acknowledged that massaging their department's image — and sometimes, a department leader's ego — might as well be written into their job description.

But none would speak on the record about this key aspect of the job, fearing how those observations might reflect on their department or boss.

That leaves media members to tell the story of PIOs.

"A lot of times, we'll be hearing from someone who is actually witnessing something going on somewhere, and you talk to the PIO, and they deny it," said Paul Burt, managing editor for KRQE New 13. "A lot of the agencies we deal with, that's what we feel the PIO is there to do — spin and make their department look better."

But, Burt added, there are more good information officers — pros who return calls promptly and provide information quickly and accurately — than bad.

"They are absolutely invaluable, the ones I have a good relationships with," Burt said. "The ones that get back to me with what I'm looking for, they are vital to what we do."

Department leaders say PIOs are vital to department business, too.

Without PIOs, media calls would still arrive and would land with an employee who might not be so composed with reporters and have other responsibilities, said Bernalillo County Commissioner Alan Armijo.

"They do a lot," Armijo said.

They write press releases, internal newsletters, talking points for their bosses' speeches, and they answer calls from the public.

State Environment Department spokeswoman Marissa Stone remembers a woman who called thinking her hairbrush, made in China, was making her sick.

"I took her seriously and looked into it and got back to her," Stone said.

Many PIOs are former reporters, including Gallegos in the Governor's Office. Other PIOs received college degrees in public relations.

Accessibility, reliability and accuracy are the top qualities taught to the next generation of PIOs, said Dirk Gibson, associate professor for public relations at the University of New Mexico's Communication and Journalism Department.

"If we're all honest and professional, the public is going to have maximum information and our political and commercial systems will work well," Gibson said. "Public interest has to be number one."

But department spokesmen also are responsible for managing their employers' public image, both through media campaigns and when the department surfaces in news stories.

"It's crucial that we have someone to articulate to the public what the department is doing, because state government does a lot of important things," said Jan Goodwin, secretary of the Department of Taxation and Revenue.

More now than in the past, PIOs are mining their departments for positive stories to pitch to reporters in the hope of publicity.

"In the past, they were primarily there really just to provide information, and I think it's becoming more and more of an art to try to actually disseminate information, giving out stories," DeLayo said.

Other times, the image management is about what information isn't given out.

"It's about telling the truth and attempting to focus stories by selection of facts which show your client in the best light," said Judith White, an assistant professor in public relations at the UNM's Journalism and Communication Department.

Information officials say they are often limited in what they can say to reporters or to the public. Particularly sensitive is the subject of private information about individual employees; it's fraught with legal land mines.

Law enforcement PIOs and individual police officers are often touchy about details released during an investigation, fearing that a case could be compromised.

But what's legal and what's right aren't always black-and-white in the often adversarial relationship between reporters and the departments they cover.

And it's common for tension to erupt when information is restricted.

"The question is and the problem is when people don't have legitimate reasons for doing that and they do it, anyway," Gibson said.

In those situations, which are common, "good reporters have good sources" other than PIOs, KRQE's Burt said.

A majority of the state, city and county departments served by PIOs have rules that employees are not allowed to talk to reporters without a spokesman's permission.

The cat-and-mouse game is constant: In 2005, a Tribune reporter uncovered a memo circulated in the Children, Youth and Families Department warning employees about "dirty tricks" reporters might try on staff and reminding employees that department policy says media should be referred to the department PIO.

"It probably has to do with the increasing litigious atmosphere and that's probably not originating with the public relations department but with counsel," White said.

DeLayo, executive director of the state's leading open government resource center and advocacy group, said these rules both irritate him and make sense.

"Philosophically, I don't like it because I think people should be able to talk to the press and provide important information," he said. "But from an institution, an individual might not have all the information so a story could be skewed.

"It's kind of a round-about way of trying to limit information, depending on the person."