It is going to be a contented new yr for Joseph Shepard, the outgoing president of Western New Mexico College (WNMU), who’s scheduled to obtain a $1.9 million lump-sum fee on January 15 as a part of a severance package deal after resigning amid allegations of “wasteful” and “improper” spending. Below the settlement, which the general public college’s five-member Board of Regents unanimously authorized on December 20, Shepard, who had been receiving about $415,000 yearly in wage and bonuses as WNMU’s president, will step down right into a tenured place paying him $200,000 a yr to show a few enterprise courses every semester. The wage is assured for not less than 5 years, including one other $1 million to the fee for taxpayers.
That sweetheart deal for Shepard got here a month after a scathing report from New Mexico State Auditor Joseph M. Maestas highlighted $214,000 in journey spending that violated WNMU’s personal insurance policies, together with one other $150,000 or so in improper prices on college bank cards. One instance of the previous: The college spent $25,500 in taxpayer cash for six workers members to bear coaching at a Ritz-Carlton resort in Palm Springs, California. Searchlight New Mexico, which has been digging into WNMU’s spending practices for greater than a yr, notes that the identical course was out there on-line.
The state auditor’s report, which covers July 1, 2018, by means of June 30, 2023, describes “$214,261.91 value of spending overlaying 402 situations of home and worldwide journey and lodging for college workers and management” that had been “discovered to be noncompliant with college insurance policies and guidelines.” It additionally cites “$149,264.08 value of spending” on college bank cards by Shepard “overlaying 91 situations of procurement,” together with noncompliant purchases of “high-end customized furnishings” for Shepard’s home on the WNMU campus in Silver Metropolis.
Maestas notes journeys by Shepard that had been coated by the college though they “seem[ed] to be unrelated to official college enterprise.” They included “journeys associated to different noneducational organizations [with] which the President is affiliated, such because the Finca Vigia Basis, devoted to saving writer Ernest Hemingway’s Cuban legacy, and for conferences and occasions the place his partner [former CIA officer Valerie Plame] was a visitor speaker.”
The investigation “discovered that the journey requests and journey reimbursements supplied by WNMU for the College President and members of the Board of Regents throughout the interval” had been “constantly noncompliant with college insurance policies.” The report cites many cost-control deficiencies, together with worldwide journey “missing any documentation articulating the enterprise want, objective, justification, or authority for the journey.” The audit additionally discovered meal expenditures and upgrades in seating, facilities, and lodging that likewise had been “missing any documentation articulating the enterprise want or objective.”
Whereas touring, Maestas notes, Shepard improperly used his college bank card to purchase “alcohol, meals or room service.” Though the college “was subsequently reimbursed for the disallowed purchases with personal funds by the college’s Basis,” the report says, WNMU “seems to have affirmatively disregarded its coverage and allowed the preliminary use of public college funds quite than personal basis funds” for these purchases.
The report notes Shepard’s “use of a college bank card to buy high-end customized furnishings” at a complete value of about $25,000. Though Plame was not a WNMU worker, she was issued a college bank card, which she used to purchase an “oriental couch” from Etsy for $1,488.27 and to pay $4,073 for a purchase order from the hearth firm Woodland Direct. Maestas notes that “the College’s buying card holder settlement applies to college staff” and “requires approval of their supervisor,” whereas “any violation of the settlement references sanctions which may solely be enforced on college staff.”
In a November 18 letter to Board of Regents President Mary E. Hotvedt, Maestas stated WNMU had “engaged within the waste of public funds” by means of “extreme or extravagant home and worldwide journey,” “improper use of procurement and college bank cards,” and “expense accounts and buying playing cards” for “a non-College worker.” He described “an look of administration overreach and an absence of a robust ‘tone on the high'” at WNMU.
“With out the right instance being set by the College’s administration and Board, which is key to an efficient inner management system, any disincentives for college staff to interact in inappropriate or extravagant journey spending are restricted or eliminated,” Maestas wrote. “Additional, College administration and Board did not uphold their fiduciary duties by neglecting to stick to the corresponding parts as established within the College’s insurance policies, procedures, and guidelines concerning journey, per diem, and procurement.”
Maestas famous that WNMU, in response to reviews of improper spending, had “taken proactive steps to strengthen the College’s inner management construction” and “have interaction in an exterior forensic particular audit to additional overview these and associated points.” However he warned that “complacency or indifference to oversight…exposes the College’s governing physique and management to the specter of additional waste” and “opens the door for potential fraudulent acts to happen, every of which negatively impacts the college and its funds.”
Responding to the report, Hotvedt thanked Maestas for his “time and insights,” which she conceded raised “critical issues.” However she stated these issues “have been addressed” by a “complete overview of value disparities,” coverage updates that “align with relevant state tips and laws,” “revised journey and procurement procedures,” “workers coaching to make sure compliance,” and “an impartial cost-benefit evaluation of worldwide initiatives.”
Shepard, for his half, has defended his lavish spending as essential to assist fundraising and recruitment of overseas college students. Through the interval coated by the state audit, Searchlight New Mexico notes, “worldwide college students made up lower than 2 % of the college’s complete scholar physique,” though that share “has grown by a small quantity” since then.
On the day that the Board of Regents authorized his severance package deal, Shepard complained that he had not obtained “due course of” from the state auditor’s workplace. “I go away my submit not in defeat, however with a deep understanding that it’s the proper factor to do, to advance that which I dearly love,” he stated.
Stephanie Rodriguez, New Mexico’s secretary of upper training, known as Shepard’s resignation “lengthy overdue,” including: “I’ve been and stay deeply troubled concerning the reviews of gross negligence and mismanagement of taxpayer funds at Western New Mexico College. The well being and stability of WNMU shifting ahead would require additional examination and accountability.”
Provided that the regents had been implicated in wasteful spending together with Shepard, it isn’t shocking that they had been eager to quash the scandal, even at the price of one other $3 million in squandered taxpayer cash. The Santa Fe New Mexican notes that the regents sealed the deal “with out ever mentioning the quantity of public cash Shepard will obtain.” However information of the severance package deal provoked outrage amongst members of WNMU’s school.
Eager to behave earlier than Shepard will get his payout, the WNMU School Senate scheduled a gathering for this Thursday to think about a vote of no confidence within the Board of Regents and a requirement for the resignation of all its members. “We name upon our state elected officers to work to take away any who is not going to resign, in accordance with the Structure of the State of New Mexico,” a draft of the assertion says, “and to make use of any authorized authority at their disposal to halt the latest severance settlement” with Shepard.
Phillip W. Schoenberg, president of the School Senate, famous a “unanimous request” for the assembly from “the voting school [at] the College of Enterprise,” who “really feel significantly outraged by the severance settlement.” They complained that the regents had provided Shepard the comfort place of their faculty with out consulting anybody there.
“The choice to approve such a considerable payout to a president who has been the topic of previous accusations of economic misconduct” is “troubling,” stated Jorge Romero-Habeych, an assistant professor on the enterprise faculty. “Moreover, the package deal seems to be a transparent battle with the on a regular basis struggles confronted by common New Mexicans, a lot of whom reside paycheck to paycheck and depend on the establishment to serve the general public good. The optics alone are damaging, and the moral implications can’t be ignored.”
